You know how you can get used to one story you have about yourself, and think nothing of it, until the one day you’re forced to see yourself in a totally different way?
I was thinking about this in reference to applying to college.
Most of my life, my parents prepped me for the idea that if I wanted to go to a specific school, I’d need to get an academic scholarship. College was expensive. Student loans were a trap. Get a discount - or you don’t go. Ivey Leagues were out of the question…and they were for rich snobby people. Not us. Besides; I didn’t have a perfect SAT score, and I’d heard it was almost impossible to get into one. So, I didn’t bother applying to the Yale’s and Stanford’s of the world. I didn’t want to waste $60 on an application fee just to get rejected.
Then, about 10 years later, I met my spouse. He’d gone to Cornell. I mentioned all this in passing to him.
“What do you mean you couldn’t have gotten in? Cornell, at least, would totally have taken you.” He said it so casually and so matter-of-factly. “You really think your parents wouldn’t have paid for it if you had gotten into an Ivey League? Cathy, they would have found the money.”
THAT’S when I realized how much of my reluctance to try for an Ivey school had been about me.
It wasn’t about wasting money on application fees. Hell, I applied to 9 different schools. That’s ~$540 of “wasted” application money, if we’re counting.
It was really about me not being able to face being rejected. It was about me believing that I’d die if one of those fancy-pants schools told me I wasn’t smart enough to rub elbows with them. It was me believing that I was small without even testing my “big-ness” potential out for size. It was me worrying that other people would think I was a loser if I applied to Harvard or Stanford or whatever - and got heartily rejected. I figured that if I didn’t try…I couldn’t lose. Even though, if I’m honest, I really wanted to know if I could do it.
Since then, I’ve learned: Rejection isn’t what sinks you. It’s the part where you’re so afraid of what it means to fail that you never even try.
I’ve learned that you have to make people tell you “no”.
You have to try for as much as you can. You have to keep going until you actually find the limit. Because odds are that the limit is way past what you believe it is.
So you ASK FOR the promotion, the week off, the pivot to a different department. ASK FOR the refund. ASK FOR the better seat. APPLY TO that crazy awesome job you don’t believe you’ll ever get. Imagine the best that could possibly happen, and then go for it. You’re allowed to pivot - and you’re also allowed to change your mind if what you dreamed up for yourself isn’t as good of a fit as you thought it would be.
Hearing a “no” isn’t the end of the world - it’s evidence that you really tried for something.
Someday, that “no” might even be the story you tell people about how you realized what you really wanted to do with your life.
Be well, y’all.
XOXO,
Cathy