Inevitably there will be times when you have setbacks or things don t go your way. Maybe you didn't get a job you thought you were sure to get. Maybe you lost a job unexpectedly, didn't win a contract, or lost a major client. Your car always seems to break down right after you've had some other unexpected expense. These kinds of situations immediately place us in crisis. They don t feel good, but sometimes they re what we need in order to grow. The beautiful thing about crises is that they force us to take a step back and reevaluate what s going on in our lives and rediscover what we truly want and need. When we get over that initial shock and feeling of disappointment, we might realize that maybe that job wasn't really the best for us anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that wasn't what you really wanted to spend your life doing. Maybe that friend was holding you back instead of pushing you forward. The way I deal with crises of these sorts is simple: If something doesn't go my way professionally, I try to create a situation that would be more rewarding than the situation originally planned. A while ago, I was offered a job that looked very promising. After I accepted the offer, they pushed the start date back three times, later informing me (via e-mail) that they wanted to bring me on in the near future but I should feel free to explore other options. I was extremely disappointed. I felt disrespected and angry, but decided to make the best of the situation and follow my dream of working internationally. I then flew to Santiago, Chile and had great professional and personal experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. Later, reflecting back on the original opportunity, I realized that working for a company that avoids a start date three times and then can t pick up the phone to explain the situation is probably not where I need to spend my time. Use setbacks as an opportunity to put your goals in order and act on them. In the moment, it s difficult to look at a setback as temporary, but they are. They happen to everybody. It s how you respond to them that will determine how they affect you.
Last night I was sitting at the bar in my kitchen enjoying a glass of wine, a couple pieces of brie, and crackers while writing some website plans. When I finished the plans, I closed the laptop and walked out to the balcony to take a break, at 10:30 p.m. I still had some things I wanted to get done, but I had been working since 7:00 a.m. When I stepped out I looked up and realized that, for the first time in months, I was looking at stars. Looking at these stars, I remembered just how insignificant so many things are in this world. It’s the same feeling I get when I look down on the landscape from an airplane.
I hadn’t taken the time to look up at a night sky for several months. I’m so used to squeezing productivity out of every moment I can. I don’t watch television because I feel like I could be doing something else. I struggle to sit through a new movie. I have three books by the bed, one in the kitchen, two in the car, and one at my desk at work so I can always have something to read whenever there’s a spare moment. In my desire to get so much done is so little time, I neglected to enjoy some of the simplest things in life. I love what I do, and I enjoy reading, writing, and connecting with others, but sometimes there’s a need to just…simply…relax.
In an environment where time is of the essence and we expect instant gratification, it shocks me how many times organizations think it’s okay to push deadlines. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances arise, forcing a change in deadlines. A natural disaster, lack of raw materials, sudden turnover, shift in technology, etc. can severely disrupt expectations, but these are not the delays I’m talking about. I’m talking about the delays caused by weak organizational infrastructure, poor communication, ineffective logistics, and other internal fallacies.
I’m still flabbergasted to hear, “Just tell them we’ll get the document out to them next week,” or “They’ll be okay if we send them the proposal a day late. They’re not going to look at it until Monday anyway” Having an attitude like this about your work shows those with whom you want to do business that either you don’t care about them, aren’t passionate about what you do, or don’t have the capacity to handle the work – all of which will push organizations to look elsewhere to serve their needs. It also sends a message that if you can’t handle the solicitation phase, you probably can’t handle the scope of work.
Sure it’s better to be late than never, but never late is better.
“How do we do this more efficiently,” we always hear in the workplace. How can we do this and this and this and this, and squeeze it into one workday? The problem with focusing on efficiency is that, in order to do so, we’re not focusing on effectiveness.
Efficiency is minimizing the amount of resources it takes to accomplish a task. Effectiveness focuses on what tasks need to be done in order to accomplish the actual desired result. Focus on what it takes to be effective instead of what it takes to be efficient.