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How to Navigate Difficult Situations at Work
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.
Work is filled with difficult moments — a mean coworker, a boss who ignores your ideas, unrealistic demands from stakeholders and a problem that turns out harder than expected.
Such moments often arouse strong feelings of anger, hurt, frustration, desperation, self-doubt, low self-worth and inadequacy.
Instead of tackling the situation with a clear head, we let our emotions determine how we think and how we act.
We either:
- Ignore the problem for too long, which messes with our head and interferes with our ability to focus and put in our best effort.
- React in ways that make the problem worse.
- Lash out our frustration on others who aren’t connected to our problem, but are easier to target.
Such overreaction or lack of action breaks trust and damages relationships, which makes it harder to collaborate and get work done. Problems that could have been solved in one conversation linger on with endless debates. Deadlines extend, stakeholders turn anxious and business targets are missed.
Learning to navigate difficult situations is a skill that can be mastered by developing the right mindset and practicing the right strategies.
“Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.”
— Roy Bennett
Whether it’s conflict of ideas, conflict of viewpoint or conflict of interest, addressing problems at the right time can save you and others from a lot of misery. Less distractions from unresolved conflicts will leave you with more time and energy to do work that matters.
Get closer to reality
Your mind is a drama seeking machine — it has the tendency to exaggerate and blow things out of proportion.
