5 Self-Checks that Could Save Your Job
So many conditions guarantee a groovy work environment, but the most important one I’ve learned in 30 years of self-employment is that being FUN to work with is primarily the reason people keep you around. More than talent, it can be what keeps food on your table for life.
Being fun to work with has requirements.
It is a spiritually enlightened way of being. It is enlightened, of course, if you learn how to analyze your own behavior and then make corrections. Life adjustments lead you down a lighted path.
Here are 5 self-checks to register your fun-o-meter.
1. Are you a special person people love to see?
If not, make yourself more open and friendly. Invite people to spend time with you outside of the reasons you are working together. For example, ask, “How are the kids doing?” or “How are you feeling about this project?” If they complain, simply say, “I hear you. I wonder if there’s a way we could adjust to that so it’s not so draining of an issue.”
What happens in those dialogue invitations is you ask what people care about, and when you demonstrate your concern for people’s cares, you show yourself as a place to “exuberate.” When people are able to step outside of their work environment, for a moment, even if just in the mind, there is a sense of relax. Relax – meaning a moment of lax in the tension – gives people an instantaneous feeling of personal relatedness.
2. Do you have a healthy boundary between you and negative people?
People who are negative become so for two, different reasons, requiring two types of boundaries. For one it’s compassion, the other to ignore.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF NEGATIVE PEOPLE
TYPE 1: THE AC/DC
These are actually positive people who are very sensitive to negative energy. Their expression of negativity is just a way to sweep-out the dark forces around them, from their core being. These people are often extremely empathic; they constantly battle unseen forces of darkness around them. Dark forces can come from other people and the work or home environments.
As negative forces enter the auric field of the ac/dc-type, s/he feels an uncontrollable urge to release the vibe. So this person tends to unconsciously express verbally what is too much for them to handle alone.
Ac/dcs are usually very likable people, but their dark words can be disruptive if not kept in check. They usually need to discover their own powers of persuasion in order to be better at knowing where the dark thoughts are coming from. They need to alter what they let into their minds and observe what to keep out, before negative conditions enter their being and make a nuisance.
This will change not only the bad habit of being a constant naysayer, but also make the ac/dc-type feel better, knowing their negative perspective is not always a reality, but an alarm. The alarm perspective can be literal.
When the alarm is sounded too often, however, people ignore it. If these persons identify an alarm’s necessity before it’s bespoken, they can get a handle on whether or not it’s relative to the current situation or just an expression of negative thoughts derived empathically.
TYPE 2: ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRACTION TYPE
This type of negativity comes from the internal nature of a negative person. The internal nature of negativity is a dark cauldron of disgust. Disgust is an unfortunate altering of the environmental condition, which can invade the pureness of any situation.
A person who is hell bent on disgust of all humankind will take any situation and turn it into the worst thing on earth. Here’s how it looks:
a. Good people are seen as having ulterior motives.
b. Ambitious people are seen as snakes in the grass.
c. Happy people are seen as fakes.
d. Fat people are seen as victims of society.
e. Skinny people are seen as vain.
f. Conditions of few too many standards of behavior is seen as being suspect for control and manipulation of higher authority, rather than just a situation where there is neglect of attention.
This type of negativity in an environment can be viewed as simply “no fun” but it is actually more damaging as a whole than that. Negative people who are internally disgusted by everything they see, can infect everything that is in the sphere of influence above, around, and below them.
Keep yourself clear of them, and protected by light when you come near them. They don’t see light, so you will be ignored. This is the best possible scenario. Engaging this type, in any way, is a way to alert their dark force against you. DO NOT engage. And don’t look them in the eye, it could scare the hell out of you.
3. Are working too hard to get people to like you?
When you are insecure about the people around you, you will probably adopt ways of dealing with your insecurity that are really annoying for people. Here are some signs you do this.
1. You laugh at your own jokes and no one else does
2. You laugh at things that really aren’t funny
3. You make people cringe when you tell a joke
4. People tend to shy away from you when you are on the telephone, meaning they don’t like to be on the phone with you for too long for fear you will tell another joke.
5. You don’t find out what’s going on after work with the people in the office until it’s either already happened or too late for you to attend
6. You happen to say things that people find annoying and they get irritated at you
7. You have a tick that people find strange and distracting
8. You can’t get anyone to confide in you about changes going on in the work environment
These are just a few cues that indicate you need to work on feeling more secure with who you are. When people see insecurity in a work environment, they tend to not want to be around you. They think you think you aren’t good enough, and no one wants to baby the person who can’t stand on his/her own two feet, at work.
Your colleagues don’t mind helping their closest friends, outside of work, but at work they think it’s a competitive advantage for someone to be insecure, and will often use it against you, rather than help cheer you up. Your feelings of insecurity must be overcome or you will get labeled as incompetent.
4. Are you unable to make yourself go to work without feeling like it’s a ridiculous activity instead of an opportunity to excel?
When you are in an environment that is draining your energy, people pick-up on that and don’t want to include you on projects. No one wants to feel as if a person in the room would rather be somewhere else when leading a charge for change of some kind. The nature of creativity requires there is a feeling of excitement rather than negativity or resistance.
Resistance does not have to be demonstrated, it can simply be an attentive listening. When resistance is expressed, it is best expressed as “What if” – i.e. What if we do this and this happens? or What if this goes through and we don’t have sufficient this or that? — these are expected approaches, and work well to improve a proposition rather than make people feel attacked for their creative ideas.
5. Where are your morals?
If you are in a work environment that makes you feel as if you are doing things against your moral code, there is no reason to stay. This is what will destroy you more than being unemployed.
Take your mind into the idea that it’s important to find another job. Do not feel as if you need to blow the horn on bad activity until you have secured your job elsewhere. This will create a better environment in your mind and give you a sense of not being trapped by others.
CONCLUSION:
These are just a few examples of how you can change the way people experience you in the work environment.
There is nothing more important to an organization, regardless of size, than for people to enjoy the camaraderie of their peers. The more you love to be among the people you work with the more they learn to trust you as an active participant in their success.
This is also something that over time will turn you into a leader in your field. In time you stop allowing the environment to dictate how you feel and you learn to feel your environment to determine what healing behavior you need to enact.
by Sondra Sneed, Godscribe
