The project that I’ve been working on for the last few months has gone wrong a number of times. There have been delays by the clients, the stakeholders and us as the consultants.

This is understandable. The project was complex and there were a number of unexpected hurdles that we came across.

The problem is that I began internalising a lot of this. I began to convince myself that this was my fault. That I had messed up. And that I had been bad at my work.

In reality, there were a number of people that were equally responsible. A portion of the blame could be allocated to me, within reason. But I was not responsible for the entire project. So the delays weren’t my fault.

Re-externalising 

This process of internalising the failures may take place on it’s own. We may be conditioned to do this for various reasons.

But it’s important to re-externalise it. To understand that there is a network of responsibility and you are only a single actor in it. And it is outside of your control.

By doing this, we don’t get left feeling like the failure is our own. And we slowly unlearn the impostor syndrome that many of us have grown accustomed to.

Image was taken while we were on the Gautrain this afternoon 🙂

Song of the day: Indiana Jones Theme Song

Blog 149/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here