SINGAPORE: A teacher took to an online forum on Wednesday (Feb 19) to ask Singaporeans for advice on how to deal with disappointment in the workplace after not being selected for a final award in an in-house competition.
“Recently, I entered a mini-competition by my organisation,” the woman wrote. “I’m in the education industry and I’ve been nominated this and the previous year for a teaching award,” she shared. “I had to record my lesson and compete with other nominees to be selected for the final award. I’ve tried my best and thought I had a good chance this year because I really practised hard and did a lot of research. But I failed.”
According to her post, this caused her to doubt her capabilities. “I started to develop self-doubt and fall into a cycle of feeling incompetent and insecure about my skills. I looked at the feedback given by the interview board and felt like maybe I am a (bad) teacher because there were like four constructive criticisms and only two positive feedback about my lesson.”
Netizens, commenting on her post, offered encouragement.
“Don’t treat these activities as things you must win but rather things you can learn from,” said one. “Find useful takeaways from the feedback and incorporate them into your career growth.”
Others tried to change her perspective and encouraged her not to be hard on herself. “The fact that you were nominated for the award already means ur not (as bad as) you think,” wrote another. “Just like many great actors and actresses are nominated for the Oscars, but there are only a few winners. The award is not everything, your passion for teaching, your students, your peers, your life, all add up to 100 per cent. The award is only one per cent. If you have $100 dollars, you don’t throw away $99 dollars just because you lost a dollar.”
Another wrote, “In my opinion, you are too harsh on yourself just because you failed the competition. Please don’t be too harsh on yourself. Failing a competition doesn’t mean you are incompetent. You already got nominated, which is a good achievement. Be proud of yourself.”
Still, a third shared, “Being a teacher is never easy and I always admire the hard work you all put in for the kids. (Not a teacher, but I have worked with teachers before).”
According to Edutopia, self-criticism is a common struggle among teachers. However, there are ways they can successfully deal with such issues. While monitoring one’s inner voice or inner critic is important, it is also important for teachers to set realistic expectations, create achievable goals, and take breaks. In a show of support, some responded to the post by sharing helpful tips for people dealing with disappointment at work.