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Originally Posted by Yahwe
then you can tell me. I'm a big enough attention whore for the both of us.
please.
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Well, I have the odd feeling that I'm going to be labelled as naive (which I am), a chicken, cheesy and mentally unstable, but just for you... But, I first want to warn you that this is going to be a lot of text, and it's going to be cheesy as hell.
I should also apologise in advance for the poor grammar and spelling. My excuse is that I've been been going for 20 hours straight now doing programming, driving from the Netherlands to Germany and back, going on intake for a new project and doing technical chitchat with various people today. So my mind is not as clear as it should be. I know that's a crappy excuse for not learning proper English, but I can't help it for now.
So, I do not know what I vented on this forum about my work situation for the past two and a half years but to fully understand where this all comes from I must do this introduction.
I had yet another change of job three months ago and before that I was a pretty depressed person. This was the aftermath of that moment of personal distress about one and a half years earlier. Or, a near mental breakdown if that's the right choice of words.
Before I continue I must say this was my own fault as I didn't have the guts to make decisions or to speak my mind at that time. But that kind of changed.
My first job after I graduated was in a very small company where my boss, a rather arrogant individual in my opinion, sat right infront of me telling me what to program while he himself did the sales and customer thingies. He could have pretty dramatic mood swings where one phonecall could make him go from "normal mode" to "agressive mode". Don't worry, I didn't get beaten up, but I saw a few moments where he almost took a swing at for instance his sister who also did sales. Or he was yelling like mad at his father or even his business relations. All in the same room where I was working.
With him being an Aikido practitioner, so he knew how to kill you with two fingers, I was pretty scared at moments when that phone rang and he could have one of those mood swings.
I kept working at that place for nine months without making the decision to leave or to speak up because I was simply scared. And after those nine months something just "snapped" in me and I quit right away.
That was the moment when things started to get better. And although it was not a pleasant experience, I am very happy that this happened to me because I learned one thing: learning to identify and venting (in a political correct way) your discontent and having the guts to act upon it. This is definately the most valuable thing an introvert and nerdy individual like me can learn.
After that I started to work at a contracting company called TOPIC, and throughout the one and a half year following I learned more and more about myself while trying to find new motivation to keep on going. My "snapping" gave me quite a dent in my self-esteem but also in the way I perceived my work and colleagues.
I got one or two assignments and the job I got just before my current one was not my thing at all and instead of putting up with it as I did earlier I told TOPIC and to my surprise they listened and acted. I felt proud of myself to have "stood up" for myself. I am deliberately putting "stood up" between quotes because this might seem something very trivial to all of you, but it was an accomplishment for my persona.
The assignment that followed was the best thing that ever happened to me because of two reasons:
- I got into a company/department where appreciation is openly said, rather than assumed
- my coworker is doing/learning NLP and Personal Coaching and studied psychology in his spare time
The open appreciation thingy may again seem trivial, but if you pay attention to it you may notice it is not as often done as you may think. Those few words "I am really proud" or "I am impressed" or "you did an amazing job" can make a huge difference in atmosphere and how you perceive your work. And I am definately going to try to make a difference by expressing my positive feelings, rather than letting people assume them.
I feel that this open culture has been really good for my self esteem and is really helping me get back on track, better than before.
My coworker gave me many tips in the area of Personal Coaching and psychology especially in identifying my personal feelings and moods. By being constantly aware of your mood and how you feel you can spot moodchanges. And when you can spot moodchanges, you can find the cause. And when you know the cause, you can take action to improve or keep.
For example when you grow angry because your coworker throws away your code and rewrites it. If you are not aware of that anger because it might be very subtle the moment passes and you are left with a rather uncomfortable feeling towards your coworker. But when you identify that subtle anger and are aware of the cause being your coworker throwing your work overboard, you can act on it by asking him why he doesn't like to code and perhaps improve on your coding skills.
So, identifying moods is the first step from making bad into good.
Currently I am feeling a relief and happiness because I can write about my own experiences in the past. But I feel a bit uncomfortable with the amount of text I wrote already, and it's cheesyness. But I'm writing it anyway because even in the remotest possibility if anyone reads this and is helped by it, it will have served it's purpose.
My next step will be taking this mood stuff a bit further and turning it into motivation and energy. I do not know how to fill that in yet, but I do know there are techniques to put yourself into an euphoric fantasy of you achieving your goal. This can give one a lot of motivation to work towards a goal.
If you like to know more about this personal coaching stuff, Anthony Robbins and Michael Bolduc are two big names that I heard of (my coworker is fan of them). You can find audio tapes of them in "various places" (read: p2p).
I would like to conclude this huge piece of text with my appreciation to anyone who stayed with me this far, I really appreciate that (see what I'm doing here).