Feeling ignored or on the outside at work can make us feel as if we don’t matter and negatively affect our job performance and career trajectory—especially if we have issues with self-worth. When we feel unseen, ignored or rejected, it’s easy to write ourselves off as unworthy, but feelings aren’t facts, although they might seem like it in the heat of the moment. The main question to ask is, “Am I jumping to conclusions, or do I overreact with assumptions and show up with co-workers and management in a way that turns them off?” Sometimes a brush-off has less to do with us—even less to do with treatment from hard-harded colleagues—and more to do with assumptions we make about workplace scenarios.
Jumping To Conclusions Without Evidence
The brain makes up all sorts of untested stories hundreds of times a day, which causes us to ostracize ourselves without realizing it. Your boss doesn’t respond to a text, a colleague wears a frown and uses a certain tone of voice. You’re overlooked for the promotion or not included on the guest list. Chances are you assume the worst, over-personalize the event, and your emotional assumptions hijack your “thinking mind,” causing you to jump to conclusions. After you tear the perceived perpetrator a new one, she or he stares at you—open mouthed—as though you’ve lost your mind. Left unchecked, when we treat feelings as facts, it siphons the success out of our career.
After a novice realtor sold millions of dollars of real estate in the first twelve months, her realty company named her salesperson of the year. But she told me it was a fluke, that the next year would probably be a dud. I was floored. From the outside, she was flourishing, but on the inside she was withering on the vine. It’s amazing how many of us sabotage our careers with the mental opposition of rejecting a positive perspective in favor of a negative one. In this case, the realtor’s negative beliefs discounted, minimized and ignored positive feedback that contradicted how she thought of herself. But despite everything coming up roses, she latched onto the misery of her negative prediction—even though it never came true—and the exaggerated thoughts, streaming through her mind, became her reality.
Getting A Reality Check
The voice in our mind’s echo chamber can tell us we’re defeated before we begin. When we let that voice take over and give us the brush off, we’re already halfway down, and we haven’t even started the journey. The inner critic can eviscerate us with thoughts such as, “I’m not cool enough,” “I made a job decision that team members didn’t like it. I won’t stick my neck out again” or “I just don’t fit in with my team.” And because we assume it, we believe it…
Read More: How To Reboot Your Career If You Get The Brush-Off At Work