Hello All, and welcome to this impromptu installment of Making my Mark on the world. I have been thinking, and this thought has led me to draw connections between my writings that I had not necessarily picked up on. I share those here.
As is typically the case, my mind is drawing connections to everything. Which got me thinking, it is difficult to be told that you can’t do something. Especially when it is someone that you respect telling you so. I talked about this awhile back in Why I'm frustrated with my psychiatrist. In short, he scoffed at the idea of me applying to academic advisor positions. He quipped that it was not “realistic” and not a good fit for me. As someone that struggles with motivation, this initially was demotivating to me. What is the point of pursuing it if people tell me that it’s not realistic? That was how I initially framed it. Then I realized something. That internal dialogue was not me.
In putting the pieces together, I realize that this exchange with my psychiatrist was actually pivotal in changing my mindset. Rather than think that I can’t, I began to think how can I change the narrative of my life? What steps can I take to rebrand myself? I talked about this in Playing the long game. I just didn’t really explicitly make the connection back to this exchange with my psychiatrist.
After all, I viewed this exchange as rude and somewhat inappropriate. While I still disagree with the style, I see that there is value in being told that you can’t do something. It just depends on how you frame it. For most of my life, I viewed being told that I can’t do something as demotivating. I’ve viewed these comments as prescriptive. Especially when they’ve come from loved ones like my parents. However, the truth is that it is all in how you frame the criticism. You have a lot of control over your life. I am still learning this, and I am so grateful for the role that my life coach has played in helping me with this. As an important aside, I’ll always encourage therapy and coaching (if you can afford the investment) whenever I can.
None of this is to say that it will be easy. It will require hard work. It will require trial and error. If the word is in your lexicon, it requires failure. I prefer to avoid using the word failure though. Sometimes things are not successful, but failure carries such a negative connotation with it. As long as you are learning and growing, is it really a failure?
I felt compelled to share this revelation in my mindset that I have had. I know that motivation is still a struggle, and I know that I will not be perfect in this mindset. I will have some setbacks. However, from now on when someone tells me that I can't do something I’ll simply say “thank you, I respect your opinion.” Then afterwards, I’ll reflect and think about how I can prove them wrong. How can I create the reality that I want?
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