Half
full or half empty? It's up to you!
By Walter
Hanig, President
I'm writing this fewer than 24 hours after returning from a nine-day vacation in Costa Rica. As with most vacations (and any outing involving children), stuff happens. Unexpected stuff. I was reminded by my wife that we can choose to dwell on the bad stuff or enjoy the good. So, we enjoyed the good and had a great time despite high winds, a missing hotel room, rain, and roads that shouldn't be dignified by the word "road."
And so it is in our professional lives. I don't think I'm the only one to have interviewed for the perfect job and not been offered it. In those situations, we can feel sorry about the outcome, or we can realize that we were asked questions we'd never been asked before, and now we're prepared for them when they're asked in another interview. We can recognize that there are now more interviewers who know a little about us and will remember us for the next opening.
When you are reassigned from a book or help system that you were almost satisfied with to a "fixer-upper," you get to choose how to react. If you're lucky, your manager will point out that the new assignment is a reflection of her conviction that you have the skills necessary to take on the ugly duckling project. Use this situation as an opportunity to capture the "before" so you can use it and the "after" in your portfolio. Moreover, you can use the before and after to justify your value to the firm.
We don't always get to work with the colleagues of our choice. It's easy to complain about having to work with someone we don't get along with. It's also an absolute waste of time. Instead, use the situation to learn about different ways of interacting, to try new approaches. When you're successful, you have a great story for a job interview. (We managers always ask about challenges and how you overcame them.)
Remember, you cannot always control what happens in your personal and professional life. You can, however, control your reaction. Negative reactions yield only frustration and alienation. Positive reactions yield positive results in your outlook and your career.
