This past week I was working with a client who was frustrated because their promotion was being held up until the product launches. They’re not able to control when it launches and were so angry. It’s so not fair.
Another client joined a team to work with certain leaders and literally 4 weeks after joining, their team was reorged and all the leadership left. It felt like they made a bad choice and were getting screwed over. It was not fair.
One of my other clients told me about a manager that kept canceling and no showing their 1:1’s and then started giving them negative feedback about not prioritizing 1:1’s with them. How is it fair to expect an employee to chase down a manager that keeps canceling and no showing on meetings?
There’s a lot of things that go down that aren’t fair.
But you can’t control what other people say or do. You can’t force your promotion through or stop teams from reorging or make people show up to meetings. It’s rude, frustrating, and not fair, but it’s how it goes.
So now what?
Now you get to decide what you want to do about it.
This is when you get to advocate for yourself and wait it out or decide to move on and find something else. There’s no right or wrong answer, but the key is to fully own your decision.
Don’t change jobs out of spite or tell yourself you had no other choice. But also don’t tell yourself you were stuck and have no other options. You always have a choice.
You might not love it, but you get to choose. You choose to come to work every day. You choose to work while you are there. You choose to deliver on your projects. You choose to have integrity in your work. No one is making you do anything so you have to stop telling yourself you have no other choice.
Stay and know you are choosing to stay because you are worth it. Or leave and know you are choosing to leave because you are worth it. Either way, own your choice.
It won’t ever be fair, but owning your choice feels so much better than living from helplessness because that’s not fair to you.
If you feel like you are stuck in a position that’s not fair and want some help figuring out what to do, let’s chat. Grab time on my calendar and let’s figure it out together.
You got this.