It’s natural to occasionally feel out of your depth in any job. But for SBL’s tasked with keeping their cool when pressures mount, staying calm isn’t always easy. Laura Williams shares her top tips for those days when you feel overwhelmed
Grab a pen and a piece of paper and work through this prescribed exercise. Trust me, you’ll be feeling calmer in no time!
Step one: Take stock
So, you’re feeling ‘out of your depth’. Whilst you may be feeling overwhelmed right now, it’s important to dig into this and what it specifically means to you. Write down exactly what it is that is causing you to feel out of your depth. It could be:
Workload/time management – you know you are capable of everything, but there aren’t enough hours in the day
Work/life balance – you’ve come up with the answer to ‘hours in the day’ by working evenings and weekends
Relationships with colleagues – you’re not getting the support you need from other staff/senior leaders
Knowledge – maybe you don’t feel as up-to-speed or as experienced as you’d like to be in certain areas
Line management responsibilities – you line manage a lot of people; it’s time consuming and you absolutely hate it
It may be one or more of the above – it might even be something completely different, and that’s okay. But the more specific you can be about the issues that you’re facing, the easier it will be to put plans in place to address them.
When you’ve identified the specific areas that are making you feel out of your depth, spend some time reflecting on how you got here and when it started to get really bad. Maybe it was a breakdown in communication or of a working relationship. Maybe you’re operating within a structure that has inefficient ways of working, or maybe there has been an increasing conflict of priorities or a difference of opinion.
Step two: Empower yourself
Now ask: if you could wave a magic wand tomorrow, and make this problem go away, what would your world look like then? What would change? What would be better?
If you’re thinking that the problem you have is out of your control and you don’t have the power to resolve it, ask yourself, ‘How can I mitigate the impact? What changes can I make to how I work? Do I need to look to other colleagues to help me resolve this?’
Write down a set of action steps that will take you from where you are now to ‘magic wand world’. These might include:
Reviewing your job description
Studying for a qualification
Undertaking bespoke training to develop a specific skill e.g. time management
Finding a mentor or coach
Arranging a meeting or speaking with a colleague or your line manager
Short-term support measures such as a day working from home
It might even be applying for another job! There are no right or wrong answers here; the aim is to help you to move away from the emotion of your situation and into a practical mindset.
Step three: Regain perspective
You may worry that you can’t tell your boss how you are feeling, or they’ll think you are incompetent. Consider first whether your perception is truly accurate because maybe – just maybe – you’ve lost a little bit of perspective. What makes you think this? How do you know that this is a truth and not just an assumption? Have you given them the chance to support you? Have they ever made you feel negatively about yourself before?
If your relationship with your boss isn’t great, and they would be the last person you would confide in about how you are feeling, then this is ok too!
However, there are ways you can articulate what you need to your boss without feeling like you’re exposing your vulnerabilities too much. Use your list of actions and things you need to help you get where you need to be to approach your boss in an objective and pragmatic way.
For example, you might say – ‘Project x is behind because of y. To complete it, I need w and z to get it done.’ If you can be specific about the issues, and clear about your need, then the emotion is removed, and the conversation remains practical.
The importance of being valued
Right now, you may not feel valued; your salary may not reflect your skills or your responsibility and you may wonder what the point of speaking up is. But the fact is, you owe it to yourself to be seen, heard, valued and recognised. Don’t give up. If you don’t do anything about this situation then everybody loses. More importantly, you lose.
If you can, hand on heart, say that you’ve done all you can where you are now, then you need to be preparing for that next job; that job interview at that school where that headteacher wants to hear what you have to say, wants to take your advice, wants to make sure you’re recognised for what you do and, even more importantly, wants to support you.
You can do what needs to be done; I’ve got every faith in you.
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