You received your graded paper, the paper that you worked all summer, only to get a D. You worked hard and overnight to rush through a project for a customer, only to have it rejected outright within minutes of submission. You walked into the office on Monday morning to be called into your boss’ office to get scream at for a project that you weren’t even in charge of.
What happens when your good is not good enough for others? Do you vent frustrations on yourself, on others? Do you push responsibility to others and not yourself? Do you blame yourself and wish you can die on the spot?
It happened to me too!
In fact, it can happen to anyone and everyone. Nobody is perfect to begin with and sometimes expectations are not align or there is misunderstanding in the communication or maybe you are just having a bad day. We’ve all been there. You are not alone.
While you may feel angry and disappointed, don’t feel helpless because there are plenty you can do to move forward.
Don’t Blame Yourself (Too Much!)
First of all, you can take the blame if it is truly your fault. But don’t let the blame and all the negative thinking that follows dwell too long.
We love to store bad feelings in our minds and start to relive those moments where we can do it again or walk through the scene again but this time do things or act differently.
By blaming yourself but not taking useful preventive measures isn’t taking responsibility for your shoddy work. We all have someone in our life that only keep whining about the bad stuff happening in their lives but not taking any action to remedy against it.
Lesson Learnt
Mistakes are where we learn to be better. Go through your work and find out where the mistakes are.
Are they there because you are careless or because you lack of knowledge?
Take this time to reflect on how you can avoid making those mistakes again (especially if it due to carelessness). Write down an action plan on how you can prevent yourself from going down the same road.
If you are careless, stick a post-it at your desk to remind yourself to check thrice before any submission.
Get It Off Your Chest
Ask for help.
Talk through it with your coworkers or fellow students. Show your work to a subject matter expert.
Most importantly, talk through your emotions with someone close. It is bad to harbour I’ll feelings about yourself or the person who puts you down. What has been done is done.
Having negative feelings means you are carrying the burden of anger, disappointment and blame. The quicker you relinquish those bad feelings, the quicker you’ll recover from the battlefield and live to fight another day.
Improve Yourself
Lack of skills that hamper you from doing your best?
Then you need to upgrade yourself. Don’t wait for the company to send you for courses when there are plenty of online courses available and many of them are free like on Coursera.org and edX.org.
It is always good to load up on relevant skills to help you in your work scope. It looks good on resumes and it may come handy one day when you need to hunt for a new job or change into a new industry.
It also shows that you are proactive (rather than reactive) towards improving yourself.
Make Sure You Do Better
The one thing that will instantly make you feel better is that you have proven yourself to be able to move forward and do better than the last time. So if you follow all the tips suggested in this article, you’ll be able to succeed in your next project!
Do you have better tips to guard against failures? Share with us on your experiences in the comments below.
For my special tricks to increase your productivity at work so you don’t have to slog over your desk overtime: 6 Apps that increase Your Productivity Being Productive @ Work: What Are The 5 Time Wasting Things You Do At Your Desk Work Hacks that will Save You Time
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