Friday, January 2, 2009

Developing Skills and Reducing Anxiety at Work

When we think of any job setting and the people who are responsible for its success, often we are confronted with very difficult personalities. When we ask the obvious question, "How in the world did that person ever get hired in their position?" We know that on the day of their hire, they placed their best foot forward to mask any potential problem of not getting this job. Once they become on staff, a quite insidious process begins happening. We begin to become negative about maybe the job, then the boss-manager-supervisor because they were not present on the day you were interviewed. Had they been, there is a possibility you might have detected an air of sarcasm, control, conflict, criticism etc, many of which help to torpedo your functionality and performance at work. And guess what? All of what happens during the day has a direct impact on your relationships, family and your emotional and physiological health. So by getting aligned with your career we are referring to the ways in which you handle conflict, disagreeable people, pushy or demeaning/controlling bosses--all of which can set you up for failure. We all have a certain way of tolerating things or people for just so long and then it comes time to retaliate. Generally we do this by stuffing alot until we are not able to and then we react. Usually that is negative and will come back to bite us. If you are in the career you really enjoy and you have people who make it so difficult daily, then we need to learn some skills to get them to back off. Wouldn't it be a shame if you were asked to leave a job that you really enjoyed doing however had a problem engaging difficult associate workers? Determine what it is that is the problem between you and the other person and then get to talking about how you can respond not react to the person and the nature of the conflict. Invest your time into the "what" is happening between you all not placing so much energy into the "who" of the arguement. That way you protect the security of your position at your place of employment and displays your ability to have workable skills to navigate through a dilemma. That is something which really pleases the folks in management positions. Good luck as 2009 gets underway and if any of these situations may be in need of repairing, address them openly with the other worker affected by this.

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