âPutting yourself out there -â
Is a necessary evil, and let me tell you why.
(a dash of hopefully helpful rambling for my people with imposter syndrome, variations of the sort, or feel like they donât deserve stuff)
I have issues I never wanted to acknowledge, but Iâm trying to quit being in denial as a gift to myself. I overthink the littlest of things. I feel like I donât deserve anything unless I do the absolute most and even then, I will never take what Iâm owed unless the person Iâm doing this for, a regular degular or an authority figure, shows their appreciation in a consistent way, enough to where Iâm 100% sure Iâm not âbotheringâ them. I do good by a whole lot of people, but I never cash my efforts in. I have endless opportunities rolling in and rolling right past me, slow enough to where I just need to reach out, but I simply donât. I believe everything Iâve ever worked for, every accolade Iâve made, every step Iâve ever had the pleasure of taking was set up for me, and I just accepted it as something I had no choice but to do and did them. I unintentionally set up a facet of myself as my entire self to so many people when meeting them, and not only did I accept it for what it was, I continued to diligently play that persona that I absolutely hate just thinking about, and I refuse to give myself an out just because âI need to commitâ.
I can keep going on and on, but thatâs not the point of this post. Iâm writing this to you so you could benefit off of what I had to learn the hard way. Iâve been like this since I was thirteen years old (almost 22 now), and only one instance, one random decision to say, âScrew it!â a couple of weeks ago opened my eyes to what it could be like if I snatched that opportunity slowly rolling right past me.
I was doing an online internship and thought, âHm, these people donât know meâŚso what if I acted like, I dunno, my damn self? Iâll never have to see them again anyways and worry about seeming inhumane.â And so I did. I wanna say it all worked out, but it didnât. People treated my like an oddity at first, and I was getting aggravated and upset by that, and was about to retreat behind my robotic ways, but then I reminded myself - no, maybe youâre being sensitive. Maybe theyâre having a bad day. Maybe you shouldnât care because youâll be done in a month and wonât see them ever again?? So I continued being myself. And guess what?
After a while of my ideas being ignored, worrying about it I over spoke or seemed to answer my teamâs concerns immediately like I had nothing better to do, receiving everything with open arms yet with a critical eye - I became the most valuable member of our team. They were mad about that in the beginning because I guess I they had an impression about me, but then they started to confide in me personally, or ask for my input first, or give me permission to rip their work a new one because the only thing Iâm good at is damage assessing and control. And I left them with such an amazing aftertaste that, for the first time in a while, they wanted to keep in touch with me and it seemed genuine.
But thatâs not all. Me being me, I would never go out of my way and talk to a professor and say thank you privately, or hold onto them for future benefit. I just have this weird standard for myself wherein I want to reach my goals absolutely on my own, and not on the backs of anyone else, and Iâm hella extreme about it. But this time I reminded myself again that I can try - it wouldnât take anything away from me if they never responded. And you know what happened?
Not only did that person respond, but they wrote a thank you letter to me for being a good student, told me they recommended me to the place of internship for hire, and then was adamant on staying in touch so they could confirm if Iâd gotten it, and if not, that would hook me up with somewhere else.
As the conversations were happening, I was appalled that they were talking about me like that. As if all the good things Iâve accomplished in my opinion wasnât there as proof that I can do it. I legit started thinking if this was a deeper form of imposter syndrome and if I needed therapy, not gonna lie.
So this was a long-winded build up to what I wanted to leave you with, assuming youâve read all of that - put yourself out there. With all the crutches I gave myself, I never wouldâve thought Iâd get more than what I bargained for just by reaching out to opportunity. If I had known being greedy would get me what I needed, I wouldâve had my hand out a long time ago. Of course, you gotta put in the work to cash it in, but this post was for the people who do and never put themselves out there. Thatâs me. That might be you too. Hopefully after this ramble, you reassess what you think you donât deserve, and I continue to reach out instead of letting opportunity roll right past me.
Hereâs to our collective success.
2087
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