Rachel finally gave up trying to work. She stood and looked outside at the snow. Deciding it wasn't too bad yet, she put on her coat and headed for the elevator and outside. Just to walk. A little early for lunch, but nobody seemed to notice. She needed some alone time.
Out beyond the parking lot was part of an old canal, and the geese wintered there. "Maybe they'll be there," she thought. "I need to calm down."
Eric hired Rachel two years ago. In the past year, she's noticed that he "constantly belittles everything I do." She becomes emotional and tries to defend herself, but often overreacts. This time, she's done something different, something much more effective. She's seeking a place and a space where she can calm herself.
When we're calm, we can use other tools to help recover our self-esteem. Here are a few suggestions.
- No one can actually belittle your work
- The result of your work stands — it is what it is. People can say things about your work, but they can't change your work. They can't belittle your work with words.
- Only you can belittle you
- People can say things about you, but you remain who you are. People can't belittle you with words.
- When you feel belittled, take responsibility
- People can say things
about your work,
but they can't
change your work - The feeling of belittlement is real, but what's being belittled is your own acceptance — your esteem — for your Self. Others do play a part — they supply the words you need to make yourself feel belittled. But you control your emotions, so you play a part, too. Your part is that you believe the words just enough to feel bad about yourself. That's good news, because if you control what you do, you can change it.
- Remember those who love you
- When the swirl of feeling bad begins, it's easy to fall into the pit. You can hold onto your self-esteem a little tighter if you remember the people — including yourself — who love you. Decide in advance to focus on some small object — a locket, or a ring, or your badge (if you wear a badge at work), or even your right pinky fingernail. Imagine that it carries all the love that the people in your life feel for you. When your boss gets going, connecting with that object can bring you back from the pit, and if you remember soon enough, it will keep you from falling in.
Whatever you hear from others, you remain the same wonderful, unique human being that you've always been. To the people who love you, you mean a lot — maybe everything — and they'll keep loving you, no matter what others say. You can do the same. Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
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More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
- Untangling Tangled Threads
- In energetic discussions, topics and subtopics get intertwined. The tangles can be frustrating. Here's
a collection of techniques for minimizing tangles in complex discussions.
- Logically Illogical
- Discussions in meetings and in written media can get long and complex. When a chain of reasoning gets
long enough, we sometimes make fundamental errors of logic, especially when we're under time pressure.
Here are just a few.
- How We Waste Time: II
- We're all pretty good at wasting time. We're also fairly certain we know when we're doing it. But we're
much better at it than we know. Here's Part II of a little catalog of time wasters, emphasizing those
that are outside — or mostly outside — our awareness.
- Heart with Mind
- We say people have "heart" when they continue to pursue a goal despite obstacles that would
discourage almost everyone. We say that people are stubborn when they continue to pursue a goal that
we regard as unachievable. What are our choices when achieving the goal is difficult?
- Virtual Interviews: II
- The pandemic has made face-to-face job interviews less important. And so we must now also master virtual
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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
- And on May 22: Rescheduling Collaborative Work
- Rescheduling is what we do when the schedule we have now is so desperately unachievable that we must let go of it because when we look at it we can no longer decide whether to laugh or cry. The fear is that the new schedule might come to the same end. Available here and by RSS on May 22.
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