It’s been a crazy couple of years.

New year’s day is approaching and it makes me look back. Last year at this time I was signing the 5th job offer in 2 and a half years. 6 jobs in 3 years were far more than I had planned for.

Which meant that I had gone into a lot of new work places and had to figure out the lay of the land. And all of them were new kinds of jobs I’d never done before.

The first of the five was especially tough. I remember after the few months sitting in a meeting (nearly identical to a dozen previous meetings) and being terrified that I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was pretty sure that I would fail publicly and spectacularly.

Heart pounding, empty minded terrified.

So in those meetings, when the same words and arguments were being said, I was on fire. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t see a way to the job done. And I didn’t see a way to get support from my boss.

Since nothing was happening in the meeting, I flipped my notebook to the back page and started making new notes:

I approve of myself. I deeply and completely love myself.

This was the antidote to the terror.

A slow antidote to be sure. But I was convinced that everyone at my new job thought I was a failure. I was totally ready to agree with them.

Even before they said it.

That sense of failure was like an eclipse over productive thought. How could I possibly get any thoughtful work done with this terror taking up all the brain cycles?

So even stuff that I knew I could do, I couldn’t seem to get started on because I was so overwhelmed.

Until I found that antidote. Loosen the python and declare that no matter what happened I had my own back. I didn’t believe it at first, that I approved of myself. I filled paged with that sentence before it sank in a bit.

What amazed me was that once I loosened the stranglehold that this terror had on me, I could do my job better. I could think again, and had a better chance of succeeding.
There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t until I changed the script that I could start a different story.

The script before had been that I was an imposter and a failure. The new script was that I was a worthwhile human being. It was a step up from failure, not a big jump but one that I could believe in.

And changing the story let the sun in. Once I found something more positive to say to myself, I could see where I could make some progress.

Like I said, it’s been a crazy last few years. And as I look forward to what’s ahead, I am remembering what I learned then. Choosing my story is a really good thing to remember.

I want to pick a good one.