"I'm so upset that my boss didn't recognize my accomplishment. It's like no one thought I'd done something extraordinary. And I knew I had!! Not one person has brought in such a huge client on board within their first quarter of joining. Still, I was not appreciated!!!"
As I heard these words, I realized that at some point of time, I have also felt this way. All of us have, probably felt invisible at some point and underappreciated in professional or personal lives.
I delved deeper into the issue with my conversation-partner and realized that in reality, everyone had complimented him on his achievement with the exception of his boss. But clearly no one else's hi-fives counted. His zone of approval was largely influenced by the boss. And for reasons unknown to us, the boss had chosen to sidestep this recognition.
My conversation-partner was antagonized.
We decided to park this incident for a short bit, and I asked this-
"Why do you do this work?"
After the plain response of earn a living, my conversation-partner kept going and uttered words like happiness, enjoyment, sense of achievement, career goal, success. I cued in my next direct question-
"How do you know you are succeeding?"
Array of phrases in his response included - earning more money, higher post, satisfaction, upgrade of life quality for family. Ok, I said-
"Which of these is missing right now?"
Nothing. On further discussion, we realized that he had been consistently growing in the earlier organization but the fear of not being recognized for this particular gig was stemming from the loss of future increments, which may not come his way now.
Come to think of it objectively, there could be multiple reasons for this situation to have risen:
- The Boss expected more and wanted to hold off on the recognition.
- The culture of recognition was different in this organization and was more formalized.
- The Boss hired him under duress and didn't want him to succeed.
- The Boss didn't want to alienate the new hire from the existing team.
..And probably 10 more reasons can be logically listed.
But solving none of these was going to give my conversation-partner a sustainable understanding and tool to handle these situations in the future.
As you've guessed correctly, the main challenge here is that is his locus of happiness was lying outside of him. He recognized his own achievements and yet looked outside for approval.
As it happens with a lot of us, unknowingly. We feel victimized.
So, the next time you are feeling like a victim, try this simple hack.
Stand outside this picture and consider the possibilities as an outsider looking in. It's really easy to see the problem- solution from outside-in.
You'll auto-switch to an objective POV and see the problem for what it could be, not limited to your perception of it.
Well, the obvious next step is to move the locus on happiness from elsewhere to squarely inside us. But that's a dialogue for another article...
Keep reading and commenting.