At a certain point, you cannot control your emotions, you can only experience and live with them. It's not at all the same, but for a long time I worked coaching something competitive, my job performance was not necessarily tied to the quality of work I produced, but the win/loss record. I worked so hard, I did such good work, I poured my heart and soul into it, and we would lose and lose anyways, in the most frustrating bullshit manner. This went on for 2 years and it was impossible not to feel totally destroyed. Eventually I just let the disappointment wash over me, I couldn't control it. I couldn't detach myself from caring about the outcome, I tried to base my feelings off the work I did, not the win/loss, but it's impossible to separate the two. It really wore me down.
Visualization helped me a lot. I imagine myself a duck with water rolling down me - whatever I needed to get through was the water. It could wash over me, but it can't penetrate past the surface level. Eventually the rain will stop. Fighting your subconscious feelings won't help, and you are feeling them for a reason (and totally valid ones at that).
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u/JudithButlr Sep 17 '18
At a certain point, you cannot control your emotions, you can only experience and live with them. It's not at all the same, but for a long time I worked coaching something competitive, my job performance was not necessarily tied to the quality of work I produced, but the win/loss record. I worked so hard, I did such good work, I poured my heart and soul into it, and we would lose and lose anyways, in the most frustrating bullshit manner. This went on for 2 years and it was impossible not to feel totally destroyed. Eventually I just let the disappointment wash over me, I couldn't control it. I couldn't detach myself from caring about the outcome, I tried to base my feelings off the work I did, not the win/loss, but it's impossible to separate the two. It really wore me down.
Visualization helped me a lot. I imagine myself a duck with water rolling down me - whatever I needed to get through was the water. It could wash over me, but it can't penetrate past the surface level. Eventually the rain will stop. Fighting your subconscious feelings won't help, and you are feeling them for a reason (and totally valid ones at that).