Overcoming Career Setbacks

Water is wet, the sun is hot, and you’ll experience career setbacks. Whether it’s missing out on a promotion, getting fired, or botching that project, it will happen. It’s out of your control.

What is in your control, however, is your reaction.

When bad things happen, our thoughts about them impact how much they harm us. Where one person loses their job and thinks their life is over, another sees an opportunity to explore a new career or take some time to travel. 

Even where we can’t avoid the direct suffering inflicted by a problem, we can at least avoid hurting ourselves further by evading the negative spiral that often follows.

So here’s something to help. It’s a little different than our usual email — a checklist for overcoming career setbacks. When times get tough and the office feels more like a prison, you can turn to this to maintain your equanimity, get back to all of that really valuable, game-changingly important graduate work, and maximize shareholder value.

Here you go:

1. Is this going to materially hurt you over a significant period? If not, should you still be upset? 

2. Is there some hidden upside you haven’t noticed yet? Could this end up being beneficial? Maybe you’ve dodged a bullet you otherwise wouldn’t have. 

3. Is this misfortune funny or ironic in some way? Is it either completely typical or unexpected? Maybe you tripped and spilled your coffee. Would you see the funny side if it happened to a stranger?

4. Could something even worse have happened that didn’t? Are there other people who’ve ended up even worse off than you, which makes you look, if anything, lucky?

5. What unexpected good things have happened to you lately? Do these offset your bad luck in this case?

6. What would you say to someone else if this happened to them?

7. Do you endorse the idea that everyone in the world who encounters a situation of this kind should also be sad? If not, why should you be sad? You shouldn't.

8. What can you learn from this situation that will make you better off by preventing the same, or worse, in the future?

9. Is there a relatively easy way for you to overcome this problem? If so, do that. 

10. Based on past experience, do you have the strength to get through this problem? Unless this is among the worst things in your life, the answer is almost certainly yes! Have you gotten through something similarly bad in the past? Again, almost certainly, yes. Are you still distressed by similar misfortunes from the past? Hopefully not – in which case, why bother being distressed about this thing now?

What if you feel like you’ve been wronged? Perhaps by a colleague or boss? Like the game of office politics has found its next victim and you’ve ended up with a knife in your back.

Here are a few things to think about:

1. Can you see a way that what they’ve done would have been reasonable from their point of view?

2. Is there any way of interpreting their behavior that doesn’t imply that they were inconsiderate or mean-spirited? For example, maybe they didn’t know some relevant information, or foresee this outcome.

3. What if people are just dumb and make stupid mistakes? Shit happens. Does it make more sense to just get over it? 

4. Has this person ever done any nice things for you that help to offset the harm they’ve done here?

5. Have you ever wronged someone similarly, by accident, or through selfishness? Chances are, yes. Is this person actually less considerate than you, all things considered? 

6. If the above fails, can you just avoid this person in the future and pay them no further mind? Hopefully! In which case, problem solved and you can move on.