What Are you Bringing To The Potluck?
I've been a beginner before. As a relative beginner over two decades ago, I felt intimidated and discounted my existing skills. I felt like I had to work twice as hard and learn as quickly as possible to catch up. I felt pressure to master my craft in the shortest amount of time.
20 years later, I have a completely different orientation as I evolve into the doula world. Now, when I’m surrounded by my experienced colleagues, I don't feel imposter syndrome, despite the fact that I still have so much to learn.
Making Learning My Job Reduced My Fear of Failure
Living within two conflicting truths was disorienting—I was content AND I had also become bored and wasn’t growing. A work slowdown brought opportunity. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone was really hard; having a friend on the journey gave me courage, and fear of being left behind gave me an incentive to act. Choosing a perspective re-orders how you engage with an experience. In my case, permission to focus on learning gave me a way to manage my doubts and fears, while lowering the stakes.
I Left Design Because I Had Stopped Growing
I spent more than a decade working in design before finally calling myself a designer. Twenty years into my career, I had created a life that seemed too good to be true. I knew I was spoiled and lucky, and deeply grateful for the privilege. But I felt like I was beginning to stagnate. Yet, despite my growing dissatisfaction, I had convinced myself that I was content.
Evolution
In several conversations with coaches and peers, I kept bumping into the realization that I was scared. Scared to step into the unknown, scared to take a risk, scared of getting things wrong. It kept me from trying new things with my business, from launching simple experiments, from asking people to let me practice and refine my coaching skills with them. I went so far as to hang up a sign in my office encouraging me to DO IT SCARED in big bold letters.