Recover from Career Bites
Best-selling author Karen Salmansohn - who wrote The Bounce Back Book: How to Thrive in the Face of Uncertainty, Setbacks and Losses - gave Businessweek a useful analogy on how to cope with sudden retrenchments or negative developments at work that may be impacting on your productivity.
Salmansohn recommended you use the method that Graham Thoma Chipperfield, a lion tamer with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, used after he was bitten by Sheba, one of his 500 pound lionesses. “Before he (Chipperfield) got back in the cage with her, he analysed the event from Sheba’s point of view. First he recognised that lions tend to think of the trainer as another lion. So when he attempted to break up a fight between her and another lion, Sheba figured he wanted to join the fight.”
Importantly, Chipperfield didn’t blame Sheba for her wrong thinking, nor did he fixate on negative thinking toward her, as humans tend to do. He took the time to consider the incident from her perspective. “This is the same technique used by many therapists, beginning with Freud, called “mimesis”. Through role-play from that party’s perpective, patients can better understand why someone has “bitten” them, and hopefully avoid being bitten again. If you’ve been fired, rejected, yelled at – taked time today to see things from Sheba’s point of view, so that perhaps you can avoid these things happening again.”
Of course, if is very tempting to dwell on a negative situation, and to ask “Why me?” “Why didn’t I…” “But what if…” Salmansohn suggests that you think of these question as coming from an outside source: would they be acceptable in that case? Most likely they’d elicit some interesting answers from you. And importantly, ensure that you limit the amount of time you spend obssessing about negative events so that you’re able to take some good away from it. Move on and up.
