Pick Yourself
I love my new job.
I'm a Project Manager and Producer at Gorilla. I get to interact with creative and passionate people everyday. It is a dream come true, and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else.
The weird thing is, all my friends were right about the creative industry. It's not what I thought it would be. I had spent the greater part of five years dreaming about having a creative job: Copywriter, Art Director, Designer, Writer, Office Manager—ANYTHING. I just wanted to be in the creative world, surrounded by people and working with clients that want them to do new and original things.
I romanticized it. I made it into something way bigger than it is.
The truth is, even creative work is still WORK (duh). There is more personal pressure in the creative world. You have to show up and bring your best all the time because there isn't a set standard of what you'll be doing everyday. Each client; each project demands different things from you. To put it simply, I had no idea what I was getting into. I've never been so overwhelmed or fearful in my entire life. But at the same time, I've never been so challenged.
The funny thing was, when I finally got the job offer I was completely terrified. Will I make enough money, is this the right choice, what about health insurance, no benefits? Can I even do this job? What's a creative brief look like? Don't even get me started on the acronyms.
But I did jump. I talked with the people that I respect in my life. I thought long and hard about it, and eventually decided: I had to. This is who I am. I don't want to regret this later in life. I don't want to be comfortable. I want to do great things. I picked myself. I picked me to do this job. I jumped into an unknown world that I thought I knew everything about.
In Seth Godin's latest book/magazine What To Do When It's Your Turn he reminds us that we can always pick ourselves. Most of the time we sit around and wait for a boss to pick us, a coworker to acknowledge our work, a teacher to give us an A, and people to notice. The thing is we don't need to wait. We invent our rules, our standards, our expectations.
A truth from Godin’s book that resonated with me is:
- Nobody owes you anything (no, not even a thank you).
- It is actually you who owes the world and it's denizens. You take up space (physically and emotionally) and you better have something good to show for it.
This idea blew my mind.
I spent the first twenty-seven years of my life constructing a false narrative in my mind—one where someone would come along and choose me; where I was owed a job that fulfilled everything my heart desired and met all of my creative, financial, and social needs. I honestly hadn't realized that it was me who had to make the first move, to step up and say, "I can do that." Even when I'm terrified, I can invest the emotional effort into believing that I am enough. I don't have to wait. I can show up. Just like we all can.
