At the Shadow of Our Best

This episode is based on the scenario where many of us find ourselves, sinking deeper and deeper into depression because of our environment. How can we go ahead and take charge of our own decisions in regards to the direction of our careers and most importantly, our own lives?

Transcript

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Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Living in Exhortation. My name is More Mwenro, and today we are going to be talking about being at the shadow of your best. Where do we turn to when nothing is going our way? Whether in our personal lives, in our workplaces, or even within our social circles, we tend to face challenges on a day-to-day basis. One of the major challenges people go through is feeling unhard or feeling invisible. One might find themselves in a situation where, for example, at work, they may have really great ideas or which they share with management or their supervisor only to realize they're in an environment that wants to stick to their status quo. Or even worse, they just don't care about your new ideas. It might even be happening in a family setup or even in a social one. The same scenario leads to one feeling invisible or not valuable enough. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, in his book called Originals, talks about this. He says that through research he found out there are four types of ways to deal with this. These are either one raising our voice, two making an exit, three neglect, and four persistence. Now think of it in this manner. Think of it of a quadrant. And the on the upper side of the quadrant is where we have the first two, that is raising our voice and making an exit, and then on the lower side of the quadrant we have neglect or persistence. Now on the upper side is where we deal with people who want to who still have hope and want to change the situation. On the lower side of the quadrant is where we have those who just want to flow and maintain the status quo. So by raising our voice, what Adam means is that people should make their proposals known within their circles. Even if it means changing tact on how we do it in order for us to be heard and implemented. On making an exit, it's just simple. These are people who have just given up on any changes happening in their domain and have realized they need to change or switch organizations. On persistence, these are people who understand that their surroundings don't favor them. However, despite this, they go ahead and work through the challenges. They stick through it, they go through the mud without tracking feathers. These are the kinds of people who just decide to dig in and put their heads down and do what they have to do. Lastly, we have neglect. That is what in modern terms is called quiet quitting, where people just give up on trying to do better or trying to be better or help the organization become better. It is where someone doesn't push themselves and just they just do the bare minimum and nothing more than that. They no longer participate in important contributions or conversations in the group. They seem to keep to themselves and no longer have hope to achieve better as a team or even improve the group. At least once in our careers, we can all agree that we have found ourselves in one, if not all, of these categories in our places of work. It is such a difficult place to be in because sometimes it is depressing having such work issues hovering around us. Having this in mind, I would say this. One would rather be on the upper side of the quadrant, the one that I talked about, uh changing the situation, those who want those who want to change the situation, than the other side of the quadrant where we have those who want to maintain the status quo. Now those who want to change the situation are those who exit and those who raise their voices, and those who want to maintain the status quo are those who just persist and those who neglect. This is because it shows that one is taking responsibility of their situation, or he or she is not taking no for an answer, nor are they prepared to play victim in a culture they are not satisfied in. Taking initiative of your own life and ensuring you stay in charge of your own choices gives you an upper hand in designing how your future will look like. Therefore, here's to never giving up on our goals. And as my father puts it, I end with this dare chase that dream. Food for thought? I choose to believe so. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, take care of yourselves and have a good one.