I believe that things happen for a reason. If you are pursuing things in life that really are not for you, life will give you a little nudge to point out that something needs to change. If you don’t listen to that nudge, life will send you some pain to try and get through to you. The longer you ignore the pain, the stronger the pain becomes. This pain could be in many forms e.g. unhappiness, stress, conflict etc.  When you awaken to the pain and you realise the problem, you can make the necessary changes. Your life returns to a state of ease and you are in a better position. Other times, you continue to ignore the pain until everything blows up and you are forced to deal with it.
If that sounds confusing, let me quote David Allen to make it clearer:

The earlier you deal with the pain, the easier it is to deal with. My argument is that when you experience pain, there is usually a lesson that needs to be learned. When the lesson is learned, the painful period can turn out be very beneficial. To learn the lesson, we need to be able to objectively assess our outcomes i.e. the end result and what actually happened..

You never really fail in life. When something does not go as planned, you have achieved an outcome At first, when you think you have failed, you may find it difficult to deal with the outcome but that outcome has the potential to teach you some very valuable lessons. You just need to objectively assess your outcomes to determine what there is to learn.

In most cases, you will be able to quickly assess what went wrong but sometimes you feel so burned by and incident that you cannot look at it objectively. That’s ok. We move at our own pace but don’t be afraid to check back in to see what you can learn or even what you have learned.

My first big job when I left college was with a major Bank, here in Ireland. It was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I was a small-town boy who was incredibly naïve and had no real idea how to behave in such a corporate atmosphere. It didn’t take long before I felt that I didn’t fit in.

As I had never worked in an office environment, my professional skills were severely lacking. My time management was terrible and I ended up with a lot of people dumping their work on me. I felt like I was constantly treading water. In addition, I had come from an environment (my home town) where people were generally honest and open in their communication. That’s not the kind of atmosphere that existed in this bank. What’s more, compassion, which is the fuel that keeps small towns going, was seen as a sign of weakness in this environment.

The attitude in the bank was often described as:

‘to thine own a*s be true’

Most (though not all) of the people were out for themselves and really didn’t care if they had to step on somebody else to get what they wanted. It became increasingly difficult to trust anyone.
In the end, I suffered harassment and after some negotiating, I agreed a deal to leave. I was happy to leave but I am honest enough to admit that my employer was probably just as happy to get rid of me. It took 2.5 years for me to leave, even though I had known that I didn’t fit in within 6 months.

For a while after leaving the bank, I was very bitter about the way things had ended and how I had been treated by some people. I also felt bad about the fact that I had not been able to make it work and how I just couldn’t fit in there.  

In 2008, the Irish economy collapsed, mainly because of the greed and corruption within the Irish banking industry. It caused many problems. Problems which Ireland is only starting to emerge from now. As you might imagine, I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about not fitting into that banking culture.

I have used many questions over the years to objectively assess my outcomes regarding this situation but I find that fellow coach, Jeni Purdie, sums it up best with 2 questions.

I will use my own experience for illustration purposes:

It was while at the bank that I first discovered the profession of coaching and my love for training and development, self-improvement and compassionately helping others.  This has become the bedrock of my career and has brought me great joy while helping others to improve their professional and personal life.

The banking industry was clearly the wrong choice for me but the experience helped me to learn a lot more about what I did want. As they say, sometimes you only learn what is important to you when you no longer have it. While I was miserable during my time with the bank, I now firmly believe that I am much happier for my experience there and what it taught me.

Honestly, I couldn’t even begin to quantify what I have learned from this experience. It really was one of the most important formative experiences of both my career and my adult life.  Below are some of the most important benefits I experienced; just to give you some examples for when you need to objectively assess your outcomes.

I learned what stress is and that it doesn’t feel good

This was further enhanced when I spent a short period working in a factory after leaving the bank. I was able to see that you didn’t have to take your work home at night. In fact, if you do need to take your work home with you, that is a sign that something is wrong.

Related article: The myth of good stress

 A problem will not go away just because you ignore it

I learned avoidance is not an effective problem-solving strategy.it. It will escalate. It took me 2.5 years to leave a job that I should have left after 6 months. That meant I needlessly suffered 2 years of ever increasing pain until I finally took the necessary action.

Related article: Avoidance is not an effective problem solving strategy

Even in the darkest places there are wonderful people

While most of the people there were entirely self-serving; I met some amazing people who looked out for me and did their best to  help me. So, while I would state that the culture was a disgrace, there were still great people to be found. I also know that if some of the people I had issues with were in a different culture, I would have enjoyed a better experience with them. So, I have gotten better at letting things go and I judge people less; though there is still plenty of room for improvement.

It’s ok not to fit in

It takes all kinds of people to make the world go round. I am not perfect and neither is anybody else. Clearly the banking sector is not for me but we need banks in this world. I have no doubt there are many great people in the sector and I have some friends working in the industry too. I am grateful that we have these great people working in such an important industry but I am just as happy that I don’t fit in there. Ultimately, we all have to find what works for us.

When we are going through times, it feels like hell and we can’t see a way out. There doesn’t seem to be any purpose to the pain. It is very easy to believe that we are being punished for some unknown crime. However, it is not a punishment. Clearly, something needs to change and the pain is life’s way of telling us that we need to make those changes. When we ignore the pain, it is likely to grow until it cannot be ignored any longer. So, make the changes and then when you have done so; objectively assess your outcomes i.e. what happened and do your best to learn the lessons.