Why Pain Is Good

Most of us were not raised to be reflective with our life's experience. We were taught good manners and graces, told to complete a good degree, get a job, get married, start having kids. The experiences sandwiched in these four relative generic and simple advise we received was largely omitted, but the older we get the more we are forced to reflect.

Life in itself is a medley of experiences. If you spend time enough on earth, then you will witness various angles that it presents- good news, joy, grief and.... pain. Going through the rhythms of life, our penchant to live like we are in control, our dreams, hopes, desires and the way we get enraptured with the details of our lives does not prepare us for pain, but pain is an inevitable experience.

Pain in your career journey is almost a must. It is a bitter pill that you will swallow and many times, you don't even see it coming, because no one warned you. You were just told to get a job and that is what you did.

The degree of pain you will experience will vary. For example someone that works in a toxic Organisation will endure more pain in their career journey that someone who does not. Also, decisions we make can expose us to pain along our journey.

A lack of emotional intelligence, how you treat people, lack of Organisational awareness, response to office politics amongst others. Furthermore, career transitions, job loss, unsuccessful job search could cause pain. Ha!, there is also the odd mean girl, mean boy or mean leader at work. I pray this wont be your lot because it is a whole lot to deal with!

As I reflect on the different types of painful experiences I have experienced in my career journey, I cant help but be thankful for them. I spoke about reflection in my first paragraph because the way you view an painful event will define your take aways. Sometimes, we get so bitter at the negative experiences that we have had on our career journey and this alone leaves us stuck, unable to move on because we fail to release those people, events or systems that may have failed us. If you do not release something, how then can you move on to greater and better?

Here are some ways pain has helped me grow, shaped my character and made me a better human being and professional. I suppose as a HR professional, many things had to leave me. Afterall as one of my mentors said, HR is a ministry.

• Got rid of my own toxic behaviors- I am a choleric. Unfortunately you have to get close to me to know this. However, most pure cholerics do not make very good leaders. Their abrasive character rubs off people the wrong way. My character was formed as I walked through bitter waters. There was no use for my pride, anger, impatience, haughtiness and other smirk worthy behavior for the assignment at hand.

God is not interested in your comfort as much as He is interested in your character and if you will be used to be of great value to yourself and others, then your assignment will have to be understood and part of that journey is found in how pain will prune you

• Built the strength of my character- As I grew, I learned how to lead and manage myself, speak with grace no matter how I felt, manage multiple characters and agendas, understand the ambitions and drives of my key stakeholders and manage my emotions whilst at it. Pain drove me to learn to do and be better.
• Grew in wisdom-These days in the workplace, I am like the proverbial owl. As wise as they come, I learned from experience and I grew in pain.
• I take nothing personal- I have learned not to take offense or not to take anything personally at work. Everyone at work is there to serve a purpose for themselves and the organisation and sometimes, we will disagree and that is ok.
• I grew my love code- I had to love and accept everyone at face value and without biases.
• Built empathy- My struggles made me empathetic towards the plights of the next person. I daresay, If I had not been humbled by some of these experiences, I will have continued to be haughty.
• Got rid of entitlement- Many of us feel entitled to many things especially when we have worked for it. We believe we deserve this and that, but my experience was that in the place I worked the hardest, I was least rewarded. In the place I felt owed me much, I did not get as much. This hurt for a while because I felt I deserved it and maybe I did but no one owes you anything. We however owe it to ourselves to make our lives better. Eventually that reward I sought came, but from elsewhere and in a different way in a different season.
• I got over me- I learned to get over myself because my assignment had absolutely nothing to do with me but the people I have been called to manage in my profession. The Chief Talent Manager which is God has been deploying people to various assignments since the beginning of time and I had been deployed and I only needed to take my position and serve
• Paying it forward- One of the reasons I no longer gasp in surprise when people tell me about some horrible career experience is because I have been there and done that. I have a number of tees and I understand the pain and the suffering. Therefore I now pay it forward and part of my mandate is to help people manage themselves and their reactions when they encounter unpleasant scenarios as they navigate their career.

Do you know that God can use literally ANY EXPERIENCE to bring healing and transformation? However, you have to understand that your career is just one of the many things that God has placed in your hands to bring honour to him and to shape your character. Do not treat it lightly.

There is the place of finding purpose in your career and I am glad I found mine. My story is one where the pain, discomforts and experiences that I have personally gone through as well as the learning along the way helped me to find a purpose for it. Now, I carry that burden for other individuals dealing with pain as they build their career in a cut throat world.

You can still reign and dominate and find peace in your work, but you have to hand over that job and all of your career ambitions to the one who gave it to you in the first place, so that you can be all He wants you to be.

I hope you find this helpful

Warmest wishes

Bunmi