Your Emotions are Guidance in Disguise

It’s time to have an honest conversation

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

I just had a meeting where I acted as a live interpreter for a client. I felt bad about underperforming this time, as I zoned out at one point, had to ask her to repeat and let her know I couldn’t see the screen, then another bilingual person stepped in to help.

As I’m typing out these words, I still feel bad. I’m always an over-achiever. Underperformance almost never exists in my dictionary.

So when it shows up, I find it hard to accept. It’s never hard for me to admit, but always hard to accept, because of the underlying shame.

I used to beat myself up for occasional underperforming. But now I’m taking a different stance.

I apologized to my client, promised to improve my technology, and started ah honest conversation with myself

Here’s what I found:

1. I wasn’t prioritizing this meeting. I didn’t get in the meeting room in advance, and had to dial in, and I was already frazzled when it started.
2. When I zoned out, I panicked, and I let myself stay in that state.
3. I lacked motivation for this meeting. In my subconscious mind, my holiday has already started, and I haven’t fully recovered from my birthday thrills yesterday.