Overcoming Career Disappointment

Events like the recent shuffle at the top of Delta Airlines -- during which both of the internal front-runners were passed over for promotion to CEO -- offer an opportunity for each of us to reflect on how we deal with disappointment, be it professional or personal. I have worked with many people as they face such situations and can offer a few suggestions.

First, pay attention to the emotional impact of the disappointment. Do not try to deny, rationalize or minimize it. Let it play out without either suppressing it or acting on impulses to express your feelings in inappropriate settings. You may feel numb at first (“this isn’t happening or “it doesn’t matter”) or experience intense feelings of anger, hurt, or self-criticism. This is all to be expected.

Career shocks are events that set a process in motion. They offer an opportunity for both personal and personal development. This is not to deny the fact that they are painful and can be, for a certain period of time, disorienting. The important point is this: you are at the beginning of a process that can be an opportunity for new perspective. We can sketch the process roughly in terms of the six stages of working on career and life impasse that I discuss in my book,Getting Unstuck (the book has exercises for working with each of these stages):

1. Crisis with its concomitant feelings of anger, hurt, and an initial impulse to fight back.

2. The crisis deepens -- our “inner critic” becomes active. Memories of past failures and disappointments return. Anticipate this; it will happen. The toughest part often comes early in the process. Do not hesitate to get coaching assistance if you feel it will help.

3. To move forward, you must first stop; you must suspend the mental model of your career that has just been shown to be inadequate by this major setback. You had been focused on that promotion, now it is gone. Instead of immediately coming up with an action plan, allow yourself to suspend both judgment and action. Get ready to think, feel and intuit about what comes into that empty space of no plan, no action.

4. Look for a new type of information. You are at a crossroads. You cannot muscle your way forward with brute thinking power. You need information from a broader sense of self. There are a variety of exercises that can help.

5. When it is time to act, act. Do not stay bogged down. Staying at the company or leaving is not the issue. The issue is where can you grow the most next and take care of the broader concerns of your family and full life situation.

6. Six months and, again, one year from now, take stock of what you have learned from the experience. Crises inevitably forces a clarification of values and feelings. You should know yourself better as a consequence of this experience. What is it about yourself, your career, and life that you now know better?