I’m writing this to conceptualize what I’ve learned over the past few months working through feelings of anxiety I’ve never experienced before. Hopefully, this can be insightful for anyone experiencing similar predicaments navigating career and personal interests. :)
Around the end of my junior year of college, I began to feel increasingly anxious about graduation and finding my place in the workforce. This anxiety likely stemmed from the unpredictability of post-grad life, especially without the structure of school which I had become accustomed to for the past 16 years. Realizing my initial plan of law school wasn’t a long-term interest of mine gave me a daunting amount of freedom regarding career interests. As someone with diverse interests spanning many industries, it has been challenging to focus on one task whether it be music production, oil painting, fitness, social media projects, work, etc. Pairing these many interests with the freedom between school and the workforce definitely poses some challenges.
For me, it’s the perfectionist part of my thought process that overthinks new projects. This overthinking results in unnecessarily long periods spent planning when I should just be starting. Additionally, the planner aspect of my personality becomes uncomfortable without structure or familiarity. These are just two out of a complex set of mental traps I subconsciously set for myself, but they are central to the overarching issue I’ve self-diagnosed: the anxiety of starting.
Recognizing this issue was holding me back, I decided to address my anxiety head-on with two mental protocols. Furthermore, the combination of these techniques has nurtured a leap in both my overall productivity and confidence, which I will highlight here. The first one was breaking down my interests and the goals that pair with them. Keeping these ideas in my head at the same time was overwhelming, so deconstructing them into a document allowed me to create a course of action for each idea. Breaking a large idea into smaller tasks made it much more attainable than feeling crushed by a huge concept with no single solution. With that, my mind shifted solely to problem-solving mode, rather than having to organize my thoughts simultaneously.
The second course of action was implementing self-check-ins into my daily thought process. Having created actionable steps for each interest and goal I had, it was important to be realistic about my own bandwidth to accomplish these tasks. For example, on any given day, I make sure to do a self-check-in halfway through to evaluate my headspace and progress. This provides a checkpoint in case I need to adjust my approach or provide myself with additional support. Moreover, at the end of the week, I conduct a self-check-in to evaluate the progress I made on all my goals and see if there’s anything I need to pivot toward or give more attention to. By actively diagnosing and supporting my thought processes, I’ve made much more progress over the past couple of months than I had in the past four years in relation to personal goals and interests.
The career and personal journey is unpredictable and can at times be overwhelming, trust me I know. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned through addressing and recording my own experience, it’s that you are your own greatest asset. And that whatever may be holding you back from reaching that ultimate goal isn’t a roadblock, but rather an opportunity to learn something about yourself.
Thank you for reading, and I hope these rough, not-very-scientific personal concepts of mine can be of use to you in starting a new venture!
Also, feel free to reach out if you have questions or anything you wanna talk about! I love a good conversation.