Q: How do I get past the pain of the past? When I was a sales director a few years ago, I found myself always at the beck and call of my unit. I felt drained of all my energy and could not concentrate on my personal business. I eventually quit. Now I am heading toward directorship again and I have a team member that is draining the life out of me. My guts hurt because I don’t want to do this again. I have to be able to run my own business. I am about ready to quit again. ~ Carolyn
A: Hi Carolyn. Yours is a great question and one I think a lot of people struggle with. Not necessarily because they have a needy team member but because they seem to attract the same type of people or situations into their life over and over again.
The key for you is to look at why that may be. Why do you continue to attract people who are needy, dependent, and victims? Does that parallel anything else in your life? Are you always the savior? Do you give and give to others without them appreciating you or giving anything back?
If so, then this is just a recurring pattern. One you have to break if you are ever to get ahead in this business.
The other possibility is that you have suppressed your own neediness. Maybe you are uber-independent and self-sufficient. So other people’s neediness is especially unattractive. But just realize, you will attract what you can’t be with. Another way of saying, what you resist, persists.
These are just some areas to examine to understand why you may be recreating the same situation over again.
