When it comes to my career I would consider that part of my life, a part in which I am pretty confident. I have always been confident in my ability to try my hardest whether I achieved my goals or not but, more times than once I’ve noticed that when I try my hardest I always get somewhere, even if it’s not where I originally intended to.
As I was working the other day a thought struck my mind and I began thinking of how far I’ve come in my career. Now, to some it may seem average, but I think that only the person that has traveled in their own shoes knows the struggles and what it took to get to where they are today. I had one specific thought in mind when I was thinking about this, and that had to do with not liking to do a part of our job. What I mean here is that growing up I always heard about the “dream job” and what that would entail. I imagined that once I got my dream job I would just love every single part of it and well, that is just not true.
I consider myself lucky enough to say that I have enjoyed every job I’ve had but I will be honest and say that the retail ones (at the beginning) were my least favorite LOL
Anyways, as I was thinking about my jobs and all the job duties I’ve had in each one so far, I thought about a task that has undoubtedly followed me to EVERY SINGLE one of my jobs and that task is- talking on the phone.
I’m going to be honest here and say that I didn’t like talking on the phone. In fact, I almost highly disliked it. It made me super nervous and I never ever volunteered to be the one to make a phone call. (Now that I think back, it’s kind of funny to think that I didn’t like talking on the phone but loved radio- go figure LOL).
Anyways, I know it may seem like such a small task, I mean, don’t we all talk on the phone at work at some point? The answer is probably yes! So, why would I get so nervous when I was tasked to pick up the phone and make a phone call- at work?! Well, to be honest, I had many thoughts run through my head and I could literally hear my voice tremble as I spoke but, as it always happens, the more I picked up that phone the better I got at it. Well, at my current job there are certain tasks that require me to pick up the phone quite a bit. At first, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t like it but I took it upon myself to conquer that fear of talking on the phone. I’ve been at my job for over two years now, and I can proudly say that I HAVE CONQUERED MY FEAR! Yes, and the only way I learned was by doing it over and over and over again!
Now, I’m not saying that conquering my fear was easy. It wasn’t and to some my fear may even seem silly but to me it wasn’t.
The reason I wanted to write this blog post was because I was thinking about fear when it comes to our careers. I always feel like my fear ultimately led to the fear of rejection. I mean looking at my fear of talking on the phone I know that part of it was because I was afraid of what the person on the other end of the line would say. Would they be rude? Would I sound dumb? Will I stutter? What if I do it wrong? All these questions just roamed around my head.
While speaking to one of my coworkers we were talking about the fear of rejection. Not many people will admit it, but a lot of people are very afraid of being rejected when it comes to our career lives (and even our personal lives but that is for another time). This got me thinking- again about how I’ve learned to deal with rejection and what it means. In my head I’ve learned that we all get rejected no matter what status but, what truly matters is what we do after. Do my feelings get hurt when I get rejected? Of course! I have moments where I have felt truly terrible and like the world was going to end but, guess what? It didn’t. I think that we should only focus on things we CAN control and in the case of rejection the only thing we can control is our actions after we get rejected. So, next time that rejection scares you just think, all you can do is try your hardest and think that the world won’t end- even if it feels like it is! Who knows, you might get surprised and get somewhere just as rewarding even if it’s not to your original goal.
Just out of curiosity. What has been a big fear in your career life that you have overcome?
