In my former career I recall working in a job where I began to petrify. I had promised myself I would apply for promotion when it was next available and so I kept that promise to myself in a half hearted sort of way. Once engaged with the process I did the best I could and gained promotion. Not for the first time I felt a mixture of they've got it wrong I'll never be able to do it and yeah damn right, see all at the same time. The role was partly what I wanted as it filled the lack of experience of man management I knew I thoroughly lacked.
What I found was that after a year or too my ambition if not necessarily my confidence began to grow.
I recall my next venture into promotion was the hardest, I got a go ahead pass and no role and going for promotion in another department didn't even get me an interview. At this point one feedback from interview I had was that I should get out of my comfort zone. My boss and I were annoyed and amused by that comment. When am I in my comfort zone? Exactly she said.
I always seemed to aim towards a new thing that would teach me soothing or add to my strengths or experience. But of course all within the same employer and all desk-bound jobs so there were parameters I had set without realising.
I'm rarely comfortable when I am learning a new role. I am eager to learn and quick to feel I am not getting it quick enough as I focus on what I am not doing rather than on what I am achieving. After temping and volunteering and applying for jobs all at the same time for a while I realise I had put myself through years of that discomfort, constantly being on the backfoot. But that has never stopped me doing it.
Now I am pausing and reluctant to take on any more discomfort for a while. I'm doing ok in my new role and being offered more complex work. I don't want the hassle and at the same time feel uninspired by the things I can do. I have done more things but my drive is in third gear.
I expected to see paths open up to me once I got my self integrated in this work. I feel very connected and able to help others but see no way to grow as a person or in my career. I feel I want to. I want more status and influence. Mainly influence I think.
When work is hectic and I have lots of internal customers I thrive, so maybe its the self motivating for tasks that I find hard. I'm reluctant to let any job get under my skin and take over my life. I have a better work life balance now. Better relationship with my son, not that it was negative before but more about looking after him and less about hanging out with him, more needed than wanted stuff. I'm less likely to bend to accommodate what extra work may ask of me.
Maybe that will change when I have an empty nest or maybe there just needs to be more of me in what I am trying to achieve.
The things that have happened that I expected is that I have real relationships with people on the inside now. I surprise myself with the relevance of my experiences and interests.
Sometimes I speak and everyone gets what I have to say the first time. And they don't pull a face. My clothes are considered ordinary or interesting but never wtf?!*&* even today when I wore a turquoise trilby with sequin trim
my writing www.cymruculture.co.uk is not going to change academia but it is part of that and www.artclubcardiff.co.uk its sharing art for the everyman. I like to think I'm the Barry Norman of the art world. I describe, inform and not critique.
Had seriously lovely feedback from one piece which still gives me hope that one day I may get paid for it. "Maybe you could be a writer, you could do worse" Lloyd Cole sang in my ear for many years.
I'd like the money but I'd like the feeling of achievement.
so there, I feel safe and am now looking for more. Like the man stuck in the hole who has a man jump in with him, I am reassuring myself I have been in this hole before and I know the way out.
First aim at the sky...
Jen
