Monday, November 23, 2015

How do you deal with adversity in the workplace?

You spend a lot of time at work. In fact you're spending around 2000 hours a year if you're full time. In that 2000 hours it's inevitable that you're going to work on a project you don't like, work with people you don't get along with, or be asked to do something you think is the wrong thing to do. You're likely going to have to deal with one or more of these several times a year.

What do you do when one of those situations happens? Do you get pissed off and act out? Do you become the negative person in the office always being a contrarian? Do you villainize someone associated with the decision? Or are you someone who sees adversity as a growth opportunity?

If you aren't approaching work place adversity as a growth opportunity, you're missing out on valuable experience that you will need to be successful in not only your career, but in life in general.

So what can we learn from the adversity we face?

Sometimes we have to choose from the lesser or two evils

You're not going to find a way to win in every situation. Often you're going to be presented with lose/lose situations where your goal is going to be to find the solution that has the least negative outcome. Learning to do this will help you come out ahead in the long run, and can help you avoid lose/lose situations in the future by helping you to prepare for them before you encounter them.

You learn to see things from another persons point of view

In order to successfully deal with adversity that comes from interacting with others, you'll need to learn to see their point of view. That doesn't mean you need to learn to agree with them. It means that you need to be able to understand *why* they feel, act, or say what they do. Once you're able to learn this, you can then start to better communicate with them in a language that they understand. Helping others understand that they're heard is a giant step towards moving past interpersonal adversity.

You may learn that you're the source

This is the most important one in my opinion. In trying to deal with adversity head on, you may just learn that you're the source of whatever is wrong. If this is the case, realizing it gives you the opportunity to stop doing whatever you're doing that's causing the strain.

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