The worst piece of advice I’ve ever received was from my English professor 23 years ago.
She was a fun, artsy-fartsy lady who had just moved from California. She was thrilled about buying snow boots for her first Western NY winter. I loved her. She was cool and fun and I wanted to be like her.
I had taken a year off between high school and college because I struggled with debilitating self-doubt and anxiety. Back then, I didn’t have any awareness of my doubtful or anxious feelings and I certainly didn’t have any of the self-coaching tools I have now.
I just thought …there was something terribly wrong with me.
After handing in one of my papers. She pulled me aside and said…
“Angie, I can tell you are smart, but perhaps you’re not a writer. It’s just not your thing.”
My brain chewed on this comment and interpreted it as: You are smart, but never smart enough. You shouldn’t write.
In hindsight, it’s pretty ridiculous how this piece of “advice” affected me and my life.
I was originally taking social work courses. I changed my major to Speech Language Pathology and I did love it. I reasoned with myself- “It’s a little more scientific, clear cut… There won’t be as much writing. The writing will be more technical. Seems legit- right? (sarcasm alert-because SLP’s, we don’t write much)
I was extremely…. “successful” as an SLP student. All the things, 4.0 average, clinician of the year, lots of praise from my professors. That is, if you want to call being a neurotic perfectionist-… successful. I started my career and continued the neurotic perfectionist theme… until I couldn’t anymore.
(BURNOUT).
I was over-working, over-eating, over-drinking, over-sleeping, waaaaaaaay over-thinking. I was just getting by day to day. Mondays were The. Worst.
Oh don’t worry, it was all perfectly hidden.Nobody would have ever known. I kept going, dutifully showing up to work as usual.Here’s the thing
My brain twisted this off hand, comment… and turned it into a shameful, hideous, “fact” about myself. Fact is- It wasn’t a fact at all- It was just a crappy thought I had about myself.
I changed the whole trajectory of my career because of this one comment. Well, because of what I made it mean about me.
I don’t regret it because now I love my job and my kiddos and co workers. I may have never found my path to becoming a life coach. I learned how to create my career that way on a daily basis. I had to do all the mental work and literally become a different person to get there. I’m continually doing this work.
Aka- there is no autopilot for loving your career. It doesn’t come naturally. You have to steer it intentionally in the direction you want to go.
Here’s what I learned- years later so I can pass on some advice to you.
- Always question your brain and it’s interpretations- especially when you are feeling anxiety, self doubt, blame, fear, or scarcity
- Everything that happens, was meant to happen that way- How do I know?- It did ~Byron Katie
- Never hand responsibility and power over- what you want to create in your life- to someone else. Have your own back.
- Proactively practice self acceptance and love your imperfections, allow yourself to “do things badly” for the purpose of growth
- Practice self compassion- I have so much love for the scared, confused me from 23 years ago.
The grown up me responds to my professor like this.
You’re absolutely right- writing isn’t really my thing. I am a teacher, a healer, a thought leader and I have a message to share.
It’s true- I’m really not a writer- Clearly, I don’t give a $h!t about correct use of punctuation…It doesn’t stop me from writing
So I write.
Have you ever had a piece of bad advice?
How is it impacting you now?
How could all this have been FOR you?
Lots of love
Angie
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