A changed woman? How you may ask? Well to be honest, I am a changed woman because I have accepted the fact that I need to change who I am in order to change who I am. Now, if you're like me, this may sound appalling (as appalling as the suggestion of settling for a paper man)--I mean, aren't we taught to celebrate who we are, as we are? We are taught that we are free to be you and me and to embrace our own and others' differentiating characteristics. Ironic because it is our differentiating characteristics that society and our peers judge so critically. Well I could certainly go on (as could we all) about these invisible pressures but I don't want to lose my point. My point: it is I who needs to change, I need to change who I am without compromising who I am in order to change who I am. Are you with me?
Once again I will reiterate that I do like myself. I really like me. I have many great qualities like loyalty, dependability, reliability, acceptance. And while I have always been willing to admit my shortcomings/less than stellar qualities, I have accepted them as acceptably permanent. Meaning that I have used my character flaws to rationalize not doing things, and worse, to displace blame onto circumstance rather than laziness. I don't really like to use the word laziness as I don't think it fully applies. In many ways I am lazy, but this lack of change is two-fold, lack of awareness that I need to change, and lack of confidence that I can change. Are you still with me?
Let's use my career as an example. I have worked for the same company for 9 years and have enjoyed great job satisfaction and several promotions. My post-college job opportunity happened by coincidence actually--a friend of a friend knew of an opportunity-- and I easily landed the job. From there my career unfolded as I was naturally very good at what I did. I was a happy girl for many years until I found myself turned 28 and feeling stuck in my job and industry and depressing pay grade. I found myself no longer just happy to be where I was, I found myself wanting more. This is a very uncomfortable place to be in for a girl who has lived a lifetime in complacency. Worse, this realization is terrifying as I have come to the conclusion that I need to create change with-in myself in order to be able to attract and attain the new career path that I desire.
Initially when I decided I wanted a new job, I called a very successful friend of mine and I asked for help. I said to her "I don't know how to to this! What if I can't do this? What if I don't have the skills? How do you write a resume? Do I really need a cover letter? This is way too hard." Now I didn't realize that I was being a bit lazy and somewhat pathetic by suggesting I were incapable to figure this out on my own. I think I just felt the process to be too overwhelming that I didn't know if I had what it takes to go through the gauntlet from beginning to end. But, as I started to just do (researching, job searching, resume writing, etc, etc) I finally accepted three things:
1. this job search thing is so much more complicated then I originally thought.
2. I need to learn how to do this, I need to learn how to do it well, and I need to be strategic and forward thinking about where I want to be long-term. Meaning, I cannot just let my wonderful friend help get me a new job, I need to help myself get me a new career.
3. To really commit myself to this arduous journey, I need to change who I am. I need to go from being complacent to ambitious, from cramming before an exam to completing hours and hours of research, from avoiding competition to proving I am the best, to not negotiating and accepting status quo to negotiating everything.
The good news is that by accepting these as truth, the outcome will be that I am changing myself in extremely positive ways, and eventually I will be able to get exactly what I want by deserving it, not by feeling entitled to it. I will become that truly awesome and better version of myself that I have been aspiring to!
I know that this will be extremely hard and challenging for me and I am certainly not looking forward to this journey, but I am also strangely excited. In a way I feel empowered by life and awake to its possibilities. That's a nice place to be.
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