Don't Limit Yourself

It’s hard making our way sometimes in the current society. We are encouraged to reach for the stars. We believe that we can achieve anything if we believe in it hard enough. Yet we are also encouraged to play it safe and play to our existing strengths. I believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I know that there are a lot of opportunities that I could seek out, but I don’t truly believe that I could achieve anything. In Outliers, Malcom Gladwell talks about the time, commitment, and energy that goes into mastering something (10,000 hours, he reckons). I have accepted that I am probably not going to be a famous painter, musician, or ballerina because I didn’t spend the time earlier on cultivating those skills and making advantageous connections. Plus, there can also only be one Anna Pavlova! But, that’s OK. Not everything has to be a career option. Some things can be let go of or become casual interests and/or hobbies.

I realised lately, however, that I have been putting myself in a (small) box of what I thought that I was capable of and what was worth pursuing for 'someone like me'. This is limiting thinking and does yourself a disservice, especially since most of the time, the box we create for ourselves is informed by the experiences and aspirations we have in childhood. While we aren’t all running around being doctors, princesses, actresses, lawyers, or fire fighters, there are often clues in our formative years that have led to the path taken so far.

For me, I had a younger sister and my parents separated when I was four years old. From that early age, I seemed to identify as a “protector”, a “helper”, and a “carer”. Whether it was taking other kids under my wing, compromising, being the first person to say sorry, or comforting other friends of mine when their parents divorced, I was slowly but surely carving out a specific path for myself.

By the time I was reaching the end of high school, it seemed like the most natural decision in the world to study Psychology at university. From there, it made sense to consolidate my training and go on to study counselling at a postgraduate level. I decided that this was my raison d’être and that was that.

Three years after graduating, I started to realise the folly of reducing my contribution to the world and my identity to just one thing. Certainly, there is a great deal of diversity in the application of Psychology and counselling, but I started to realise that I had long neglected a range of other interests and skills in my focused efforts to becoming a counsellor. So, I started to dip my toe back in.

It was daunting.

I was bumping up against the discomfort of feeling like an imposter. I felt like I almost wasn’t allowed to pursue things because I thought I wasn’t ‘something’ enough or I didn’t know how to do ‘something’. It really came to a head recently when I was speaking to someone at a networking event. They had mentioned an upcoming event called Random Hacks of Kindness. Immediately, reflexively, I found myself saying, “Oh, well, I can’t go to that. I’m not tech-savvy”. Talking to him more, I realised how limiting that sentence was. Thankfully, he encouraged me to see the worth of my perspective and how I could help inform and scenario-test the technology-based solutions being tested. The exchange got me thinking: “How much else have I shut myself out of?”

So, I want this to serve as a PSA of sorts. Don’t just dip your toe in. Dive in. Don’t be afraid, don’t limit yourself, and don’t discount what you have to offer. Our brain is not an old dog – it can learn new tricks. In fact, I don’t think we ever stop learning unless we make ourselves stop. Open your eyes, open your mind, and take that leap of faith. It may lead to places you never even thought were possible!