If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going
Here's another thought from the Wambach speech that I'm really feeling today:
MAKE FAILURE YOUR FUEL
Here’s something the best athletes understand, but seems like a hard concept for non-athletes to grasp. Non-athletes don’t know what to do with the gift of failure. So they hide it, pretend it never happened, reject it outright-and they end up wasting it.
Listen: Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it's something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.
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I have experienced a major professional setback over the past two years and it feels like failure. It's not MY failure though. I did what I was supposed to do - and more. And I ultimately won back some of what I lost. But it still feels like I lost...because I did. I lost the opportunity to make a difference in a place I really wanted to make a difference.
And you could argue that I *did* make that failure my fuel. I chose to undertake my master's degree and I succeeded at completing it. Just because that is not valued here does not mean it's not valuable. I value it and I intend to use it to lift myself out of the poor situation that someone I trusted put me in.
It's maybe karma that I'm experiencing someone else being the golden child since I was put in that role in a previous job. I didn't choose to be the golden child, however, and neither has my co-worker. It not only hurts me (as it is intended to do), it hurts him in ways he doesn't even realize yet. It does piss me off, though, to be treated poorly and to see someone else treated well. It shouldn't be a zero sum game but it is in this case. I try very hard to celebrate his success and to NOT see that success as something that happened as a result of my failure, but that's pretty much what happened.
I do have to get past this feeling. And I am trying - I am making these everyday microaggressions into fuel for me next step - getting out of this hell. I have taken on a formal mentor and I am taking steps to making connections where I want to be. I'm applying for jobs and I've polished up my LinkedIn profile. I just have to be patient and diligent and keep on working the plan.
After the latest bullshit, I took my shitty laptop and got out of the office for an hour-and-a-half. I got stuff done and cleared my head. I got away from the reminder that my boss has it out for me. I just need to hannnnnnnggggg onnnnnnnnnn a little longer.
I'm already composing my resignation letter in my head.