A Little Discomfort Never Hurt Anybody

Although it did not feel like it at the time, I can think of several times in my life where the unease of doing something outside my comfort zone was the path to new opportunities and ways of being for me. It is these times, whether we place ourselves in these situations or serendipitously stumble onto them, so that we can go beyond any self-imposed limitations. We gain courage and confidence to be ourselves and to let others see parts of us we may not have known existed. We also learn to accept our own imperfections.  We make the realization (hopefully) that when we “trip and fall,” so to speak, picking ourselves up and continuing to move forward seems a better alternative to staying down. 

Several years ago, a colleague said something to me that I thought was pretty mean and hurtful in front of several other colleagues. It was incredibly embarrassing for me at the time, but I realized there was some truth to what she was saying. I do not remember exactly what she said, but it was something about how I annoyed her because I never gave an opinion during our discussions and tended to go along with what others were saying about the topic when I eventually did speak up. Truthfully, I was, and sometimes still am, extremely shy. Also, I had significantly less experience than most of my colleagues at the time. My lack of opinion had more to do with lack of knowledge and my own insecurities about that. That incident changed my life forever. I started asking more questions to learn more and expressing my opinions despite my fear that I would embarrass myself by exposing my inexperience. What I found is that I learned a lot and I learned it much more quickly by actively engaging my more experienced colleagues. To this day, my tendency to speak up continues to help me learn important lessons.

So I continue to do those things that are uncomfortable to help me gain courage and become a better person. Those of you that share similar experiences, I would love to hear them. Please share them with us. Or try something outside your comfort zone and tell us how it went.

Where Your Mind Goes, Your Career Follows

My training in psychology has taught me that the mind is an extremely powerful thing. This conclusion can be drawn from the enormous body of psychological and neuropsychological research that has examined the human mind and its potential. To the scientist in me, this is powerful evidence. Even more powerful than this is my experience of numerous others (including colleagues, clients and friends) who have placed an amazing amount of concentration and focus on how they want their lives to be and achieve unbelievable feats. I am truly blessed to be surrounded by all that inspiration. It is food for my soul.

Of course, the only experience that I can speak about with any authority is my own. In my fourth year of graduate school, I began working with clients with substance abuse problems and found it incredibly satisfying and rewarding. In every other clinical training experience after that, I looked for opportunities to work with individuals who had substance abuse problems and grew to love this work more and more. As I planned my future career, I stayed focused on my strong desire to work in this clinical area. Once I did this, it seemed as if what I wanted in my career presented itself to me at the exact right time. I was accepted to a prestigious post-doctoral fellowship program in substance abuse treatment that I never in a million years thought I would be offered. Then I was offered “the perfect job” developing and managing an outpatient addiction treatment clinic. Honestly, the process of getting to where I am in my career seemed effortless at times. Not to say there were not tremendous growing pains that made me a stronger and better person and professional, but I believe my focus got me where I needed to be to help me create my Career Passionz. 

One way to manifest your Career Passionz is to use visualization to focus your mind on the outcomes you want. Our next blog issue will be a visualization that you can use to help you focus your mind on your Career Passionz. See you then.