What Would (Insert Name of Favorite Action Hero) Do?

Your most recent attempt to persuade your boss of how much you deserve that raise/bonus/perk landed in the unfathomable depths of his “No way no how” with barely a ripple. You are depressed, disgusted, and yes - truth be told - massaging your hurt ego with liberal doses of self-pity.

Which brings to mind all the times your boss has been less than appreciative of your skills, talents, efforts, unpaid overtime, etc. Like always! And down the road of history you go, your self-pity growing with each remembered slight until, virus-like, it pervades your whole being and you can barely function.

Now there’s a recipe for disaster! No doubt you’ve been wronged, and I’m sure it’s not the first time. But if you keep thinking about it, reviewing it over and over again in your mind, you’re simply replaying a very bad movie ad nauseam.

You’re way too savvy to pay good money to see a movie you hate repeatedly. So why are you going back to that hated/awful scene in your life obsessively?

Here’s the thing: the more you focus on “ain’t it awful” the less you see opportunities for something better. What you focus on, whatever you give your attention to, determines what you perceive. When you’re fixated on negative past experiences with your boss, you are missing what might benefit you here, now, in your present. You aren’t even considering what possibilities lie in the future - or in the next department over, or in that free-lance gig someone mentioned, or . . . you get the drift.

Get smart! Be like the hero/heroine of your favorite action movie. Shuck off the slime of self-pity, take a deep breath, and turn your gaze to what you want, not to what you didn’t get.

Put your imagination to work figuring out better ways to approach your boss, or influence him/her to that bonus or whatever it is. Get your solution mojo in gear and never ever look back.