Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Looking back…..and Facing forward….

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As we start the first week of 2018, let me do a short recap of my year that was in 2017 as well as some ideas on how I want this year to work out for me.

 

2017 started as usual for me, with looking for a job which didn’t materialise until the middle of the year. But what a position it turned out to be! I was bullied in my second week there by a subordinate and that’s when I knew I had to get out. I started looking for positions immediately, but before I could leave, I was asked to leave. I hated it there and so when the shock of having this thrust on me abated, I was really relieved. I attribute this 100% to my manager, who approved decisions I took, but turned around and lied about those decisions, even though it was approved by email! This person is a very strong-willed person with a personality to match and when confronted, I didn’t push back, which was, in retrospect, something I am not very proud of. Anyway, karma worked and what this person did to me was done to them in less than two months time!

The children had good school years. GG did especially well and she managed to move to the better stream (after we managed to convince her school principal that she can do it). She now gets to do the subjects she enjoys and excels in and hopefully will continue to thrive in school. BB, on the other hand, managed to squeeze into his stream of choice by a whisker. I was mentally prepared that he will not get into the pure science stream as his science marks just about made the cut-off marks for the stream and was already psyching him for other science-related subjects, but when the streaming results were declared, both of us did a little jig on seeing his name in the pure science class.

 

That was 2017, what do I want to do in 2018?

 

For one, I want to lose 10% of my total body weight as on 01 January. I have checked my weight on Monday (and I am conscious enough of it that I don’t want to reveal it to the whole internet), and will be tracking it with an eagle’s eye!

Continuing on the health theme, my last HbA1C reading put me in the upper end of the acceptable range and I want to bring this down to the lower end and in the healthy range by the end of the year. I have my next test in February, just after the Chinese New Year and so want to have some positive news there.

Other health and beauty related resolutions are to meditate daily for at least 10 minutes, put on a face mask every day for 365 days and clock an average of 10,000 steps daily. These should be fairly doable I think, I just need to be consistent and not give in to laziness and complacency.

I also want to write more this year, both in this blog and elsewhere. I dream of being a published author and want to take steps to achieve this by perhaps submitting a short story. I am going to work on this dream too this year.

On the job front, I am going to be super discerning about where I apply jobs to and even after I interview, I will not accept any position just because I get offered one. I don’t want a repetition of what happened in 2017, so I rather am safe than sorry.

I also want to travel and we’ve already started planning our year-end holiday where I want to explore parts of India I’ve never been to. I also want to do a solo trip, but I am not sure if this will pan out this year, but it’s something I am putting here, in the hope that the universe will let it happen.

So that’s what my plans for 2018 are. What about you? Have you made any plans? Or are you someone who wings it? Do comment below and I’d love to hear from you.

2017 Week 49 Update

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Nothing really happened this week – I went to a second round of interviews at the part-time position I had applied to but may have to do one more round. Because this is the holiday season, most people are not around and so things are at a stalemate, at least until the new year, my job search is at a pause.

I’ve completely lost my writing mojo these days and find it difficult to write down even a few lines. I really don’t know what I can do to get out of this funk, maybe the new year will bring cheer to me!

Have a wonderful last few days of the 2017!

Imposter Syndrome

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Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. The term was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been found to affect both men and women, in roughly equal numbers

impostor-syndrome-cartoon-823x1024We’ve all been there, done that – convinced we’ve gotten a job or a project because we’ve faked it or perhaps you are getting an award for something and all you can hear in your head is a voice telling you that you will soon be outed for being a fraud! This is nothing but classic imposter syndrome and today’s post is all about that. Why this particular syndrome you may ask? Well, it’s because I am convinced I am 100% guilty of perpetuating this on myself.

Initially, it was thought that more women than men suffered from imposter syndrome, but later it was found to affect both sexes equally. When you are afflicted, you very strongly internally believe that you are not intelligent and you got (insert activity here) by luck or fluke and so you are so incompetent and unworthy of the activity that you will soon be outed as a fraud. I strongly suspect that this is what happened to me in my last position and this is why we parted ways so soon.

screenshot2015-08-13at10_48_51The most common symptoms are negative self-talk; a need to constantly check and re-check work; shying away from attention in the workplace; and forms of overcompensation like staying late at work or not setting appropriate boundaries around workload. Internally, people struggling with the syndrome experience persistent feelings of self-doubt and fear being found out as phoney. They over-internalize and blame themselves for failures, even when other factors played a role.

I particularly feel more women than men, especially Asians, suffer from this syndrome as we are generally conditioned to not take credit for our work and also diminish it when we get complimented for anything we do. As I was researching this post, I realised a lot of famous people, both men and women also had moments when they felt they were a complete fraud and it was just time till people figured them out for what they thought they were!

So when you get these pangs, here are some of the things you can do to overcome it:

how-to-improve-confidenceAccept that you are in this position because you did something that caused people to put you there. Learn to internalise your success and own it. Be proud of your achievements.

Focus on what you bring to the table. When you are a perfectionist, the chances of you believing that you are a fraud is very high because you set such high standards for yourself. Loosen up a bit and learn to accept that sometimes you need not be the best in everything you do. Hyper-competitive people (me included) see every little thing in life as a competition and this is what causes you immense grief where when you can’t attain the lofty self-goal you have set for yourself, you fall down to the depths and think you are a complete failure. So learn to let go, it will make life easier for you in the long run.

Stop comparing yourself to others. This is probably the most important point in overcoming this syndrome. As author Iyanla Vanzant once said, “Comparison is an act of violence against the self”, when you compare and measure yourself against someone, usually more successful than yourself, you start to internalise all your failures (against the said person) and this, in turn, makes you less confident about your own abilities and does not let you celebrate successes.

