It’s time for the (work) mid year review.. (oh no)
That’s what I feel this week. I did my homework, preparing about things to discuss with boss. I was quite confident that I’m okay this time.
But I wasn’t. Again I was humbled. That after the session I went spiral down that I’m not good enough, my justification was seen as excuse, why I can’t meet certain goal up to this year. Tried to voice out, but feels just slammed down.
Did I feel want to give up? For sure.
I was supposed to write my thought on weekly basis, I dragged it. My brain is just not braining.
Then it reminds me of the green and red light activity i was supposed to do, green is giving you energy, red is withdrawing energy. I told myself, work is definitely a red light. I don’t feel like my life is around working anymore. Often need to work at night, planned or unplanned, taken a toll to some extent. But this time is better than before.
Then stumble across a clip from Dharman in Facebook about a school kid who keep failing on his English class and unable to do spelling correctly. But the janitor of the school taught him some tricks and give his 5c, that if you fail to understand, doesn’t mean that you’re stupid. You could just need different way to learn things.
I was struggling in recent years, initially I thought it was about languishing. Then I thought maybe I have some sort of high functioning anxiety. But after awhile, it was just persist there. I signed myself up to speak to counsellor through a website which my friend used before. It some what gets better. She has been giving me some worksheets and I was able to do more internal talk / reflection.
It’s still up and down, but I wasn’t feeling down much. I thought I have depression too at some point. It’s just that I seemed can’t settle.
Until I came across content related to ADHD in TikTok and reading some friends’ post about their kid ADHD. Technically I should get proper assessment, they told me how to and so on. But I want to try what if I just take it I’m having ADHD and do more reading on how to manage it. To some extent it works.
Then back to the convo that I have with my boss. After finishing my downwards spiral, I asked myself, if I were him, what would I do to deal employee like me:
- I know there is no bad employee, but it’s bad bosses. It’s kinda ingrained in my mind when it comes me to my team member. For example, if my team member fails to perform, it means it’s my fault. If i fail to perform, I hardly think the same, instead, I think that it’s my failure. It took me awhile to connect the dots that I could be the kid in that video. I just need different style of boss who can understand me and give suggestion when I was stuck.
Sometimes it’s hard to address the elephant in the room, but some tough conversation is needed. I admit I tend to avoid it, but I feel the same for my boss to me.
- Listening is important. In our discussion related to goals, he like to bring up about my aspiration that I told him during interview.
Instead, I would ask, if the aspiration is still the same. Or trying to find out how to enable me better. If there is a big gap on my skillset or point out / being prescriptive about it. For example, if I was a project manager and I want to move to product manager, and seeing I don’t perform as what he’s expected, instead of saying “remember that you told me you want to be xxx” would be better to do a spot check “are you still aspire to be xxx?”. Reminding me of aspiration I told him few years back feels condescending. - It’s okay to say “I don’t know well about your area”. As a lecturer last time, I was panic when students asked me questions I don’t know the answer. I was nervous at first, but other senior lecturers told me that even they don’t know all the answer. Why nervous? They will just say that I will find out for you and let you know next lesson.
I feel it’s the same with work situation. Everyone has different background, has different thought process. So if my team member is struggling and I don’t know how to help them, I would try to do more research and will give advice when I have found one.
As I typed this, I have some epiphany that I think I miss the old days when I was on the younger side of my colleagues and my seniors were happily impart life lesson. It somewhat soothing when they say that “it’s okay, it’s part of life”. I feel that I don’t have such person anymore lately. Which reminds me what my counsellor told me that I achieved what I wanted to achieve before, I’m at cross road for the next phase. What’s difference is, I don’t have the life coach / “seniors” for this life phase, hence I feel lost, to some extent.
Let this be a reminder for myself, in future if I feel lost again.. hehe!
(I feel glad I decided to pick this up again)
PS: on the days I feel like I want to throw towel, I looked at my cats and they will look at me and sniffing their head makes me feels better. Then I asked myself, if this is my rock bottom, what is the worst thing can happen. Nothing. Cos the only way to go is up.