Stepping up as an A-player

What would you do if you spent days preparing for an assessment, and on the day of the test you wake up early morning to go and do your best, only to be sent back home…simply because you were missing an identity proof that the system supposedly already has.

Cant be a worse way to start the day, hey?

Well this was my day today and while I was totally tempted to throttle the idiotic testing administrator, it got me thinking about our usual reactions when we get caught up in situations like this. (Hopefully, you don’t have as many of these though)

Essentially it comes down to two choices.

A.) I blame it on the system for being so draconian and bureaucratic and not having any sense of flexibility in such circumstances

B.) I own responsibility for not knowing better and taking the damn document in the first place.

Truth be told, I chose a bit of both.

While I was really really mad at the robotic behavior of the administrator and the system in general, I also couldn’t get away without accepting my own contribution in this inexplicably annoying mess up.

As it turns out, this is something most of us avoid, and understandably so. I mean why take accountability for something when you can blame it on someone else…

As much of an escape route as this may seem like, the long-term results are damaging.

Getting stuck in the victim mindset not only makes one a giant pain in the ass and extremely difficult for other people to deal with, but it blinds us towards our interpretation of reality. Because failing to see a full 360 view of any given situation and incorporating other people’s perspectives is a recipe for indefinite conflict.

A for Accountability

To cut to the chase, playing victim is what destroys companies, ruins relationships and affects our sense of self. Not to forget, utterly ruins our scope of growth. We cant grow if we’re not learning from our mistakes and we cant learn from our mistakes if we don’t accept them in the first palce.

Which brings me to my next point, accepting our flaws for what they are. Needless to say, it takes courage to do so and even more courage in admitting our flaws to someone else. But that’s where we actually end up earning more credibility and respect, as counterintuitive as it may seem.

Nothing is more important than earning respect for yourself, which comes from being self-aware and introspective, a skill that takes practice to learn but is worth the returns. I consider self-accountability as the key to meaningful change and increasing our personal impact.

So as I end my day with a certain level of frustration and regret, I shall wake up tomorrow with a new lesson, knowing better for next time.

And Ofcourse a lifelong reminder to always carry my bloody documents…