It’s really interesting to notice that when people have problems they can very easily get carried away with those problems. Worrying about them, obsessing about them, and getting very emotionally engaged with the feature of their current life or work that they don’t actually want, that they don’t like, that they would soon it wasn’t there.
What I notice happening is that those obsessive thoughts feed on themselves and they get bigger and worse, and that starts to dig people into not only a negative feeling, but the perpetuation of that phenomena, that event, that situation, in their working lives.
So, what I’d encourage you to do if you’re finding this is that instead of focusing on what you don’t want, try to shift the focus to what you do want.
Imagine somebody has played a dirty trick on you. They’ve manipulated the politics to take advantage of your good nature or your openness and honesty. You feel very bad about that and very bad about that person because of what they’ve done, how they’ve let you down.
Instead of obsessing about how bad they are, try to think instead of what good things you could be doing. Try to draw a line under that. That situation happened, okay? Let it go. Start to move to the positive territory of how you do want to collaborate with people, how you prefer to work with people. Try to work on ways and ideas of actions that you can take to promote good, authentic working relationships around you. And focus on where those are strong at the moment, focus on spending time with those people rather than obsessing about that idiot who caused you the problem.
If you’ve made a mistake, you might be feeling bad about it. You might want the ground to open up and swallow you because you’re embarrassed about it, and that’s a natural emotional reaction to when you have done something wrong.
And we all do things wrong from time to time, of course, and we’ve got to accept that. But don’t get emotionally caught by it, obsessing by what all these people must be thinking of me, “I’ve made a big mistake here, how is this going to affect my career?” It’s natural to think those thoughts, but try to cap it, try to draw a line under that one too and say, okay, you made a mistake. People make mistakes, that’s human, now move on.
You may have to go and say sorry, apologise, maybe plan some steps with the person that you’ve made that mistake with as to how to resolve it, how to learn from it and how to move on.
Then start to shift your focus and your attention to what you do want to be doing, what could be good, what positive, constructive things you could be doing. How you could be implementing that learning to a factor of 10, so how you can really step forward and put your emotional effort, your emotional energy and your time into the positive constructive things that you’re now going to do.
Yes, you’ve learnt from the past, all right, but don’t be held by the past. Don’t hold onto that, don’t stay stuck in the past.
What I really encourage you to do is be very careful where you are spending your time, where you are focusing your attention, and try to shift that focus as quickly as possible. After dealing with the negative situation, shift it as quickly as possible to the positive things that you do want in your working life.
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