Do you ever find yourself reflecting on a situation that just occurred and you are thinking to yourself “I wish I had said xyz” or “I wish I had done xyz” and next time a similar situation arises, you will be ready to handle it? This is a common feeling but it misses the core problem, how did you get into the situation in the first place?
It is good to look back at a situation and reflect on what could have been done differently, but it is also important to reflect to see if you could change about yourself to have prevented that situtation from even occurring.
An Example tends to help illustrate: You just gave a presentation at work about the status of an ongoing project. The presentation was going well up until the point the director of marketing starts asking about a particular set of user demographics that you should have had numbers for and instead of admitting that you do not have the numbers ready, you try to guess at them based off what you know and play it off. This angers the marketing director and they now call into question your credibility and that of the project as if you guessed at that, what else might you have made up.
When reflecting, first you note to ask the team to include the segment in future presentations and second you note that numbers you don’t have ready, you will make them available in a follow up email to the group. However, even with these adjustments, it is likely that the marketing director would still find some way to call into question the project itself.
So what are actions could change in yourself to prevent the situation from even occurring?
- You could realize that you went into a presentation without understanding your audience. An easy way to improve this is talking with each person ahead of time if possible.
- You could realize that you have not been advertising the project, so acceptance of the work could be low and start working to improve that.
- You could realize that your creditability is in question which is commonly caused be a lack of trust or expertise and work to improve both.
- You could recognize that your ethics allowed you to lie which damaged your trustworthiness and credibility.
Working on any or all of these would help prevent a similar situation from occurring and show a level of double thinking where you look at yourself and reflect on what you could change about yourself.