38: What to Do When Things Don't Go As Planned

If we're human, we're going to have the experience of things not going as we'd planned.  We did the preparation, we put in the effort, practiced and still… disappointment.

Eric and Nayla share their own disappointments in an unproductive day of recording this very podcast, and how they noticed the spiral of normal reactions immediately afterwards.

A natural instinct might be to catastrophize and personalize the circumstances to signal an unmitigated, irreversible disaster, thinking to ourselves: I can't be trusted… No one will ever hire me…something is terribly wrong with my candidacy, or worse, with me!!   Part of the Inside Job is to explore the question: What Am I Making This Mean?  How likely is that? What else could possibly be true?

We offer that the opportunity to turn our disappointments into learning experiences shouldn't be missed.  What really happened?  What would we do differently next time? What did go well?  Are there messages we have to understand and integrate from this event?  (Also, these setbacks are evidence if the leaders and organizations that say things like "We celebrate failures as a source of learning" really mean it, or are blowing smoke.)

Next, we propose, ask yourself: how much does this still matter to me?  Do I still want the thing that didn't work out?  Do I have the energy to dig deep and try again?   What would it take to keep going?

Finally, we talk about the opportunity to show ourselves goodness and compassion, to treat ourselves as a beloved member of our families, rather than resorting always to working harder and faster to make things right.

 

Inside Job is brought to you by Nayla Bahri and Eric Johnson.

 

To learn more about us and our work, visit www.insidejobthepodcast.com or email us at [email protected].

 

To learn more about the ideas and resources discussed in this episode, check out our show notes.

 

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