Being a part of a team can be one of life’s most fulfilling experiences. But it can also be one of life’s most frustrating experiences.
As a member of a team, the measure of your achievement is tied to your team’s success—something which you, as an individual, do not solely control. Regardless of how hard you work, how greatly you sacrifice, or how spectacularly you perform, your team might still lose.
With teams, success is ultimately dependent on the performance of the entire team—not just that of the individual.
How do you, as a driven individual, keep the stress that comes from this hardened premise from hampering you or your team?
First, don’t allow the stress to become distress. At its most elementary level, stress is your body’s natural reaction to a situation that challenges your level of comfort. Failure is uncomfortable and can therefore be expected to be accompanied by stress.
Distress is the result of prolonged stress. Distress erodes individual wellbeing, and for teams, it leads to dysfunction.
Good teammates prevent stress from becoming distress by accepting stress’s inescapable presence and employing healthy problem-focused coping strategies. They don’t waste their energy blaming, shaming, or complaining. They focus on remedying the problem.
Complaining about the team’s failures, trying to assign or shift blame, or shaming other team members for their mistakes perpetuates stress. These approaches are not effective ways of holding others accountable. They’re ways to keep the stress in the present instead of moving it to the past.
You may not be able to control the team’s success, but you can influence it with your effort and enthusiasm–two entities that are within your control.
We all have a fire burning inside of us, and we have total control over what we choose to do with that fire. Good teammates use their fire to ignite. Poor teammates use it to inflame.
How hard you work, how greatly you sacrifice, and how spectacularly you perform can ignite your teammates’ passions. Your example can inspire them to elevate their effort and enthusiasm, which improves the probability of your team achieving success.
On the other hand, how hard you complain, how greatly you blame, or how unspectacularly you shame can inflame your team with jealousy, pettiness, and resentment. Your negative response to the stress can agitate your fellow teammates and diminish your team’s chances of achieving success.
Knowing that you did not let your stress to become distress and that you controlled what you could control keeps the frustration of being part of team from overtaking the fulfillment of being part of a team.
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
