Or was it productive? Maybe not in the way that you had previously defined productivity but maybe in a completely different way. Every day can be productive, it just depends on how we define it and what we measure it against. But even if it wasn’t, don’t call it a bad day.
I write this knowing I am out there shopping right now. I wish this wasn’t true but it invariably is. Today is the last day, you waited until the last possible moment. And now you’re frazzled and have to hustle to get it done. Calm down, breathe, go get it, there are lots of hours in the day.
Now the question is whether you want to hear it or whether you’d rather keep getting it wrong. One is a step towards fixing the problem. The other isn’t a step backward or forward -it’s just a way for you to stay busy, to keep working on something, to keep looking like you’re making changes. But you’re not, you’re just doing it wrong. Can you hear that you are doing it wrong and make change?
Every Math test I would take in high school ended that way – “Pencils Down” – as though I had created some masterful creation that was perfect and could no longer get any better. It was at this moment, when all hands were up that we’d look around at other people’s papers and either smile in agreement or become immediately dejected at having received the wrong answer. When leaving jobs, this is the new “Pencils…
No one is at your level, have you looked in the mirror? Everyone is at different levels, you were at someone else’s level once, and someone else was at your level once. There is always something to learn, always somewhere to grow. Don’t mistake what someone doesn’t know as being inferior, recognize it for them needing to be taught, coached and mentored to be at your level.