Thoughts on:
Challenges and the unknown By Chuck Morris
To become great at your job you need to challenge yourself on a regular basis. If you don’t, you can become stuck in a quagmire and eventually will be doing things by routine and becoming stale at it. Never settle for stale, ever! Did I hear someone say that their work is challenging enough, so why reach into the dark looking for more? I agree; the work at times can be very challenging. At times it is everything you can do to muster the fortitude to carry on with it to see it through to a successful conclusion. But that is life my friend! An acquaintance many years ago muttered aloud while neck deep trying to solve a work-related problem, “Mother told me there would be days like this! But she never told me there would be this many!” That sums it up quite nicely. You have discovered that your challenges don’t just appear one day and then are gone for good. In fact, much like Murphy (as in Murphy’s Law), your challenges like you and they will appear many more times during your work life. 36
Ops Talk • Fall 2015
Why not adapt to them? Instead of waiting around for the next one to present itself, why not seek them out? Go where others fear to tread. Bring your mindset to a point whereby a challenge is one created by you and for you. Thinking of something to challenge you is not hard to do in your type of work. Start by picking a challenge that you believe may be an easy one to resolve. As you move through your work life developing and responding to challenges, you will get better at it. In fact, you will grow to become intuitive in many cases and end up anticipating the challenge before it appears. This will therefore allow you to already have some method in mind on how to ‘challenge’ that challenge and turn it into another success. People will stare in awe at you as you learn to master the unknown. Don’t forget, a challenge that appears on your desktop has an unknown quality to it and with your method of beating that, the unknown is more of a grey area now.
When you finally sit down full of determination to beat this horrible thing, do not forget this; all of us, in every level of our work life have been through it. Do not be afraid to have a chat over coffee one day and broach the topic with a friend. That is what friends and your work peers are for, to help. A challenge can be stressful and can create fear in you. Fear of failure? Fear of condemnation? Fear of being demeaned by others around you? Let me tell you, no one goes to work liking the fact they may fail at something. We have all been there. But you know what, failure is part of life, so to respond to it properly use it as a teaching tool for yourself. Don’t cover it up, use it to advance. This in its own is a challenge for you. This will make you a bigger and better person and add to the awe others have when they see you in action! You are an awesome person. I know; I saw you in action! b
