When work gets rough and life gets busy, it’s also an opportunity to show your character

nicholaschung (42)in #life • 6 years ago (edited)

Hi,Steemit Uses today I want to talk about"When work gets rough and life gets busy, it’s also an opportunity to show your character"

As some of you may have noticed, I've not been as active as usual for the past couple of weeks. A pity considering how my enthusiasm for steemit is only going up the more I interact with people here (I even had two steemit real-life meetups last week which I didn’t get to blog about, damn it!) and the more I hear about new development projects coming up.

What’s kept me away from posting is a project that I’m currently responsible for which is in its most busy period. It's safe to say this has had me completely overworked for the past month. (I’ll give you more details on the project in a future post, but in short, it includes a research project on how satellite applications are used in 6 countries together with my building and hosting a conference for stakeholders in all the countries that will happen in mid-October). So for the last couple of weeks, life has pretty much consisted of getting up at 05:00 AM to go to the gym or go for a morning jog to be ready for a hectic work-day starting 08:00 AM and ending 08:00 PM. With the project failing to escape my mind once home, I've usually ended sitting up some late evenings or waking up at around 01:00-02:00 AM feeling the need to pre-write some emails for the next day. Weekends are then used mainly for restoration.

Sounds bad? Yeah, a little bit. But I also find some real positives that I thought I would share.

Although all the work I do is done digitally, using an image of a desktop with several words, pdf and excel files and an uncountable number of emails just don’t have the same effect to it!

What I find interesting is that despite all the sleepless nights and long days at work, I'm really enjoying life at the moment. True, I would not want, nor recommend, this lifestyle to become anyone’s norm in the long run. However, I do find a lot of fulfillment during these brief periods of anxiety, stress and a constant feeling of pressure. Indeed, there is a part of me that comes to life only when things get rough, when the deadlines approach, or when I'm pushed to the limit. It provides me with a unique opportunity to test out what I’m really capable of and to show, not just to others, but also to myself what my real character really is. To know how much I can get done if I really give it my all. You can always imagine how good you are when things are calm and easy, but you don't really know it before you’ve been through the test.

Especially as a young professional working at an international organization like the European Space Agency, taking on a challenge like this is very exciting. Many times I've taken part in projects, but this is the first time that the full responsibility is on me to coordinate other people's work and see that the desired results are delivered. It will be one of the things I can look back on and know that although it was hard, I made it through. The fact that I am now pushing myself to the limit to get this done also has an added benefit. The next time things get rough and I are left with doubt as to whether or not I’ll get through, I can remind myself of the last time the weather was rough but I still lasted through the storm.

Also, I have to say that when you work with what you love, and feel that you are part of creating the changes you want to see more of in the world, then it's a whole lot easier to tell yourself in the morning that it's worth getting out of bed and attacking the new day heads on despite knowing that it may leave a small crack in your skull.