#workplace lessons

By Lolly Daskal, Inc. March 12, 2017

If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s that we all make mistakes along the way (and hopefully learn valuable lessons from them). But if you’re smart, you’ll learn as much as possible from the mistakes of others and spare yourself some of the grief.

Here are some important career lessons that you can benefit from without doing it the hard way.

1. Life is short and it’s here to be lived. Life is too short to spend being unhappy. If you have a job you hate, a boss who discredits you, or a career that isn’t taking you anywhere, do something about it today. You don’t want to wake up one day and regret not making a change when you could.

2. In relationships, the little things are the big things. The most successful people tend to have the broadest and most diverse social networks. And they aren’t just superficial acquaintances, but a broad network of genuine connections. Developing relationships is a very important part of doing business. The more time and effort you put into the little things, the more important they become.

3. Success starts from inside out. Many driven and successful people concentrate on every aspect of their work life but neglect their health. Being busy, productive, and successful is great, but you need to stay healthy to keep up the pace. Make sure you’re getting enough nutrition, exercise, and rest.

4. Your social life belongs offline. If you spend hours on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, checking emails and messages, you’re missing out on more than you’re gaining. Connecting to the world means spending time with people in real life--speaking to them, interacting with them, and connecting with them.

5. Make the world your university. Make a serious commitment to never stop learning. There’s something to be learned from everyone, so work to gain some new knowledge every day. The alternative is being left behind the pace of change scratching your head.

6. Good things come to those who diversify. If you stick to what you already know, you’ll never learn anything new. The most successful people are flexible, agile, and know how to pivot. Make sure you’re prepared to get the most out of every opportunity, whatever form it takes.

7. Success is incremental. Overnight success is seriously rare. Most people take years, even decades, to build a great career. The secret is to work hard every single day, and remember that even small wins can boost your life tremendously. Over time, you’ll find yourself reaching bigger and bigger goals.

8. Together is always better. Many people would rather go it alone, but success is a team sport. The idea that you can succeed on your own is a myth. Every big idea deserves a team to make it happen.

9. What worries you masters you. Worry can be helpful when it spurs you to take action and solve a problem. But if you’re preoccupied with what-ifs and worst-case scenarios, worry becomes a problem. Instead of worrying, work on solving problems and getting through the challenges.

10. Failure is never fatal. Like it or not, messing up is an essential part of the success process. Failure is never the end--it’s the opportunity to do better next time. Those who fail and are brave enough to try again eventually win out.

A reflection on mistakes, feedback, and the quiet moment when doubt enters the room.

There’s a strange kind of silence that happens when you’re trying to learn something, but no one actually teaches you how.

For the past few months, I found myself asking a question I never thought I would seriously entertain: Am I actually good at what I do?

Before this experience, I never really had to ask that. I had spent years working in leadership roles -- managing people, solving problems, navigating difficult situations, making decisions when things became complicated.

I wasn’t perfect. But I was confident enough to know that I could figure things out. Then suddenly, I felt like someone who couldn’t even do the basics right.

And it made me pause.

Maybe I do have an inferiority complex that I never noticed before. Or maybe I was just pretending to be capable all along. What do they call it, imposter syndrome?

That’s the thing about doubt, it creeps in quietly. Once it’s there, it starts asking questions about every version of yourself that existed before it.

There’s a particular kind of discomfort when your past experiences suddenly stop feeling like proof of your capability and start feeling like coincidences. I began wondering if everything I had done before this role was just luck.

Maybe I had simply been in environments that were more forgiving. Maybe the version of myself I thought was competent was just someone who hadn’t been tested properly yet.

To be fair, I know I made mistakes. I won’t pretend otherwise -- I am not the type who'll fake it 'til I make it. The role required skills that I was still learning, and there were outputs that I struggled to deliver the way they were expected.

But what made the experience difficult wasn’t simply the mistakes themselves. It was the way feedback happened.

During meetings where my work was reviewed, the mistakes were always clearly pointed out. What was wrong would be identified, sometimes in detail. But what rarely followed was the correction -- the how.

What should the correct output actually look like? What was the proper process? How should it be done differently next time? When I asked these questions, the answer was often a variation of “Sinabi ko na sayo yan.”

Maybe it had been mentioned before. Maybe it had been said briefly somewhere in the middle of a meeting. But understanding something enough to correct a mistake requires more than hearing it once.

Over time, something else added to the confusion. The expectations themselves seemed to shift. What was acceptable in one submission would suddenly be incorrect in the next. Instructions, or at least the interpretation of them, seemed to change depending on the moment.

So I adjusted. Then adjusted again. But without ever fully understanding the standard I was supposed to follow.

Because of that, meetings about my submissions slowly became something I started to dread. Not because I didn’t want feedback, but because I knew the conversation would focus on what went wrong without necessarily showing me how to make it right.

