Prepare for a Rainy Day

A while back, my friend Andrew and I were talking about how you shake off the tough days. Maybe you mess up something at work that you should have caught. Maybe someone gives you feedback that you needed to hear but weren’t ready to hear, and you start doubting yourself. Maybe someone passes a document around at work implying women naturally don’t belong in tech. Rain can be a spectrum, but sometimes even a drizzle can break an emotional dam if it happens at just the wrong time. Rainy day folders are a tool to get yourself back out of it so that you can fix the problem, address the feedback, or ignore the sexist co-worker.

I have a folder that lets me revisit the positive words when I need them. Inside, there are thank you notes from students for helping to send them to conferences, giving pep talks, or doing mock interviews. I have messages from people that I’ve worked with that I helped solve a conflict, land a job, or find a new way to approach a problem. It’s not all tech-related: the oldest thing in there is a letter from an old high school track teammate I looked up to reminding me that I could do absolutely anything I wanted. 

I’ve had this folder since at least sophomore year of high school, though I don’t remember who exactly gave me the idea to start one. I think it might have been a leadership course I was in at the time, but generally, the concept is that you proactively plan to counter negativity bias when it comes up. If you’re prone to anxiety or self-doubt, negative words, even when they’re outnumbered by positive words 100:1, can hang around a lot longer. It can help to counter that bias to revisit what you’ve accomplished so that you can shake it off, clear your head, and get back to it. This folder has snapped me out of a bad day so many times.

The physical folder itself is actually a rainy day item, too. It’s a project from my high school art class. I had never considered myself particularly good at art, and this was from a class that helped me realize I could get good at anything- even something as foreign to me as art- if I put in the time. (Thanks, Mr. Skrabalak.) 

Because it’s 2024 these days, there is a digital folder, too. I don’t actually print emails or notes to have them in the physical folder anymore. There’s a Google Drive folder that has mostly nice emails, chats, and other various thank-yous I get at work or from coaching clients. It’s especially nice to have that at my fingertips when I’m not near the physical folder. It’s a reminder that I make a difference, and that I’m not only good at my job, but damned good. I forward chats to email or screenshot them and then file them away.

I’ve talked about being grateful and giving recognition before, and a big reason I advocate for it is because I run on it, too. While I would love to say that I require absolutely no external validation ever, it’s simply not true. As I’ve matured in my career and become more confident in my abilities, I find I need the folder less, but I appreciate gratitude as much as the next person, and it’s nice to have evidence that what I do matters to someone other than me for days that shake that confidence.

So when something gets me spiraling into doubt, the folder becomes my umbrella for a rainy day, a small defense against slipping into the negative self-talk. 

To start your folder:

• I really recommend starting with a physical folder that you can keep in your line of sight to remind you to save kind words. Pick something that’s meaningful to you, even if it’s not a folder- maybe it could be a box or a bag or whatever.
• Go through your recent messages and see if there's anything that should already be in there. Seed your folder with your first submissions.
• Consider including a log of when it's helpful to show yourself that it is worth curating. Sometimes I go months in between needing to read it now, but I've had seasons of my life where it was only days between opening it.
• Send someone a kind note to put in their hypothetical rainy day folder. The best way to create a culture of gratitude is to start participating yourself first.

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