Welcome to the July edition of The Inbox Coach. I wish I could tell you that Career Fulfilment feels good all the time, but there is no getting away from the fact that sometimes we have bad days.
I describe myself as a career fulfilment coach. I believe that everyone has the right to feel good at work and my hope for the people who come to me is that I can help them to make their career something that brings them joy and satisfaction. Whilst I believe that a fulfilling career is possible, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be any bad days.
When you are having a bad day
One of the hardest things about being a career coach is thinking that I have to have a perfect career in order to be seen as an expert. I love the career I have created for myself; these last few weeks have really given me so much joy and appreciation for what I have built. But I still have bad days. What I’ve come to learn is that bad days aren’t a sign that you don’t have a fulfilling career but rather situations that you have to learn to deal with.
I like to be in control but the hard truth I’ve had to learn is that you can’t control everything. Things will go wrong; you will clash with other people and your life outside of work will impact how well you show up in your job. Bad days happen when things don’t go the way we want or need them to, and it can be so frustrating.
From bad to worse
The hardest thing is working out when a bad day isn’t a one off but rather a pattern that we need to pay attention to. If you are going through a rough patch at work, it might last for a few days or weeks. You might just need to weather the storm until things get better and other times you may need to make a change.
Bad days can be overwhelming, but I like to think of them as information that something is off, and I can do something about. If I’ve had a day when everything seems to go wrong, I like to take a shower and try to wash the day away, believing that tomorrow things will be better. If my bad day is more complicated than that, I try to work out what I need to change. I’m not saying that it’s easy, my nearest and dearest will be able to vouch for the fact that my bad days can lead to long rants as I try to process what has gone wrong, but I hope my venting is productive as it leaves me with an understanding of how I’m going to deal with it.
Reflection
*If you can’t do the exercises from this email now, then don’t forget to pick a time when you are going to do them and add this email to your calendar
Bad days are going to happen, we can’t change that, but we can work out how we can deal with a bad day in a more productive day. A bad experience at work doesn’t need to dominate our whole day, and when things are bad all the time it’s important to believe that we can make a change. I also think it is important to recognise that we aren’t to blame for bad days happening, especially when they are caused by other people. We can control how we respond to a situation, but we can’t always stop it happening in the first place.
If you have been having a bad day, consider these questions…
What is making me feel this way today?
How long have I been feeling like this?
What do I need to change to feel better?
How do I want to respond when things don’t go my way?
Action
It can be easy to wallow in a bad day. Sometimes a rant can feel good, but it can be draining for other people to listen to and if you don’t take an action, you are just perpetuating the bad feeling. Talking about your bad day can help you to process what has gone on, to get clarity on the situation and help you to decide what to do next, just make sure you do take those actions.
Task
The next time you are having a bad day, think about how it is making you feel and try to identify one or two things you can do to lessen the feelings you have to minimise the impact your bad day has on the rest of your life.
Inspiration
“Contrary to what some may think, thick skin isn’t a characteristic of being a great scientist, nor should it be a pre-requisite. Doing great science and writing successful proposals and articles; that is how you become a great scientist. While rejection is part of our jobs, it’s no one’s job to make someone feel miserable or to tell them they are a failure in their field.” - Dr Christina Richey
Dr Christina Richey is a brilliant astrophysicist, who currently works for NASA on a project that is doing a reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa. When I was looking into Christina's work, I very quickly came across articles they had written about harassment in the workplace and several conferences where they have spoken out about this. This is where the quote I have featured today comes from. In enrages me that a brilliant scientist is not able to just do their job, without the threat of sexual harassment from colleagues and the problem is so bad that there is an audience for them to talk to others about it.
Having a bad day at work can so often be the result of other people’s poor behaviour. It is important to me that I show up as the best version of myself at work, and that means supporting and encouraging those I work with, and I hope for the same in return. Some of my worst days at work have been when someone I work with behaved badly towards me. It knocked my confidence and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. You can control how you respond to a situation, but you can’t control other people, and when someone chooses to behaviour in a way that impacts me negatively, I find it the hardest of bad days to shake off.
What I know is that it’s not for me to worry about how others choose to conduct themselves and I need to continue to focus on building good days for my career.
I really hope that you are having a good Monday. If you are finding yourself having a bad day, know that you are not alone, and it will pass. If your bad day is more like a bad week or month and you want to make some changes to your career, get in touch with me to see how I can help you.
I’ll be back next week with more thoughts on dealing with bad days
See you then
Laura
P.S. I’ve listed all the previous editions of The Inbox Coach emails on my website which you can find here. Each email has reflection questions and action tasks, so if you need to revisit a topic you can now browse them all in one place
