Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag…

…they’re easier to find that way.

A client received a prestigious, long-sought promotion. The position was one of those jobs where preparation only goes so far. It was an environment of multiple deadlines and variable tasks; a place where the learning is done by the doing. Skill comes from the day to day experience.

“Adam’s” appointment was recognition of his native intelligence and his ability to be a quick study. He is a keen observer and picks up new skills quickly. He clearly met the specs for the job.

As you might imagine, in such an environment, mistakes will be made. And Adam made them. Within his first week, he made an obvious error. His supervisor took him aside, corrected him, reassured him and moved on.

Adam could not let go of his mistake. He kept replaying it in his head, reviewing not only his error, but the nuanced reaction of every colleague. The flub absorbed so much of his attention that (you saw this coming) a deadline slipped past him and Boom! Another mistake.

Now Adam was convinced there was a pattern. A pattern of his screwing up. And why not? He’d been a screw up all his life; a misfit, a geek. He was irresponsible, careless, and just not too bright.

Huh? Didn’t I just describe Adam as bright and capable? And hadn’t his employer assessed his talent to be the perfect fit for his new job?

All that was true. But that reality did not mesh with the story of his childhood, where parents and grade school teachers gave him enough negative labels to fill a backpack. And although Adam had achieved great academic and professional success, the bullied child he had been never was far away. Any time his performance was less than perfect, Adam reached back into the “knapsack o’ negativity” he always kept nearby to find the perfect label for his screw up.

It’s true that our mistakes and our failures often can provide us with more learning than our successes. At the very least, a failure offers the opportunity to examine it and say “well, I’ll never do THAT again!” But exaggerated focus on the negative makes it grow bigger, limiting our ability to move forward or change course. And even if we manage to keep moving, the effort takes more energy, making the journey just that much more difficult.

Adam’s “knapsack” stalled his momentum in two ways: it weighed him down and caused him to stop periodically as he gathered up more proof of his defects and added them to the collection.

What would it be like to lay down that “knapsack o’ negativity?”