Growing up, you were told you’re special, you’re unique, you can do anything.
Somewhere along the way, you forgot that.
Maybe it was between that econ class junior year and your first real-world job. Or when you signed the lease for your first place without a roommate.
You began to think of yourself as ordinary.
And secretly, deep down, you knew that wasn’t true (you have a lot to bring to the world, after all), but you didn’t want to seem boastful or too proud.
Then, you forgot completely what it is that makes you special.
Here’s what can happen when you’re unaware of what makes you unique and amazing…
10:00am at work
Your boss hands you your performance review. You sit down to look over it.
He’s in a hurry and doesn’t spend much time talking it over with you, even though you’ve been doing some important work. You can tell he’s really not that interested in what you’re doing and you can see where he’s coming from on that, as despite doing a great job, you feel exactly the same level of interest in your work.
You’ve got your third coffee of the day at your side, sometimes coffee seems to be what’s getting you through the days.
You thumb though the review and see it says you’re doing a great job. You’re meeting all the key performance indicators. You know you ought to feel elated, or at least something other than numb. It’s so disappointing to just feel numb.
You followed the rules, worked hard at school, went to college, got a job, and maybe even got married or had kids. The American dream… but the American dream isn’t seeming so dreamy right now.
At the heart of that is the fact that you’re in the wrong career and the harder-to-embrace fact is that you spend so much time here.
Your boss loads another round of work onto your desk. You smile and say you can make the deadline, but inside you don’t want to have to make the deadline. You want to run out the door and never have to come back.
Time to quit?
You keep wanting to quit.
Sometimes you imagine the vivid details of quitting. You would be professional about it, poised, collected.
In other versions, you walk out and slam the door behind you.
You’ve been this close to it and then you don’t because you know you’ve got to keep a roof over your head and now there’s more than just the bare essentials. You’ve become used to a certain standard of living.
Maybe you don’t want to give up your club membership, maybe you don’t want to pull your children out of the school that they’re doing so well in. It matters to you that you eat healthy food and that’s sometimes the slightly more expensive option.
These are things that just seem too hard to let go of.
There seems no way out. You feel trapped.
When you started off on this path there was that part of you that thought there was something special about you.
You’re not the type to boast, but at some level you knew that in this one life of yours, you were meant to make a difference.
But then somewhere along the way, you forgot that. You forgot about the little kid with BIG DREAMS.
You forgot you were special.
What if in trying to make a career change, you find you’re not unique and amazing and fall flat on your face?
Isn’t it just safer to stay in a life that you hate? After all, other people are always telling you what a great job you’ve got.
It’s only by recognizing what’s unique and amazing about you that you can begin to open new doors to your future.
You deserve more and you’re capable of more than going day after day to work that isn’t the right fit for you.
Imagine being in work where you don’t need to look at a performance report to know you’re doing a great job and where you also feel that what you’re doing is meaningful and special to you.
Imagine a life where you’re really owning what’s unique and special about you.
You walk taller when you enter a room. You have natural presence. You become the sort of person who gets featured in your alumnae magazine.
You have a plan for what you want to do next and it’s a plan that lights you up. You become the kind of parent you always hoped you’d be, someone who is able to model healthy self-esteem.
It’s the sort of life that doesn’t lead to regret.
The way to get work that’s a great match for you is by deeply understanding and internalizing what makes you unique and amazing.
Tell us – what is that?
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