Photo: bet.com

We’ve all felt like a loser at work, at some point or another. Whether because we seriously messed up, a colleague got promoted over us, or we spilled coffee on our semi-clean shirts (in top of the baby milk and lipstick stain from last month). Feeling like a loser sucks, and feeling like a loser at work, where you do have to put somewhat of a front, sucks even more…

Yet it’s simply hard, if not nearly impossible to avoid. In order to make progress, you will have to fail. And in order to be successful, you have to learn to fail well; but it’s all about accepting to feel like a loser and pick up your self-esteem off the floor with as much dignity (and style) as possible. When you’re a strong, ambitious, no-nonsense woman or man at work, that’s (almost) equivalent to skipping dessert…

Remember Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, admitting she’d dated every loser around her before landing Mr. Right (may I add, Mr. Very Right)? Or Michael Jordan admitting to missing over 9,000 shots in his career? This is not  to inspire you to go out there and fail some more, but rather to acknowledge failure, and feeling like you can’t possibly pick your face up off you cubicle floor, is part of the game of success. I’ve dated losers, failed more times than I care to admit when sitting for my license, taken a step back in my career after having kids, and this is my second blog venture, and so forth and so on: Failure and I have had a few run-ins, and we’re just now getting to be on civil terms. You too should get acquainted with it, and learn to fail well so you can succeed even better:

1. Kick the fear of failure to the curb! Even worse than failing, is the failure to fail, which catapults you to failure even faster. Recognize you will fail, just as you will have bad hair days or make a lousy meal (you know you have). Don’t be afraid of the ridicule or the sour experience. Confront it heads on, reapply your lipstick and move on!

2. Nix the loser attitude! Feeling like a loser (temporarily) is one thing, having the attitude to match is another. As much as you may feel like crawling under your desk and missing the quarterly reporting deadline, don’t! Take a minute (or two), compose yourself and get back to work with a professional attitude. That’s just what you do (and then go buy yourself a pint of Dulce de Leche ice cream)…

3. Now re-calibrate your performance! Losses are there to show us where we’ve gotten off track. Use them! Analyze your mistakes, fix them if possible, and apply the lesson to your next performance. Doesn’t Beyonce herself watch every single one of her performances after the fact to improve on them? Be your career’s Queen Bee…

Did you ever feel like a loser at work? What did you do about it?

The Corporate Sis.