What to Do When You’re Having One of “Those” Days?

Last week was the week of job interview horror stories. One client was on his way to an interview when he got distracted and ran into a guard rail. Nobody was hurt, but his car was damaged and could no longer be driven. Another client got into her car for her interview with plenty of time and everything she needed, except her wallet and cell phone. This would have been bad enough but then her car broke down. She finally got the car started again, but was late to her interview and had no way to call.

I’m sure you can picture it, your mind is preoccupied with an upcoming meeting, event or project and suddenly, you’re thrown a major curve ball. Whether you threw the curve ball yourself or not doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you do next.

So how did these stories turn out? I am happy to report that both interviews went well. They allowed themselves to put their adventures behind them, let go of the self recrimination and focus on the task at hand – answering the questions the interviewer was asking. They decided that their interview would either go well or not, but not because of their morning.

So what does this mean for you?

When a situation suddenly takes an unexpected turn, take a deep breath and consciously decide to focus your attention on what needs to be done to move you forward. Later, after things have calmed down, take the time to figure out how or why you ended up in that situation and come up with a plan to avoid it next time.

Oh yeah, there were a couple of other lessons learned:

1. Don’t EVER clean the smudges off the car window while driving.
2. Double or triple check to make sure you have your wallet and cell phone with you whenever you leave one place to go to another, especially when changing purses.