Professional Positivity 

When our professional plans do not go as we wished, there is a choice to be made. Whilst we may not be in charge of the change itself, we can choose how to respond to it.

A client didn’t turn up for a coaching session today. Having not only been looking forward to working with her, I had also devoted time to the preparation of both our working environment, as well as to how we would spend our time together. It would be easy to have gone with being irritated. There is a lot to fit into a day! However, when a woman is locked in her own home, there is very little either she or I could do about it. I was forced to recognise that the concern lay more with her safety than my ‘lost’ hour.
So, I took a deep breath and, instead of wasting energy on being annoyed or indeed taking the victim-stance of ‘why does this happen to me?’, I chose to use the time well instead. If I’m gonna complain about how busy I am, then best I choose to use this ‘gap’ as an opportunity rather than waste it!
So this is not a rant about ‘how good I am’, but more a noticing of the choices we have and the consequences of our thinking. I knew a colleague was having difficulties regarding her website so I used the time to give her a call. I value her deeply, she has been hugely helpful to me in the past, I wanted to connect with her. How nourishing this conversation was.
A bit of shared laughter, an exploration of domains, platforms and coding, and I believe we both left that time ‘together’ feeling mutually nourished. And so I left the house for my next meeting with a renewed sense of purpose and hope.
As my mother says “shit happens, but it’s what you do with it that is important”, and I believe she is right. One way of thinking could have turned a ‘lost’ hour into a ruined-day. Another way of thinking and acting turned this time into a positive and nourishing experience that fueled me and my world. Choosing a positive perspective is powerful.

Explore here to learn more of career coaching with Rebecca and here to subscribe to blog.