Q: My supervisor recently read the riot act to me. He said that I will lose my job unless I make more of an effort to improve my performance.
I know that I am basically liked by this company and that it will keep me if I do my part, but since the little discussion with my supervisor I find myself doing even less around the shop. I cannot get motivated.
My wife thinks that I should take an antidepressant. I do not want to do that but I am running out of options. What do you think?
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A: The decision about taking antidepressants is something you and your physician should work out. In the meantime, let’s look at what is really happening.
By going to work, you are facing a potential loss, the loss of your job. Unfortunately, the human brain does not like to deal with loss. Neither does it like to deal with negative feedback.
In fact, it is in danger of shutting down entirely if it believes the prospect of losing is too great or the negative feedback is too overwhelming.
This means that not only are you likely to perform worse when you are at work, but that you probably have a difficult time getting yourself to the shop in the first place. My guess is that you are tempted many mornings to sleep in and not bother showing up at work.
If you are going to successfully overcome the bad experience with your supervisor, you are going to have to develop two strategies to offset the influence he had on you.
- You need to change what your supervisor said from a threat to an opportunity. Your brain is probably not going to co-operate until you begin to understand that your supervisor was offering an opportunity to continue working.
The more that you can convince yourself that you are lucky to be able to go to work that day, the better the chances that you will be more motivated once you get there.
- You need to refocus from whatever it is that you are doing poorly to that which you are doing well.
You said that the company likes you, which means you are obviously doing something well.
If you start rewarding yourself for every little thing that you do well, regardless of how trivial or insignificant, you will soon find yourself better able to overcome some of the more difficult chores.
The magic formula is five to one. You need to reward yourself five times to offset each disappointment that you have. If nothing else, rewarding yourself will rebuild your confidence level to where it was before it was shattered by your talk with the supervisor.
What I am suggesting may seem like asking you to play games with yourself. Sometimes we have to do that just to remind ourselves that each of us is a valuable person.
Once you have your motivation percolating at a better level and your self confidence up, you can confront the real question you need to explore – whether you want to continue working where you are now or if you should be looking for a job somewhere else.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan who has taught social work at two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
