As much as we hate to admit it, all of us have one thing in common—the cold hard reality of life is…we all fail in our careers from time to time.
Whether we fail through good intentions gone sour, detours, blind spots or prompted by panic, the end result is ultimately the same.
Ever played the career failure game? It’s a subtle and clever game that usually catches you by surprise. No one is exempt from playing. This game has a variety of moves, but the most common ones that seem to “trip you up are the result of three hidden emotions that you don’t typically talk about…shame, anxiety and frustration.
These emotions sabotage your long-term career success because they rob you of our energy, talents, passion and purpose. They are the most critical game pieces in the career failure game. Learn how to play the career failure game by understanding and strategically using these pieces.
The Shame Slope
The Shame Slope game piece makes you look back at things you should have done, or done differently in the past.
It usually fosters a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace, and causes loss of focus and concentration. You put your mind in repeat mode—replaying and rehashing again and again the details of the mistake until your emotional state worsens and spirals out of control.
When using this game piece to play the career failure game, it sounds like this:
- “I can’t believe it; I dropped the ball”!
- “I’m not good company, but I don’t want to be by myself”.
- “I’m embarrassed. Even if I shouldn’t be, I am.”
- “I’m lonely. Even when I’m not alone, this feels like it’s only happening to me and no one understands.”
- “I’m hurting. Even if it is my fault, it still doesn’t feel good to fail in front of others.”
The Anxiety Angle
Anxiety drains hope for the future. It causes you to die a slow emotional death that happens over time without you even realizing it.
You start to worry about the future, wondering if you’ve gone too far and will not be able to recover from your mistake. It’s best known by a simple four-letter word…”fear”.
Do you recall the famous newspaper counselor, Ann Landers? She wrote a syndicated advice column for 47 years and used to receive an average of 10,000 letters each month. Nearly all of them were from people burdened with problems. She was asked if any one problem predominated throughout the letters she received, and her reply was that the one problem above all others was fear.
People are afraid of losing their health, their wealth, and their loved ones. People are afraid of life itself. When fear, uneasiness, and apprehension about future uncertainties gang up, they rob us of the strength to overcome adversity.
When using this game piece to play the carer failure game, it sounds like this:
- “I’m scared. I don’t know what this means for my career and my family”.
- “I’m obsessed with my mistake. I know it’s not the end of the world, but it sure feels like it”.
- “I’m feeling a little paranoid. I’m assuming people are talking about me behind my back”.
- “I can’t think or move right now. Should I be doing something?”
- “My heart is racing. I just know that I’m going to be chewed out over this mistake”.
The Frustration Fixation
Frustration is the unwanted space between what you want life to be and what it has actually become. When we fail to satisfy our desires or achieve important goals, we can become frustrated. This is only natural; but overwhelming frustration can hinder achievement and limit potential for personal growth. The most common emotions used to express frustration are anger and annoyance.
The obvious symptoms of anger are often red face, swollen neck veins, clenched fists, and a stumbling for words. The angry person’s vision may also be blurred, because anger clouds the visual centers of the brain. Respiration deepens; the heart beats more rapidly; arterial pressure rises; the blood is shifted from the stomach and intestines to the heart, central nervous system, and the muscles; the processes of the digestive tract cease; sugar is freed from the reserves in the liver; the spleen contracts and discharges its contents of concentrated corpuscles, and adrenalin is secreted.
When using the Frustration Fixation game piece to play the career failure game, the moves sound like this:
- “I’m feeling helpless. This is happening to me, and I can’t control or prevent it.”
- “I’m angry…at myself and others.”
- “Alright, so I made a mistake. How dare they criticize me and keep me from doing what I think is best”!
- “It’s been one of those days. Man, I could just kick myself”!
I bet you could add more game pieces to this list that I haven’t thought of yet, and come up with your own pet names for them as well. If you’re like most of us, you fail quite often and oftentimes at the same thing again and again.
Go to Part 2 for Tactics that Do Not Work when Playing the Career Failure Game
Tell us about some of the career failure game pieces you tend to use and we’ll include them here.
[...] You should be able to find several indispensable facts about failure and its relationship to stress in the following paragraphs. Most of this information comes straight from personal experience. Read the article carefully to the end in order to take advantage of that experience and learn to divide and conquer failure. [...]
[...] Back to Part 1 [...]
[...] Back to Part 1 [...]
[...] You should be able to find several indispensable facts about failure and its relationship to stress in the following paragraphs. Most of this information comes straight from personal experience. Read the article carefully to the end in order to take advantage of that experience and learn to divide and conquer failure. [...]
[...] You should be able to find several indispensable facts about failure and its relationship to stress in the following paragraphs. Most of this information comes straight from personal experience. Read the article carefully to the end in order to take advantage of that experience and learn to divide and conquer failure. [...]