I admit that I feel like an absolute idiot at work at least once a month. It comes with the territory I think. I have stepped into a leadership role as a relative rookie, working with a group of people who have been publishing a magazine together for the past five years. My stupidness is mostly due to the learning curve. I came to this company fresh -- never having helped publish a monthly magazine in my life. Sure I had worked at as an online reporter for a national magazine in New York City, a newspaper in New Jersey, and as a blogger in Portland, Maine, but no glossy magazine stuff. I've learned a lot over the past year. I've been humbled and humiliated, too.
Luckily the media business is a fast paced one where one day your mistake is brushed aside the next. Not that YOU forget about it or that your coworkers forget about it...but dwelling on a mistake doesn't fix it. Best to learn from the mistake and try not to make it again.
How do I get over feeling like a total boob? I mope around my house. I cry on my boyfriend's shoulder. I complain to my sister, mother, and father. I make my 2-and-a-half year old niece give me big hugs, and I take a nap. All those things. And I move on and push forward...because deadlines stop for no one, no matter how pitiful you are.
I found this blog post on The Urban Muse on this topic. It has some good ideas on how to handle a crisis of confidence. For all you people out there, writers or not, who have felt like you reached rock bottom, read it. Practice it. Give yourself time to get over it. And move on.
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1 comment:
Go easy on yourself. You wouldn't have been put in that position unless those experts with all that experience knew you could handle it. And anyway, you know you rock!
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