Have you grown up enough for work?

Do you sometimes go into the office, or meet a group of colleagues and feel that you are still in the school playground?  I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people say

It’s not my fault

They are only looking out for themselves

My boss doesn’t understand me

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Perhaps there is a blame culture where people feel the need to protect themselves.  The blame culture does cultivate the victim within all of us, and some people really like to play the victim don’t they?

Part of growing up, for every human being, is to learn to take personal responsibility.  I don’t mean go the other way and be the hero.  This is equally as unhelpful as the victim.  There are plenty of heroes that spend their time telling you how incompetent department X is, or person Y, and if it wasn’t for them saving the day the deal, project, company wouldn’t be here today.

No, I mean being a warrior, stepping into your adulthood and taking personal accountability and responsibility over your actions, successes and failures.  Your adult, warrior self is part of your internal crew that we all need to develop to succeed.  Some of us leave our warrior at home when we enter the work place.

Our warrior self has courage, strength, and the ability to make goals, set limits and defends themselves.  When we use our warrior, we have courage, discipline and skill.

My warrior has a name, she is the IRON LADY and I love her.   She looks like Britannia, and stands strong, lovingly defending what’s important to her with courage, assertiveness and heart.

She is able to say NO, when it feels wrong, and say YES when she knows it’s right.

Ask yourself how often do you bring your adult self, your warrior into the workplace?

1. How do you set your goals? are you given them and accept them, or do you create them, challenge them and do what you feel is right?
2. How do you deal with feedback or challenge? Do you accept it and agree on the outside?  Or do you fight back and disagree? Or do you take it on board, own it, accept it, and learn from it?
3. When you are given a task that you can’t take on, feel uncomfortable about or don’t feel confident about, do you just take it?  Do you ask questions, clarify and challenge or negotiate?  Do you stand up for yourself?

I invite you step out of the playground and step into adulthood.  Take responsibility, learn accountability and have courage to stand up for what you believe.  I invite you to have the courage to look at your mistakes and learn from them, embrace your weaknesses and play to your strengths.