The Death of Pollyanna

I  am a Pollyanna…hopelessly optimistic, perky and happy, almost all the time.  It pains me to say that after surviving a really bad divorce with Pollyanna intact, my sojourn in the great north killed the Pollyanna in me.  I am sad about this development and hope at some point my inner Pollyanna can be rediscovered, but maybe it was not such a bad thing.  During this time of watching my hope, love of life and all that goes with it, wilt, I discovered several books that helped me to refocus my energies towards something better.

 

I should say that a big part of my work problems are self inflicted as I have a very difficult time balancing work and life. I think if I was better at this, I wouldn’t have been stuck in Minnesota so long.  However, in attempting to look at the bright side of that mess, these three books really made a tremendous difference in my thinking about work, the people I work with and for and what work should do for me as well as what I should do for work.  First book and how I wish this book had been around MANY MANY years ago…”The No Asshole Rule” by Robert I. Sutton, PhD.  Dr. Sutton describes the different types of difficult people we all tend to encounter in work and in life and then gives you the tools to deal with those folks.  I think that what is really different about this book, not just descriptions of those people, but how to deal with them and make your life better.  I put these principles in place with the difficult person I had to work with and when I had to work with him, went much better!

“My Answer is No…if that’s ok with you.  How women can say no and (still) feel good about it.” by Nanette Gartrell, MD  That I even need to read this book clearly illustrates my main problem with work and just about any area in my life…I want to make everyone happy and I tend to think saying yes will do that.  It doesn’t work out that way.  I ended up over committed and miserable and making everyone around me miserable too.  The old saying is true…if Mom isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!  Again, excellent descriptions of scenarios you might find yourself trapped in and how to say no, or even if this is something you need to say yes to…very informative and helped me make better decisions.

Lastly, “The Girl’s Guide to Kicking Your Career in Gear” by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberley Yario.  This book helped me focus on what I do well, what I don’t do so well, what I want out of my work and then how to find the job that fits those different areas.  What I wanted was a job in training, preferably Instructional Design as I feel those kinds of positions work best with my skill-set and talents.  The exercises in the book helped me tailor my resume and conduct a better job search…my current position came from this effort.  How well did this work?  When I read the job description, my first thought was this was exactly what I would design for me.  It is everything I wanted, challenging, but a better balance between home and office and opportunity to grow…just everything I was looking for in my career.

What have you read that made a difference?