Hello again everyone! I hope you all survived Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Patriots loss to Denver on Sunday. I’m kidding about the Patriots, as I know some of you to be what us millennials refer to as a “Hater”. Nonetheless I was sad and it was a bummer but as we all know a perfect regular season does not necessarily mean you will win the Super Bowl. With that being said, I wanted to shift gears a bit in this blog and talk about professionalism and empathy as I feel I’ve encountered a bit of this in my latest round of travels.
We all have lives that we maintain outside of our agencies and like everything, our personal lives come with their own unique sets of challenges. Some days are great and other days can be downright miserable. Bad things will inevitably happen in life and with varying degree. If you’re like me then you are admittingly a sensitive person who likes to wear their emotions on their sleeve. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs. It’s ok, even expected but it can have an impact on your professional life.
I have always believed in a clear separation of professional life versus personal life. Some folks enjoy the melding of the two and can still maintain a clear divide between the two. That’s fine as well. Where it can become an issue is when we begin bringing that personal turmoil to the office with us. When this occurs we run several risks.
The first risk is that when you are feeling attitudinally low it can be as contagious as the common cold. We may be short or cold with fellow team members, respond poorly to feedback from our superiors, and in turn bring other team members down into the dumps with us. The second risk is that our work tends to suffer. We may take longer to accomplish daily tasks, lose our sense of urgency, and the worst case scenario cause us to be short with our customers or prospects. We cannot serve our customers correctly when we wear our negative mojo.
We all have been guilty of this to some degree and it’s my hope that this blog can provide a few tips to help you avoid these Eeyore pitfalls!
- Recognize that your attitude is going to be bad before you walk through the door.
- If you feel that you will not be able to check it at the door then take a personal day. You may think that is counter productive but trust me, your boss, coworkers, and clients will understand.
- If you believe you can check it at the door, take a moment in the parking lot to take a few deep breaths, talk to yourself, say a prayer, meditate and then repeat in your head that you have a job a to do that requires your A Game.
- Ask yourself this question: “Is what I am dealing with in my personal life going to matter in the next 5 years?” The answer 99% of the time is no.
- Avoid the pitfall of responding negatively to a co-worker when they ask you how you’re doing, how was your weekend…etc. Simply tell them you are good and that you’re looking forward to having a great day. Be sincere too, sarcasm doesn’t count.
- Use work as your escape. I know that sounds crazy but much in the same way your personal life is an escape from work the roles can and should be reversed. You have a job to do and clients that depend on you. That’s a win!
It’s understandable that some days are going to be better than others but again we have a responsibility to our employees, employers, clients and more importantly to ourselves to always put our best foot forward. It will lead to better days ahead and you begin to realize that the best way to conquer a bad attitude is with a good one.
For everything else there is Agency Performance Partners. We believe in being psyched 365 days a year which is why we are running our end of year promotion! Learn about how we can help turn those frowns upside down by clicking here https://www.agencyperformancepartners.com/promo/
