Today I start my new job, and it will be challenging. Which is good – it’s what I wanted. But I know myself well enough to know that the biggest danger ahead is that I will have too high expectations of what I can do. So I will try to remember that:
- There will be no time in this job when I will know everything I need to know. So I will have to ask.
- There is no way that I will be able to absorb everything that people tell me first time round. So I will have to ask again. And again, if necessary.
- There is no way that I will ever be able to speak Spanish like a native speaker. So I will have to be patient with my mistakes, extra cautious about possible misunderstandings. And I will try to recognise that people around me will value the effort I am making far more than an ability to speak and write perfectly.
- I will forget things, and do things wrong. And the quickest way to deal with this is to be very upfront about it and get on with sorting out the problem. The longer I try to kid myself that things are OK, the longer it will take to sort out.
- Some decisions will be difficult – I will not have enough information to make the choices I need to make, and often the two alternatives will be difficult. So I will try to remember that sometimes taking no decision, or deciding too late, is a worse alternative than making the wrong choice. Sometimes someone has to make a choice. And often that person will be me.
- I cannot be more than I am. So I will just be myself and do the job as myself. And nobody, not even myself, has the right to expect more from me than that.
Words that sing 