I spent a long career adhering to rules and being second-guessed on every one of my decisions. The last half of my career I was in management and I was second-guessed even more and left out over and over and over.
Now that that career is over, I'm sensitive to these things. The stress and the trauma of always being told that I was wrong and being told that I made a wrong decision and put lives in jeopardy and caused people problems makes me get very defensive very quickly.
Over and over, I was proven right in almost all of my decisions at work, even the ones that I didn't like and nobody else liked, I was right for what I did. My delivery wasn't always great, but I was right.
Now I'm finding that I slow down and I don't really share my decisions the way I did. I just kind of let things go and smile when they turn out the way I thought they would.
It seems that many people are intimidated by someone who can make quick decisions and be right. It's not fun and it's not a great way to live, but I sure enjoyed it. And I'm really good at it. And I like who I am and what I do.
When I get second-guessed and left out nowadays I don't put up with it. I move on to something else and put that behind me. Just like my career.
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