Looking back now, one realization bothers me. I kept making the same mistakes. Not because I didn’t care enough to correct them, but because the correct method was never fully taught.

It’s a strange feeling to go from leading teams to questioning whether you can even perform a rank-and-file job properly.

Two weeks into my employment, I remember being told something that stayed with me. “If nahihiya ka, hindi ka para sa A****N.”

At the time, I had made a light comment that I felt shy reaching out to certain people. They didn’t know me yet. I didn’t know them either. I was still trying to understand the environment, the relationships, the unspoken rules of how things worked. What if I messaged someone and they thought, “Who is this?”

It wasn’t fear. It was caution. In my mind, I was simply trying to navigate respectfully within a new space.

But sometimes caution and hesitation look the same depending on how someone chooses to interpret them.

There was also a moment during one of our meetings that stayed with me longer than the rest of the conversation. S/he mentioned that one of his/her biggest pet peeves was people making mistakes.

I remember pausing internally when I heard that. Not because I felt defensive. But because I felt… confused.

Mistakes are usually where learning begins. So I found myself wondering (quietly, only in my own head) how someone could dislike mistakes so strongly when mistakes are part of being human.

A strange thought crossed my mind (Of course I didn’t say that out loud): If you make mistakes too, do you end up hating yourself? Do you get mad/angry at yourself?

That was the moment something shifted for me. Because for the first time, I considered the possibility that the problem wasn’t entirely about my capability.

There was a time during a quieter conversation with other members of the team, they told me something that helped me understand the dynamic a little better. Someone casually said, “Ganyan talaga siya. When s/he talks, parang higher than thou dapat siya.”

It wasn’t said maliciously. More like an observation people had already learned to live with. Hearing that didn’t erase my mistakes or the things I could have done better. Those are still mine to own. But it did shift how I understood the experience.

Because when mistakes are treated not as part of learning but as something that irritates people personally, the environment stops feeling like a place where you can grow.

Instead, it starts to feel like a place where every misstep confirms a conclusion that may have already been made.

When I eventually looked at my evaluation sheets, something else stood out to me. The form was supposed to measure behavioral aspects of the role, but many of the remarks listed the technical mistakes in my outputs.

Those mistakes existed precisely because I was still learning the skills the role required.

It made me pause and think about alignment -- between expectations, support, and evaluation. At times, the level of documentation made me feel like every movement had been closely observed. As if someone had been quietly building a record. Not to guide improvement, but to confirm a conclusion.

Doubt is strange that way. When someone repeats your mistakes often enough, you start to believe the mistakes are the most accurate version of you.

But sometimes distance reveals something else entirely. The mistakes were real. But they were never the whole story.

I’m not writing this to assign blame. Not every workplace is the right fit for every person. Sometimes the alignment simply isn’t there. But experiences like this leave you with questions, not just about the organization, but about yourself.

Was I really struggling because I lacked the capability? Or because I was trying to learn something in an environment where learning itself felt like a mistake?

I still don’t know the full answer. But clarity has a quiet way of arriving after you step away from the environment that made you question yourself in the first place.

Maybe that’s the quiet lesson I’m taking with me. Not every environment is meant to shape you. Some environments simply reveal where you were never meant to stay. Sometimes growth isn’t about becoming someone new.

When I look back at my time in the workplace, I can’t help but reflect on the lessons I’ve learned. Continue reading The Biggest Lessons I’ve Learned in the Workplace

Libby Kane and Samantha Lee, Business Insider, Jun. 17, 2016

In the six years since college graduation, I’ve learned a few things--not including how to roast vegetables, or that New York City post offices are to be avoided at all costs.

Consider them more ... hard truths about life.

I’m not for a moment saying I know close to everything, or even most things. In fact, I probably don’t even know what I don’t know. (Wait for my follow-up post a decade from now: “Everything I thought I’d learned by age 28 was completely wrong.”)

But along the way, a few things have become clear to me.

There’s no such thing as ‘shy.’ Growing up, I wouldn’t ever raise my hand in class because everyone would look at me. I was that kid who covered her ears when people sang “happy birthday.” I blushed at the drop of the hat (I still do) and I never accepted anything adults offered me because I was desperate not to inconvenience them. I was shy.

But one day--I can’t put my finger on when--I realized that “shy” is not an excuse that carries into adulthood. Think back to the last time you saw an acquaintance who didn’t say hi, or you hung out with someone who didn’t say more than two sentences in a group. Remember the person who wouldn’t meet your eyes, or mumbled, or gave you one of those awful limp-wrist handshakes.

Did you think “oh, that poor person, he/she must be shy!” No, you didn’t. You thought something along the lines of: “What a jerk.”

