You will have bad days. You will be blamed for things that weren’t your fault. Projects will fail. People will let you down. You will find yourself thinking ‘Why do I even bother?’.
As I type this, I’m conscious that this sounds like a terrible job. Its not, but I’ll leave the making of that case for another day.
The key point here is that you will take hits – many of them – and when you do, you have to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and get on with it. You can’t take things personally, even if at the time they feel very personal. And they will.
That’s what I mean by Resilience.
The right amount of skin
There is a balance to be struck though. If you are so thick-skinned that you come across as un-receptive to feedback, or appear indifferent to the issues encountered – it will become a barrier between you and the stakeholders on the project.
Be self-aware enough to reflect on your part in any failings, brave enough put your hand up if you could have done better, and confident enough to keep moving forward. Be open to fair feedback and the potential that you could have done better. But, if its just someone having a moan, or taking a cheap shot at you – ignore it.
Become a skilled sailor, sail rough seas
Its a cliche that you learn more from your failures than your success. Buts it a cliche for a reason. What do you learn about yourself if a project is smooth sailing from start to finish? How much of this was down to the choices you made, the actions you took? Its very difficult to know.
If a project fails, or you hit some stormy waters, its an opportunity to reflect on the decisions taken and the impact of those. You wont know for sure whether different choices would have yielded better outcomes, but you will spot the forks in the road and paths not taken. Your next project gives you the chance to try something different, and the motivation to do so. Project after project, you get this opportunity again and again.
The scars you picked up in previous projects, become the maps to guide you in future ones.
This doesnt stop you from making mistakes. Truth be told, I make many still to this day. They just tend to be less visible and you become accountable more to yourself for them rather than to others.
Build it as you go
You develop resilience as you overcome challenges. If you have a supportive boss, or a senior pm colleague, that can support your confidence through your early experiences it is a massive bonus. At the end of the day though the responsibility sits with you. Some suggestions therefore are:
- Evaluate your performance on projects honestly – good and bad. When something goes awry, ask yourself what you could do differently next time to achieve a better result. Don’t focus on the little things, rather the big issues/challenges/events that had an impact.
- Reach out after the project to the people involved and have a chat about some of the issues that came up. Frame it in the context of identifying how ‘we’ can do things better ‘next time’,. If you are hesitant, start by reaching out to people you consider will provide constructive feedback. As you become more confident, expand to conversations to detractors also – getting used to negative feedback helps take the sting out of it. Treat feedback as feedback on the process, not on you as a person.
- Make sure you have a distraction outside of the project – something that allows you to forget about it for a while. Whether its family, a hobby, exercise, or even some other work – you need something which puts the events on a given project into a broader perspective.
Its a journey and as long you are making progress, you are doing great. Trust the process – and go easy on yourself. Everyone is learning as they go.