On Vulnerability

-


I mentioned that I wanted to bring a sustainability initiative or goal to my company as a way to contribute to moving the sustainability movement forward. God, just writing that sounds hopelessly vague. (I'll think more on that later.) I was seriously doubting myself, thinking "they're going to wonder what this has to do with anything and why I'm asking for this and what I propose they do and then they're going to tell me they don't have the time or resources to do it." That thought kept returning and putting me down every time I came back to this idea. (It still does - look at what I wrote up above: "hopelessly vague". That's not very encouraging to myself.)

It turned out that I had already been sent a source of inspiration for this particular battle - my boyfriend's sister had sent me her two favorite books of 2020, one of which was Daring Greatly by Dr. Brené Brown. It has helped me frame the thinking I describe above as: my thoughts are trying to protect me from being vulnerable. Trying to keep me from mentioning something that is deeply important to me to someone who might not care. I'm seeing that overcoming self doubt is a continual  process. It's the moment of taking your foot off the ground, sending it into midair, before planting it one step further. And you have to keep doing it. And sometimes you stand still for a long time, or just shift from foot to foot uncomfortably. I've been doing that for a few months now. In my next post I'm going to talk about the steps that I have managed to take as I came to this conclusion. But for now, I'll leave you with a slightly revised version of the Theodore Roosevelt speech Brene opens her book with:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One Step

-
This year was the fifth year in a row* that I anticipated I would be "changing careers to something in the sustainability field." It was another year during which I was happy with my current career as an immigration paralegal, but just felt I wasn't doing what I originally intended to be doing. This was another year I spent weighing options for how to make the shift - perhaps going back to grad school (what program? would it actually be useful?) or just starting by applying to new jobs (what job exactly  was I looking for?). I started a GRE prep course, I read many job postings, and I spent a lot of energy just thinking and feeling bummed that I wasn't actually doing what I wanted to be doing . Then I started speaking with a coach ( KB ) who pointed out that I was evaluating during what was actually an exploring phase, and quickly getting exhausted from the effort. As soon as she said it, I knew she was right. And I realized that I needed to change my approach. I
Read more

So Do It

-
Image
Through talking with my coach, Kathryn, I realized that I was really worrying that other people might think of me as naive or idealistic to care so much about this. The thought doesn't ring true when I write it or speak it out, but it's what my brain was telling me and somehow, even though I knew better, it was making me feel small. Eventually, as a result of my talks with Kathryn in which she challenged that thought, and after reading "Daring Greatly", I got up the courage to email the CEO of our company to ask him if we have a sustainability aspect to our business plan. I went on to explain that, if we don't, I think we should. My heart was beating faster after I sent that email. But I felt proud of myself. I had a very close friend at work proof-read the email for me, and I copied her because she cares about this too. And we had a moment of being amped over it together. =D One of the many reasons that I had talked myself out of writing that email several times
Read more