As my son’s soccer team finished out what was an extremely tough season with many losses and few wins, I had to do a little reflecting on how I was feeling and where I had felt this before. Every time they stepped on the field with fresh energy and fire, only to watch it slip ten minutes into the game, I left the game with a sense of frustration, disappointment and a constant hum in my head of “they shouldn’t have lost that game” or “this shouldn’t be happening”. The feeling was not so different from my corporate days where I would wake up refreshed, telling myself it was a new day and bound to be different, only to be pulling my hair out by noon.
It’s so easy to get caught in the drama and want to solve the problem by changing jobs, companies and careers. But just like every team has to face losses in sports, every business has its share of negatives:
- Layoffs
- Bad news
- Acquisition or divestitures
- Budget cuts
- IT implementations
All of these items are simply part of the journey of doing business and better yet, the journey of life. I have worked with people who thought they could bounce around and somehow avoid the unpleasantness of these events, only to find that no company is completely free of a little bit of suckiness. The less you are willing to embrace the things that suck by resisting reality, the larger your discontent will grow.
So how can you embrace the things that suck instead?
- Keep a sense of perspective. Your brain has been wired for fight or flight, but that doesn’t mean you have to give it the keys to the bus and high tail it out of town. Instead, step back and ask yourself how will this particular moment define your life as a whole? Chances are, it will have little impact in the big scheme of things. Don’t allow your brain to automatically cause you to think it’s a career ending moment when it really isn’t.
- Build your perseverance muscle. Instead of constantly beating yourself with negative thoughts that only cause more negative thoughts, give your brain the job of solving problems instead. How can you grow through the situation?
- Be fully present in the struggle. Sometimes the struggle comes and goes. It’s a journey, not a destination. Learn to identify how you feel, where you resist, and what you naturally do to avoid it. I tend to think thoughts that increase my frustration and deny reality, I get physically restless and agitated, my mind starts to deny every idea that is put in front of me and I mentally disengage completely. The more I understand how it shows up, the sooner I can identify these signs and choose an intentional response. What do you think and feel when struggling? How do you act? What do you want to create instead?
Mental toughness is a muscle we all have to build. Just like we can’t show up to the gym and walk away with Michelle Obama’s arms on the first day, it takes time to build mental toughness. We have to learn how to consciously accept the unavoidable suckiness of life, in order to also enjoy what we love!