Eventually, no matter how hard it is, you have to consider how your shyness makes the people around you feel and how it makes them view you. It isn’t good. At some point, you just have to get over it.

Nothing will change if you don’t change anything. I tell myself this whenever an opportunity is on the horizon: a new project, a new job, a new date, a new apartment.

If you want something different, it’s up to you to go out and seek it. You can wait for a change to fall into your lap, but you’re probably going to be waiting a long time--and frankly, the type of changes that fall into your lap are rarely good.

Everything is temporary. You will only be this age, living here, with this job, with this team, in this state of health, in this state of mental health, for so long.

You could choose to see this as a bad thing (Happiness is fleeting! Things will never be this good again!), but I consider it reassuring in two ways. Firstly, knowing that your life won’t always be this good forever inspires gratitude for the things that are going well right now. Secondly, if things aren’t good, you can take comfort in knowing that things won’t always be so bad.

Don’t lie. Have you ever read a book or seen a movie? Don’t lie. The truth always comes out.

If you don’t go, people will stop inviting you. The hardest part of working is getting up and going every day without fail. The second hardest part is trying to muster any leftover energy to be social.

I kid, a little. But the truth is that, to keep your social life, you have to resist the gravitational pull of your post-work couch (at least sometimes). People are simple. They reach out to the people who are top of mind. And if you want to be invited to things, you have to be on their minds. If you never go when you’re invited, eventually people will stop inviting you.

You have to ask for what you want. It’s terrible, I know. You could have yelled this at my childhood self every day for a year and I still wouldn’t have done it. What if they say no? What if you don’t get it?

If you don’t ask, there is almost no chance at all that you’ll get whatever it is you want.

This lesson was driven home to me a few years back while I was reading “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This,” by former Cosmo Editor-in-Chief Kate White, in preparation for an interview. The example is work-related, but it’s broadly applicable. I told my colleague Jacquelyn Smith about it when she was compiling a list of life-changing business books:

White recounts a time she was hiring to fill a position on her team. After she filled it, she heard through the grapevine that one of the existing editors was upset she hadn’t been considered for the job. Kate wondered: “How was I supposed to know she wanted it? She never told me.”

Hearing that genuine, confused perspective had a huge effect on me, someone who has never, ever liked to ask for anything. Just keeping your head down and working hard isn’t enough--if you want something at work, you have to ask for it. Otherwise, how will your boss, who might be well-meaning but definitely isn’t psychic, ever know?

People aren’t watching as closely as you think they are. Again, an anecdote:

A colleague and desk neighbor at a previous job was doing a life experiment where she wore the same six main pieces of clothing for a month. Around the 25th, I saw her in the morning and genuinely complimented her pretty red dress.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I have worn this 10 times in the last month.”

I hadn’t noticed.

And that experience rings pretty true--most of the time. Everyone is wrapped up their own lives. For the most part, they’re glossing right over the details of yours.

Many of the things you ‘are’ are actually things you choose to be. If you are always late, or you’re bad at geography, or you’re addicted to your phone, I have news for you: These aren’t inherent character traits. These are things you choose to be.

A lot of the time it’s easier to accept things about yourselves as truths rather than choices. For instance, I’m “bad at math.” Ask me about all the one-on-one help I never requested from my teachers. But I could have had tutoring. You can leave the house 15 minutes earlier. You can study maps. You can turn off your phone during dinner.

If there’s something about yourself that you aren’t proud of, it’s not written in stone. You can change it.

You have to take care of yourself. I learned this when I studied abroad during college. After two straight months of eating pretty much only Cadbury and Diet Coke, I just couldn’t figure out why I felt so terrible all the time.

Eventually, I realized I hadn’t eaten a vegetable since I arrived, and I started seeking out bags of lettuce and clementines in the grocery store. (“Nutrients!” I’d announce proudly to my very uninterested and notably better-nourished friends.)

It was my first hint that I was going to start having to take care of myself. No one was going to feed me. No one was going to make sure I exercised. No one would make my doctor or dentist appointments. If I didn’t do it, no one would. And in the years since, that hasn’t changed.

Do what you say you’re going to do. Be there when you say you’re going to be there. Meet the deadline you said you would. Make the reservation you promised to make.

If you aren’t going to do it, don’t say you will. There’s nothing worse than someone who doesn’t follow through.

Friendships take work. If you want to maintain a friendship, you have to put in the effort. You have to send the texts and the emails. You have to show up at the parties. You have to set the coffee dates. Especially when your friends don’t live across campus or down the street--a situation that gets increasingly common as people’s lives take them elsewhere--you have to put in the effort to keep (or make) friends.

Action begets action. Gym-going begets gym-going. Travel begets travel. Vegetables beget vegetables. Saving money begets saving money.