Job Well Done
You know what we don’t do enough of? Saying well done. Seriously, when’s the last time you just told someone they were awesome for no reason? Or told them they did a good job? Oh sure, feeling good comes from within and all that, self esteem can only come from self, naturally, but heck, show me a person whose face doesn’t light up when someone praises them a little and I’ll show you a person with no soul. In my experience, the root of a lot of people’s ambition lies with the desire to make someone proud or get just an iota of recognition for doing something decent. So you know what? We should all be offering that iota. We should be offering it up freely and willingly – let’s have ourselves a praise fest!
I think in some ways we feel freer to heap praise online. Those of us who are bloggers are lucky enough to have our work praised often by our readers and followers – all it takes is a quick tweet of ‘nice post’ or ‘totally agree’ to feel validated for the work you put into it. Of course, there will always be people who are vocal about how much they dislike what you do, but that comes with the territory (and in some cases, I think sadly is a direct reaction to having a lot of people who agree with you. Some people really don’t like that and perhaps in an attempt to police your ego and make sure it doesn’t go to your head, they criticise you to ensure you know you are not universally liked).
But say you work in an office, be it an admin role or a stock broker handling millions of pounds a day – praise may not be frequent and can be altogether absent. I’ve worked in jobs I hate, burrowing away on my passion behind the scenes. During the 9-5, it was all I could do to not jump out the window or set a computer on fire, overturn some desks and shove someone’s head in a paper shredder. That’s just how soul destroying some jobs can be. But you put your time and effort in, you do as well as you can, but those environments just seem to not lend themselves to a pat on the back.
People may be happier and more able to make it through the day sans homicidal thoughts if they heard the occasional ‘good job!’
I realised recently that I don’t say ‘well done’ enough. If I’m all the way honest, when I look at why, there’s a part of me that perhaps feels as though, in a very childish sense, I want to keep all the praise for myself. Lordy, that’s rather embarrassing to admit out loud. But you know, in my on going attempts to grow the hell up and get my head out of my ass, sometimes you have to realise some painful (and often downright stupid) things about yourself. Both praise and (constructive) criticism spur me on to keep doing my best. So I’ve been letting people know more often when I value what they do, who they are, the path they’re on.
So if you’re feeling good, how about sharing the feeling and ensuring that someone who may not hear it that often knows just how great they really are.
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Tags: advice, help, life lessons, Praising people, Support
