Weekend-Engagement topics: WEEK 229

Describe a situation in which you were dissatisfied with your own performance: what happened and why, how you handled it and what was the result.

The situations that we experience every day leave marks that, if we do not manage them, torment us for a long time and sometimes remain. There are family, personal and work situations where we feel that the effort we put in does not give the expected results neither for us nor for those around us.

In this case I present a work situation where, in spite of the fact that some years have passed, I felt that as a professional I had dropped a lot, so much so that I felt that people were whispering about that moment behind my back.

It happened with the planning of an academic event. As Internship Coordinator, the event was called Meeting with Entrepreneurs.

After surfing discussions with the students who were to be in charge of the preparations as interns in companies in that academic semester, every day there was a conclusion that of course came to my office. They had to agree on the organization of the system.

On the day of the activity, the speech as Coordinator was not the most fluid for the moment, I was overcome with fear of the public, something that had not happened to me before... the speakers for the talk did not attend, I used the disposition of a colleague who had a prepared talk and who was the one who made up for that moment.

You could see in the faces of the interns or students for whom the event was the mockery of the activity, the invited company managers or department managers did not attend. In short, I felt something like “tràgame tierra”, because the director of the institute was present as a representative figure.

That evening, the emotion of sadness and reluctance, of mockery visited me.... It was an unpleasant feeling that remained, but I dragged this feeling for several months and to this day I remember it through the application as the theme of the week. I had a phobia about the preparation of events and that it was my institutional figure who had to show my face.

From a personal point of view, I evaluated myself after a few weeks because I could not continue with that feeling of defeat...the first thing I did was to divert my attention from that day, to participate in activities as a guest, no longer as part of the preparation committee of that activity. I tried to stay out of the following activities. It was really very unpleasant.

Today I look back and there is no longer any of those feelings that I felt during those months... I stopped giving energy to it so that my mind would leave it... when it comes to organization, I let the creativity of each one spill over without intervening much in it. When they themselves realized the responsibility they had to have for it, they used whatever they had at hand to succeed.

Cover image, photo property of the author from her personal gallery. Ride in June, 2024
Translator DeepL
Dividers Source