You’re allowed to mess up your career – say it with me now.

There’s been so much job jumping with the great resignation that I suspect many people have left for roles that weren’t right. Decisions are made in haste, driven by money, driven by an opportunity that the grass could be greener. It’s made me think about career flopping.

Career flops are passages of your career that are particularly uncomfortable – they are survivable but frustrating. It’s a flop of a time. It sucks. Your reality doesn’t match your expectations. You oscillate between hopeless, angry, melancholy, and resentful… and at the end of the day, you go home, flop on your bed and hope tomorrow is better.

Here are some floppy moments:

• You’ve been sold the dream in the interview, and in week two, you discover you hate it – it’s called job washing, apparently. 
•  You’ve snapped in a team meeting and made your boss angry – dire consequences if your boss doesn’t practice gentle managing. 
•  You’ve left consecutive jobs after three months because they weren’t right and made you miserable.
•  You’ve stayed awake at night wondering how you’ll explain the aforementioned to a judgemental line manager who believes that changing jobs is a sign of weakness.
•  You’ve stayed in a role too long, become bitter and twisted, and don’t have the motivation to leave.
•  You’ve been marked as underperforming in a performance review.
•  You’ve been asked to participate in a formal investigation, and you’re fearful of the impact on your reputation.
•  You’ve received a warning for something you disagreed with and felt powerless in the process.
•  You’ve asked for more money and were declined for no good reason.
•  You’re fired … not made redundant, actually fired. 

I’ve dealt with a couple of the above; I’ve also helped my friends and colleagues through them. Sucks man.
I wish I had some magic advice to improve it, but I don’t. When you’re in a flop, it demands to be felt. I know there is something to learn from the flop, like it or not. The flop is a time to go … what the heck! How the god damn did I get here, and what am I going to do now.

It’s a kick in the butt from the universe.

It’s a hard lesson.

But it would be best if you learned it.

Early in my career, I was told my probation might not be renewed because I wasn’t meeting expectations. I was facing the possibility of having NO JOB and very little savings. I went home and cried most evenings. The stress made me perform worse. I was like, NOPE, okay, I have to get out of this situation.

The story I would tell myself is that I was hopeless and pathetic – how could this happen. Reinforced by my then-manager telling me, “I wasn’t the person they met in the interview,” – which cut deep. It was a garbage situation.

I had to remind myself I was a person who wasn’t garbage. I wrote on my bathroom mirror, “you’re not garbage; it’s going to be okay”.

Sometimes you flop, and work sucks sometimes, but you’re not alone ♥️

Let’s set the scene with an extremely common scenario I’ve come across time and time again…

So I had a meeting with a peer and I thought we had a good relationship but it was so awkward. I feel like I overstepped somewhere, I don’t really know what happened. Now, I’m really not looking forward to the next interaction.. what do I do?

We’ve all been there, we’ve all had that very human moment where something is just… off.. So start by checking your perception. Ensure you’re looking at the situation for what it is, not worse than it is. If your thoughts are spiraling, then you are indeed in a loop of worse than it is. To get yourself thinking more productively, write down the behaviours that you saw in the interaction only and fact check yourself.

Next, remind yourself that (generally) there aren’t any situations that you can’t come back from. Relationships are continual cycles of connection and disconnection, being in sync and out of sync. What matters is that you recognise it’s a cycle, not a permanent break in the chain.

When people describe feeling awkward, I often hear the following …

• I was caught off guard
• I was unsure about the best way to respond
• I felt I was witnessing to something I shouldn’t
• I felt I was on the spot and I didn’t know the right thing to say

and this often results in…

• Long silences with a stunted restarts of the conversation
• Abrupt changes of topic
• Attempts to make jokes to lighten the mood

So if you feel your behaviour influenced an interaction that led to awkwardness, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ve got two choices: let it go or tackle it. If you think you need to tackle it then here’s a way to bring it up.

“Hey the other day in the meeting I felt we ended that conversation abruptly. I’m not sure if you felt the same way, but I just wanted to raise it with you because I respect our relationship and want to understand your perspective”

Something like that opens the door for the conversation with the other person. Maybe you have a shared understanding, maybe you don’t. However by bringing it up in a conversational way, you won’t eat yourself up inside.

If you don’t feel like you can bring it up – because maybe you don’t have the relationship – ask someone who does know them well and that you can trust. Get their view on how to best work with that person, while you build that relationship.

Catch those moments while they are small and manageable. Then give yourself a high five for dealing with it!

– okay I’m off to pick up my dinner, souvlaki and chippies! Cherish ✨

Hey! I’m Cherish and I write a blog called So, How’s Work Going? I’ve been working in people and culture (HR) for a while now and you start to see some patterns in what people find difficult to navigate at work. So, this is me sharing advice both through my professional and lived experience as well as stories and insights from others along the way.