Resilience
So much of what I have written about has been about my personal life and relationships. Recently I'm finding my experiences in my career to be resonating with me and opportunities to share experiences that may help others or at a minimum remind folks they aren't alone. The last six years of my career have been a difficult road - essentially a roller coaster of good days and really bad days. And while I would never wish the roller coaster of issues upon anybody, after pulling myself up off the floor, I made it a goal to learn the lessons from the experiences. Day one in this work group I was welcomed to the team with this comment: "You come here with high regards ...<insert pause here>... We'll see about that". Nothing says 'Welcome to the team' like that sort of comment - yeah, right. Nearly my first interaction with my new boss and I was a swat down. Maybe this person intended to put me in my place, or see what this person could get away with but certainly had an impact. Having worked in an male dominated industry for many years, I shouldn't have been so surprised by such a welcome. I'm not sure if I knew at the time it was a swat down, so I don't recall if I stumbled or fell right to the proverbial ground, but I got up and trekked on. More determined than ever to succeed. A short time later, another person came into the workgroup as my up line management. This person who was new to corporate life and this person was not as familiar with some of the bureaucracy of large corporations. Instead of accepting my help to better understand the operational and business needs in the corporate world, and believe me nobody was lifting a finger to help this person come up to speed, this person took out his frustrations by spreading rumors about me not doing my work timely or correctly including telling higher ups that I was not doing my work. The old method of putting people down to deflect the lack of one owns performance. Unaccepting of this behavior and attempts to squash me, I spoke up for myself when ensured the truth is known and kept on going. My experience with the wolf in sheep's clothes caught me off guard. A quiet and unassuming person provided a false sense of work environment safety and I let my guard down. I should have noticed the exclusionary methods of this person. A short time later I realized the exclusionary methods were as means to diminish my ability to do my job, likely to fill the team with this person's choice instead of having me assigned to a high profile corporate task. Interestingly enough, earlier in the year this person noted my ability to take on challenging tasks and always figuring out a way to make it work. At this point, I'm figuring out what that all B.S? In the end, I would not accept exclusion and worked around, under and over this person to ensure I did my job as expected, in spite of the exclusion. When one way to achieve did not work, I found another and kept going. To round out the bunch, the micromanager has left a scattered trail of other individual's self-esteem and confidence in their path. A few unassuming clues has led me to understand possibly where the micromanagement comes from but until this person recognizes this, the path of destruction continues. Dismissing people after asking their thoughts, reading what others write while taking notes and the famous "I'm sorry you feel that way" are just some of the signature experiences. In spite of the previous experiences, which really should have 'put me in my place' to take it all but I had to speak up for myself and to some extend spoke up for the others who had similar experiences but did not have voice. While the individual situations knocked me down for a bit, I didn't stay down long and spoke up. And kept going. Now don't get me wrong. There were many frustrating moments throughout these experiences. I cry when I get frustrated -- not a great quality but is better than taking out aggressions in other ways. Tears shed from allowing some of this to happen. Tears shed for the battered self-esteem. Tears for feeling stuck in an impossible situation. Tears for the people who said they would help but had not intentions. And I kept going. Resilience is getting up after being swatted down, ensuring the truth is known in a world of putting others down to lift oneself up, breaking through barriers and obstacles to achieve goals and speaking up for those without having a voice. In my situation, while these situations created chaos in my life, each putting me in a downward spiral I wasn't sure at the time I would be able to get out and left me lifeless on the bottom of my emotional pit, I somewhere found my inner strength in that darkness and found the dim light to show me the way. And I kept going. Resilience is seeing that tiny light, that small spark of energy, which provides the building block of strength to build oneself up. Learning to be optimistically cautious, learning the lessons and learning going over, around or under the obstacles was the other part of the equation to build oneself up. There will always be those who want to see you fail, or lift themselves up by pushing you down, but there will always be YOU (and me) who will believe you can succeed. You are resilient. And keep going. ~ChaChaÂ
