How I learned to speak up and show up

Last week I was reading a quote: Better done than perfect! This triggered some thoughts, and I started thinking about my three biggest mistakes during my career, which I would like to share with you today.
My biggest mistakes were that I did not speak up, did not say “No” and was a true perfectionist.
It sounds like the description of the perfect working bee. To grow and turn my personal career dream into reality, I needed to overcome these mistakes.
Let's go deeper and have a look at how I tackled them and how I learned to Speak up! and Show up! during this process.

Speak Up
You can't always get what you want. But if you overcome the fear of laying it on the line, you just might find that you get what you need. At the beginning of my career, saying what I wanted was simply not an option I considered. I wasn't raised to speak up: Silence for children was golden. It was part of the Litany of being Ladylike, correlated with the Rules of Niceness. Nice girls don't argue, don't talk back; say thank you, say please, but don't say anything, that might hurt someone's feelings. Hurting someone's feelings was worse than almost anything we could dream up, worse than putting your elbows on the dinner table. During school and university, speaking up and showing up was not really required. We got marks and enrolled in courses. I had good marks and could apply for sponsorship and scholarship. This allowed me to study abroad. Since I am a hard worker, I landed my first job in my dream company. Here I continued to work hard and was surprised, that things did not land naturally on my desk anymore and the exciting projects did go somewhere else.  During the year-end appraisal, I asked my boss why this had happened. His simple answer was: I did not know. You did not tell me! He said a sentence I will never forget in my life: I cannot read your mind. If you want something, you need to show up and speak up.  He asked: If you speak up, what's the worst thing that could happen? And what is the best thing that could happen? It became clear to me, that I need to be the pilot of my life. Did I always get what I wanted? No, but then: It is what it is, and rather than focusing on the closed door, I was focusing on an open door.

Setting Boundaries
The 2nd mistake I made was not being able to set healthy boundaries, not being able to say no. But the main point is, that I was a people pleaser.
When you're a people-pleaser, the entire world can feel uncertain for you (even more so in a general VUCA environment). The only control the people pleaser can place on their surroundings is through avoiding conflict and making sure everything around them moves smoothly for everyone else. This wouldn't be a bad thing, if the people pleaser even included themselves in the equation. My problem? The world is only too ready to encourage the people pleaser.  I was praised and called a team player. Sadly, it didn't take long for certain types of people to learn just how easily they could exploit me. I only realized that I am on the wrong track when I was working insane hours and I started to feel stressed out. Secondly, I started listening to my self-talk just to find out, that I was making decisions based on what someone else thinks. Let me tell you: The only way to get over being a people-pleaser is through a lot of hard work on your mindset. For me, the point was to be myself without apology, being authentic. I realized I did not need someone else's opinion or validation. I only need my own. It was high time I made myself my top priority. This process took some time. After all, I didn't become a people-pleaser overnight. What helped me was my leadership and my core team at this time. They wanted me to be myself just as I wanted to be myself.

Perfectionism
The third point, and this was the starting point of my blog post, the quote: better done than perfect! This is still part of my daily life, part of my values, part of my upbringing. Let´s have a look first at what does it mean to be a Perfectionist. Much like the name implies, the perfectionist wants everything to be just so. Perfectionists continue with things long after everyone else has quit. They set incredible goals. The problem is, they also experience more stress and worry than anyone else, because nothing they do will ever measure up. And that´s why psychologists consider over-the-top perfectionism even to be some kind of mental disorder. But, you can imagine, the perfectionist can also be seen as a good thing in the workplace. And this was most of the time the case for me. My team and the leadership can always count on me as a perfectionist to get the details right. Being an engineer by education does not make things easier. However, due to a leadership program, I learned to create better goals for myself and my team. I was working on my mindset and embraced the agile approach, understanding, that it is a journey and to enjoy this journey. I learned to accept, that I am likely won´t get it right on the first try if a new activity arises. And should I fail to accept the progress I made, cheer the attempt and celebrate the effort.
Most importantly, I started to look for the lessons. I asked myself "Have I really failed at something recently?" As a consequence, I implemented, again, a part of the leadership training a process called AAR – after-action reports. So, if I fail, instead of beating myself up I now take a moment to look for the lessons and learn from the situation. I take this moment as well to remind myself of just how valuable these lessons are. And more importantly, these after-action reports reinforce as well what I did well.

During my career, I learned to speak up, to set healthy boundaries, and tame my perfectionism. As these three points need my attention still, the journey continues, so that they are not creeping in again. But I am confident looking at my future.

Personal development is a lifelong journey, and I am enjoying every minute - well, nearly every minute. And, on another note, the moments when my daughters give feedback to me are those moments when I literally get grey hair during my personal development. But this is another story.

 Dream big, plan big and turn your dreams into reality!

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