Feeling frustrated at work, especially late in the day? Most of us feel this way from time to time. The challenge is what to do about it.
Do what competitive divers do: get up on the diving board and execute a dive in which you excel. Then call it quits for the day.
That advice was given to my daughter, a drop-in diver in a collegiate program. She was a competitive diver in her teens; now that she’s taken up the sport again, she’s struggling to regain her peak form. Diving is a discipline that requires a combination of athleticism, timing, and more than a touch of grace, not to mention strong nerves with equal parts will power.
One day she had hit a wall and was about to leave when her coach pulled her aside and said, “You can leave now if you like, but instead of leaving in state of frustration, why don’t you finish practice with a dive you know you do well?” My daughter followed her advice and ended up finishing practice feeling much better about herself and her abilities.
And that’s exactly what us non-divers need to do at the end of our frustrating day. Things do go wrong, whether as the result of our own mistakes or from those of others, or from a system or process that failed. And whatever the cause, tension builds. To prevent that stress from ruining our evening, or the next day, it’s good to find ways to dissipate it. Doing so at work — before you head home — is a good first step. Here are some suggestions.
First posted on HBR.org 8/09/2010