What will you do next? This one question may be the key to success.
Our lives are filled with events. This list is long and complex, especially when you add personal experiences, but I’ll just stick with corporate issues in this blog post.
Events can include issues such as:
- A competitor surprises you with a new product or strategy in the marketplace.
- A disruptive new technology catches you off guard.
- You fail at an assignment.
- A teammate seems to be cutting you down behind your back.
- Your boss seems to be showing favorites on the team.
- You just experienced great corporate, team or personal success.
As you can see these events can range from outside your control, to personal experiences, failures, successes and everything in between.
With each of these, we will experience emotions. These emotions will vary as wildly at the events themselves and range from good to bad. We may experience:
- A desire to retaliate.
- Feelings of failure.
- Wanting to react immediately.
- Being a victim.
Again, our reaction, emotions, and immediate feelings will be all over the board. They’re natural and they will happen. Don’t assume that “as an adult” you should keep your emotions under control and feel bad about your reactions. They’re human. They will happen.
But, what you do next will determine your success or failure now and throughout life. Having the initial reaction is involuntary. What you do next is a choice.
If you’re part of a team or maybe even the team leader, you should intentionally talk about what you do next to deal with the issue.
If you’re dealing with a failure:
- don’t stick your head in the sand
- don’t ignore the truth
- don’t hang on to some false or out of date view of the world
- don’t write it off as bad luck
If you’re dealing with success:
- Don’t let it go to your head
- Don’t assume you’ve got everything figured out
- Don’t assume your success will last more than a day
- Don’t stop figuring out how to get better every day
Whatever the circumstances, figure out what to do next.
Great individuals and teams are constantly learning and growing. They’re figuring out what to do next.
Enjoy your success. Mourn your failures. But in all circumstances constantly be asking “What should we (I) being doing next?”
