Modern Dilemmas: My tips on wrestling painlessly with bouts of self-doubt

Can you remember a time when you took what someone said personally? Odds are you spent a load of time, energy, and emotion on how you felt, what you wish you had said, and what you were going to do about it. After it was over, you were slumped in a chair feeling exhausted. But here’s the thing. Amazingly, throughout your work day people aren’t going around thinking about your feelings.
By The Newsroom
Published 19th Sep 2013, 09:57 BST

People just do their thing, some innocently, others with huge agendas but how often have do you react to something a colleague has said or done when it was delivered in less than positive tone? Taking it personally plagued me until one day I had a real breakthrough. It happened just after I decided to make a big career change from Marketing to Coaching and running my own business. A few months after making the switch I ran into an old colleague who used to work at the same company I did before “breaking free”.

We started chatting and he remarked, “Alex, I don’t understand why you left. I mean you were doing so well – you could have gone up and up. It doesn’t make sense.” At first I was shocked, wanting to defend my decision, and started to take it personally.

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Then I caught myself and thought “How comes he thinks he knows more about what’s best for me than I do?” In that moment I decided that instead of justifying my career move, I’d simply make a statement. With a smile, I replied, “You know, I think it was the best move for me”, exited the conversation and moved on. In a flash I learned something simple and powerful that you can use, too.

When someone says or does something that sparks an internal reaction, when you start to take it personally, when you want to say something to defend yourself, hesitate. Give yourself a few seconds of delay to ask yourself “Is this something I ought to pay attention to? Does it really matter?” It’s amazing when you create a few seconds of delay and ask yourself a simple question that you often think “No, not enough” and let it go.

Certainly, there are those times when you think, “Well, I may not take this personally, but I need to say something, I need to do something to speak my mind and set the record straight.” If the feeling is strong then make the phone call, write the e-mail, go see the person, or do whatever they believe is appropriate. And, then, when you’re done, still let it go. Creating the habit of not taking it personally takes some effort, but so worth it. Because you will save yourself a lot of time, a lot of frustration, and maybe even a little heartache.

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