Appreciation Isn't Earned

I spent most of my career searching for appreciation and it wasn't easily found. It seemed that nothing I did was ever enough - a client always wanted to see another option or to make some "tweaks", a contractor wanted more information. Before even making it to the client presentation, there were rigorous rounds of revisions, and someone on the team always wanted something more, something better.

Most of the time, I felt unappreciated.

I thought if I worked harder, if I learned more and produced faster and the quality of my work was better that this would change. I thought there was a benchmark somewhere for "enough" and that when I hit that benchmark I would finally be appreciated. 

Not just my work, but me.

It led me to believe that I had to be perfect. That everything I did had to be right the first time. I didn't allow myself to make mistakes, and when I made mistakes I was incredibly hard on myself. Every time someone asked for more or for something different, I felt like I had failed. And I believed that no one would ever appreciate a failure.

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When I started working at the greenhouse, a job where I could clock in, do my work, and clock out, I wasn't at all fixated on appreciation. I was there for different reasons and it didn't matter if anyone appreciated what I was doing. I did the work that I was asked to do, I helped keep the plants alive, and I went home.

It wasn't long, maybe a few weeks at the job, before I realized that I was in fact very much appreciated. So I started to think about it. Was it because I finally let go of NEEDING to be appreciated that I finally felt it, or was it something else?

And what exactly was it that made me feel appreciated anyway? 

The first question was the easier one for me to figure out. Letting go of looking for appreciation might have been what helped me to finally feel it. But unlike what I experienced in most of my time in architecture, I was working in an environment that fostered a culture of appreciation. And that's when I realized that you can't EARN appreciation ... it's either there, or it isn't. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how much you change yourself to be what you think you should be, if a person or company or culture isn't one of appreciation, then it will always be hard to find.

 Appreciation isn't Earned.

It's isn't even really about me. It's a reflection of the character of the people and the environment that I'm in.

Learning this changed a lot for me. It allows me to accept appreciation from other's as a gift, not something that I expect or feel entitled to. It means that I started to let go of the perfectionism and doubts that I felt when I was trying to get it. And when I don't feel appreciated, I no longer take it as an assault on myself, which has allowed me to shake off a ton of negative energy I was carrying with me.

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There were plenty of times in architecture that I felt appreciated, either for the work that I did or just for being present. I worked for and with some really lovely people - internal teammates, consultants, clients, and contractors - who expressed their gratitude and appreciation regularly. Unfortunately, the industry and the process as a whole seems (to me) to have a culture of unappreciation, and the amount that I got from the people I worked with wasn't enough to counterbalance what I felt overall. I've wondered a lot if I returned to the industry now, after changing the way that I think of appreciation, could I experience this differently?

I'm also thinking about that second question ... what makes people feel appreciated ... and I'm getting close to an answer that makes sense to me. More on that next time.

 

 Happy growing!

Sarah