Celebrate success. When you get complimented for anything, accept it gracefully and with a smile. Most of us, and especially those of us who have internalised this syndrome. The normal reaction to a compliment is to brush it aside as something inconsequential, but the truth is that when someone compliments you for something, it’s because they appreciate what you have done, so accept it and internalise it.

Journal regularly. As an addendum to the previous point, it may help to keep a success journal which highlights all your successes. You could also add in the compliments and kudos you receive, be it work or play and when you need affirmations, all you need to do is go to your journal and read it. Personally, I would prefer to have something online or in the cloud, like perhaps Google Docs so I can access it anywhere and anytime. But if you prefer a physical notebook to record successes, then go ahead and buy the prettiest book you can find!

I am going to practice what I have just preached and start doing all these points so that I sooner than later overcome my sense of being a fraud all the time. What about you? Do you have any more tips that I can use? Please comment below.

I am ending this post with some TED Talks on how we can overcome our sense of being imposters.

2017 Week 29 Update

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This was another week where I was quite busy at work. I like being busy during the day so I don’t have unwarranted thoughts and get bored. Most days this does happen.

The bunch of people I am working with are a nice bunch, but they are quite set in their ways of what is their ‘job’ and what is someone else’s, which I find, quite frankly, regressive in nature. In today’s world, there’s nothing like that, and you just do what needs to be done. I guess things need to change and I am sure it will get there.

S has been having some issues with one of his friends and this friend broke a 12-year-old friendship over something so trivial that when he told me about it, I was quite shocked! I am sure when this friend realises their mistake, they will regret the words that were flung out and even if both want to revive their friendship, I am sure things will never be the same.

It’s back to another work week for me today and today I will be helping out a colleague in something she is doing. I do hope, it will be a good learning experience.

Have a wonderful week people!

Life Lessons: How to deal with bullies at work and outside….

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I’ve mentioned before, in this new place I am now working, I have been having issues at work, but I’ve never really elaborated on it. Today I am going to talk about some of what I am going through and what I have learned from my research on how to deal with such issues. Maybe someone else can benefit from it.

 

 

I have a colleague on the same team, who is junior to me, both in the number of years of experience we have as well as in the hierarchy of the organisation. For some reason, from the day I joined the organisation, this person has been borderline rude with me. They would be careful to be sweet and nice when in the presence of others, it was only when they were with me and maybe an intern who was working with them, would the nastiness surface. I was new to the organisation and I didn’t know how things are run. This person had been here for around a year before I joined. Anytime I asked them anything, it would be met with a curt, “I am busy” but they were not busy to chit chat with others during the time they were supposed to be busy. This went for around a month, but till that time it was done very passively. After a month of this, I sent this person an email about something which was not in both our job scopes, but which we had to do to help out. My email to the person was that when they were away, I will step in and the very rude reply I got was it was not their job too and so I was not doing them any favours. I had copied the email to our manager and the reply was also sent to everyone.

 

At some point, I did bring up this person’s attitude to our manager, but till date, I have not seen a resolution of the issue. I am not sure if the manager has managed to speak to this person, but since I don’t really see any improvement in attitude, I am guessing no.

So what do I do in such a case? I decided to read up and am following these points. It may be useful to others who are recipients of workplace bullying which is why I decided to blog about it.

 

When faced with a bully at work, we can either leave that toxic environment, stay quiet in the hope that it will blow away or confront the bully. Since I was new, leaving was not an option, I did speak to our manager, who didn’t do much to mitigate the issue and I didn’t want to confront the bully, but wanted to make sure I was no longer bullied

 

I first stopped talking to the bully. I didn’t interact much with them unless it was work specific and even then, I made sure I always tried to email them with a copy to our manager. This way, any rude or bullying behaviour would be out in the open and also documented since my problem was that this bully was sweet in front of others and rude when it was just us interacting. You could also keep a record of all interactions with the bully and if possible document every interaction.

After you have gathered the information, try to make time with the bully and speak calmly and emotionlessly. I need to work on this as I tend to get emotional in such times, but take deep breaths if that helps and speak to the bully. This approach may or may not work, depending on how the bully rolls, so prepare to take a step back and come back with reinforcements (aka your manager).

 

Usually, the perpetrator in a bullying incident is mostly intimated by you, either by what you bring to the table in terms of experience or job knowledge or what they stand to lose in terms of how your work will affect their standing in the organisation. I suspect in my case this is what happened. The bully in my instance probably thought I was a threat to them, though how I don’t know and used rude and disrespectful tones and language to compensate for that.

 

Another thing that usually works is not to stoop down to the bully’s level. It’s very tempting (believe me, I know), to respond with rude behaviour when faced with such behaviour, but I now believe in this, as Michelle Obama famously said, “When they go low, we go high”! Respond to rude behaviour with extreme politeness. If the rude behaviour is via email, I go very formal and polite and when a senior person sees the email exchange, the contrast between the two tones cannot be more obvious!

Lastly, I’d say don’t take this rudeness and bullying personally and over analyse everything (I am guilty of this). It is possible that the bully might have felt slighted over something you said or did, which is why they are behaving the way they do. I suspect this could have happened in my case also. In the last month, maybe I said or did (or didn’t say or do) something which may have been important to this person. Maybe once you figure out the reason why the bully behaved that way, behaviours on both sides can change. I do plan to do exactly that and see if I can figure out why my bully is behaving in such a way and see if I can turn the situation around.

 

Do you have any other way to work around a bully? I’d love to hear your ideas!