Yay, it's my favourite day of the week. I don't feel much for it today though. I have had a rough week at work and while I have been pouring myself into it; working through lunchtimes and staying later than most others in the office, I don't feel like I'm making a lot of headway.
My manager seems exceptionally happy with my quality and quantity of work that I'm putting out and she commends me on my performance almost daily, but is it enough? I normally wouldn't question it, only that she degrades other staff members to me (in confidence) so I can only believe that she degrades me to other staff members in kind.
I got home today and I was annoyed with myself. I had a good day at work today and met some crazy high milestones but I was frustrated with the other things that have fallen by the wayside somewhat as a result. It doesn't leave me feeling too good about myself in general so I tried to write on Hive.
BLANK.
I went through photos to try and see if I could get my creative writing juices flowing but everything felt flat. I write content and edit photos all day each day now and I write captions that need to capture attention and convert. That is my job. It's tricky because while I have experience doing this, I haven't been in this particular type of company before and lack a lot of the history leaving me on the backfoot at times, but I endure. I do research, I trawl through press releases and videos to get up to speed and I absorb oodles of information during the day.
By the time I get home, my head is zinging, my ears are ringing and I've been going to bed by 9pm to try and keep my health as priority over the myriad other things I could be doing. Where do I set the bar for Hive? Well, I've never really set the bar on anything that I do, I've always looked to others to set the standard for me and then I reach for that. It leaves me with a dichotomy as I am reaching the bar at work (they haven't fired me yet and I've reached every deadline they've set plus more), but I still feel like I'm failing here. I missed comments the last two days and felt horrendously guilty today when I replied to them late. It's strange because when people reply to my comments late, I don't worry about it at all...I know that life happens and give people a lot of room for being human. Perhaps that's what made me a good manager at my previous positions, perhaps that's what made me a shit manager at my previous positions...depends who you ask I suppose.
So while things are definitely looking up in terms of experience and workflow, getting stuck into projects that I can get creative with, being part of a team again working towards a common goal, helping others when they need it, I don't feel like I've accomplished anything concrete yet.
I used to look far into the future at work functions, project things off and work strictly according to a timeline that left no room for maneuvering if things went wrong. It left me with no flexibility and made for a horribly stressful environment. Now I deal with things better (and anxiety meds help too), I have a very calm demeanor at work and don't let others see when I am under pressure because surely that would be showing a sign of weakness.
My father used to tell me all the time as a child "Never let anyone know your weakness because they will use it against you". It took me a very long time to realise that there's a difference between letting people know your weaknesses and allowing yourself to be vulnerable around others and so much of it has to do with confidence. If you are confident within yourself and your abilities, you can allow others in, be vulnerable in their ambit and still not be weak.
Each morning I have to gear up for the day. Put on my "fake confidence" and stride in as if I know everything about my role and I'm untouchable. Some days it works and some days it doesn't. That's just me though. I'm horribly flawed, human and some days I struggle. Does it make me less of a person than the next? No because believe it or not, we're all struggling with our own things each day. Some just weather it better than others.