Getting comfortable with the discomfort of career change.

I’m not sure which part is scarier for me: actually leaving my seemingly secure job, or the discovery process of redefining myself and figuring out who I am now.

I’ll be honest, I’ve indirectly been avoiding the uncomfortable part of this journey, the soul searching part, in hopes that it just manifests in my life and whatever the next step or purpose is, that it simply unfolds before me without conscious herculean effort. That’s probably why it’s taken me several months to finally sit down and write about the process, the experience. Of course, I also needed a little time to simply decompress and unwind from the tension and frustration that had become the commonplace norm in my life (fyi, that tends to happen when you end up living the job, a.k.a. living to work instead of working to live). In case I hadn’t mentioned it in my previous post, I’d become numb to a lot of things in life, didn’t laugh nearly as much as I used to and wasn’t as much fun to be around either.

I’m a type A personality and a very structured individual — and I was a wreck the first month of being “unemployed”. I was so used to my structured life and schedule that I didn’t know what the hell to do with myself, it was almost paralyzing & overwhelming trying to figure out what I “should” be doing. I was super edgy/angry and the smallest things would really set me off. I preoccupied myself with chasing down truck and RV parts and would rather wrench on things than try to quiet my mind and figure out why I was being such a moody pain in the ass. (Hey, in my defense these things needed to get done, they just didn’t deserve the priority I was giving them.) I was actually uncomfortable not having the perceived security and purpose of my habitual, scheduled life. Go figure, rather than embracing the freedoms I’d been bitching about not having, I felt lost without the familiar structure of obligation — ironic huh? This was a harsh reality, I was actually going to have to do some inner reflection to figure things out.

The discomfort of “the work”

OK, stay with me here for a minute while I make a long-winded point, my wife shared some pretty good insight with me recently that seemed to fit the situation. She explained how actors can’t sincerely portray someone else’s story until they “own” their personal story: we tend to see people as two-dimensional until we learn something personal about them, something intimate or vulnerable — i.e. their story. That’s when we begin to see the depth in others, the 3-D version of them. So, how do they “own” their personal story? Well, something they teach in acting is to “lean into the discomfort of the work”, which basically means to lean outside your comfort zone to embrace all your past fears, insecurities and other mental/emotional issues you’re dragging around because they’re holding you back — whether you realize it or not. This is where understanding, progress and breakthroughs are made. The sooner you dredge them up, acknowledge them and reconcile or accept and own them as part of your authentic self, the sooner you can leverage them.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Huh? That’s some pretty esoteric, vague-sounding crap. What the hell does that even look like? Get to the point already.” Well, first you need to figure out where you lost part of yourself and your story along life’s journey, here’s a few examples:

maybe you were shamed or embarrassed over something and certain interactions or situations bring back that old sting or make you feel a wave of anger or nausea or render you speechless — but you’ve never really been able to connect the dots on why you’re affected this way. You’ve developed reflexive conditioning.
you were ridiculed for the decisions you made or for your failures and as a result you developed analysis paralysis, are afraid to make a wrong decision or are now afraid to take risk in your life; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
when you expressed your dreams/goals/aspirations they were shot down by those that were supposed to support and encourage you, maybe saying things like “You’ll never be able to earn a good living doing that” —so you changed your focus away from things that truly inspired you.
you’ve repressed your true voice because it’s become lost in the noise of all the other voices in your life telling you what you should do — teachers, coaches, parents, friends, spouses.
you don’t assert yourself because as a kid or in a relationship, you lived in someone’s shadow as a defense mechanism because you didn’t know when they’d lose their temper and unleash a barrage of emotional terrorism on you.
maybe you don’t act on impulses or your life’s desires because you’re unwittingly afraid of judgement or rejection.

Is this making a little more sense now? It’s been my experience that once you’re able to figure out the root cause of some of your dysfunctions and flaws, you’re able to change the course of action in your life. The key difference is you own them and they are just a small part of your authentic self and your story, they no longer own you.

So, I’m finally learning how to “own” my story, to stop beating myself up by over-analyzing past decisions, and learning how to become comfortable with failing as an essential building block to learning and discovery. This experience feels like it’s taking on some similarities to a 12-step program — I’ve got anger, denial, depression, acceptance…you get the idea. Anyway, this is what my midlife crisis looks like, for some people it’s a sports car — for me it’s a truck and a trailer. Welcome to my journey!