For the second year now, I've had a low performance rating at work. I feel like I've done my best but clearly it's not enough. My manager tried to be kind with her comments and didn't make it too personal, but you still hear words like "low performance behaviours" and the negativity starts to flow around in my head for hours afterwards. At the time I shrug it off but the effects of the words just seem to increase as time goes by.
I can tell that if I don't combat these negative feelings soon it's going to get on top of me and I'll descend into anxiety and depression. It's hard to nip the negative thoughts in the bud when it's not just purely made-up irrational thoughts though - this negative feedback about me is coming from other people, it's not just in my head. I can't just dismiss it as anxiety when someone else has formally verbalised and quantified my crapness!
So how do you stay strong in the face of this sort of negativity and not let it crush you?