Hello - Here for more happiness

[Amuchbetterme]

Hi All,

OK here goes. I feel like I'm one of those people that is extremely lucky yet I'm still unhappy which feels very broken to me.

I have a great family (wife & 2 kids), all healthy, and between us, my wife and I have good paying jobs that has meant money has never been a problem for us. I have a couple of good friends and relationships are solid with my family (parents & brother) and my wife's family.

...yet im still unhappy, and where that comes to is career. While im not one of thise people trying to rush my way to the top of the corporate ladder, I do want my career to progress, and recently completed an MBA. My performance has been strong pretty much everywhere I've been, but what I keep finding is that people issues really upset me and in turn disrupts everything else.

I got a bit sick of large corporates and so this year I've started at a global tech start up. The onboarding has been the best I've ever experienced but recently had a meeting with an indirect superior (I have a dotted reporting line to them) which really bothered me. It wasn't an aggressive confrontation by any means, but I left that meeting very deflated as I felt I have now entered a very junior role compared to what I was expecting.

I give this not as a specific problem to solve but a good example of something that really got me down. I've thought about leaving the role at least a dozen times today, and I've been a real downer on my family the whole day.

Just to help, I rarely face scenarios of conflict and Ive received a lot of positive feedback about my leadership style. I feel my problem is I let events like my recent work example really upset me.

Hoping to learn a lot from this forum so I can build the techniques to be more resilient so this stuff doesn't affect my home life.

Thanks for reading!

[Amuchbetterme]

Thanks again Mark Z and Petal22,

I looped back with my boss on Friday to get feedback on how I was going and they were pretty happy. I also asked about the expectations of my role and he reiterated that there was no change to what was originally discussed in my interview so was pretty happy with that.

Reflecting now have to say I think there were a combination of things at play here. I think my Indirect Superior is stepping into a pretty big role and probably feels a bit insecure which reflects their behaviour. In turn I have felt insecure from the conversations with her that my role was becoming a lot smaller than what I was expecting.

While feeling quite down about it a week ago, the one thing I'm very glad I did was come here first rather than freak out in front of my boss.

I definitely think I need to work more on my mindfulness. I practice meditation a couple of times a week and that works well for general stress. I've since found a "mood capture" app - Daylio that allows you to capture and reflect on how you're feeling.

All good learning 🙂

[Mark Z.]

Hi Amuchebetterme,

Many thanks for your update. Very wise actions and very good outcome, so glad to hear.

Your continuous reflection shows that you have the genes for self-evolving. "What does not kill you makes you stronger".

And Daylio app looks really good, thanks for sharing 🙂

Mark

[Petal22]

That’s ok Amuchbetterme,

what you have said sounds great in regards to your feedback from your boss 😊

We are glad you came here too, always here if you need.

You sound like you are becoming more conscious internally …… ( self awareness)…… this is a wonderful thing because it also brings self growth!

The way that you have been able to reflect on things is wonderful and changing your perception shows growth.

Keep it up you can grow even more……… push through the boundaries because the boundaries have growth on the other side 😊🙏