The following article is based on selected excerpts from the book, How to Handle Bullying at Work.
Once upon a time in a fairytale, there lived a Prince and a Princess. They led a happy, fulfilled life until the Princess was kidnapped by a witch. Life beat the Prince down, he wanted to wallow in despair and give up. How was he going to find the Princess in such a wide world? That’s when his fairy godmother turned up and told him not to despair, take one step after another in his search for the Princess. It doesn’t matter if he manages to find her or not, but he’s making efforts in the right direction rather than being depressed and forlorn. The Prince decided to follow the advice of his fairy godmother and Voila! he managed to find his Princess very soon and they lived a happy and fulfilled life once again.
The moral of the story being (in case you missed it), that even though life is full of ups and downs, it doesn’t matter — Why? Because everyone’s life is full of ups and downs. What matters is how we act, how we pick ourselves up during times of failure.
When we are met with failures, we tell ourselves perhaps that we have bad luck, it is not meant to be, it was never going to happen. This is fair enough but we should also be able to tell ourselves that we have done the best we could in a particular circumstance.
The question then comes up, why bother even to do our best, if we know it ends up in failure?During most “downs” in our life, we can’t find the energy to push-back against the negativity, let alone pick ourselves up and have the strength to attempt to correct the situation. So why even bother, when we know it’s not going to work the way we want it to?
To challenge reality, to change something — we shouldn’t be doing this to become a hero, to put on a brave face or because we *must* do the right thing. It’s not to fix an impossible or a futile situation and somehow miraculously, get the result we want.
It’s actually for two simple reasons:
- When we pick ourselves up during a failure, (be it a small failure or a big failure), we tell and show ourselves something amazing — that we can rely on ourselves to find solutions to our problems. Now, these solutions may work or not work, but what matters is our intention behind — and that Intention is that “We are acting in our best interests, we are taking care of ourselves”.
- Secondly and most importantly, when we pick ourselves up, we ingrain subconsciously that when difficulties arise, we are the type of person who look for solutions. The more we pick ourselves up, the more we create a habit of it. This in turn means that, automatically, the next time something goes wrong or someone says something nasty to you, you are not going to take it lying down. You are going to correct the situation. Again remember, that the intention is not getting your desired result, the intention is to show yourself (and others) that you are the type of person who is there for yourself, even if no one else is.
Michael CJ Fox is an Author, Traveler, Consultant who worked in several companies. If you are interested in reading more, please check out the book,How to Handle Bullying at work, which encompasses practical advice, experiences on how to handle toxic workplaces, bosses, colleagues and helps you make wise decisions.