Putting Yourself Out There, But Not In A Sexual Way.
Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)
I’m putting myself out there a lot lately.
Not like, in a sexual way. I’m a happily married woman. Get your mind out of the gutter.
But actually taking some gutsy moves that I normally shy away from.
And it’s paying off a giant amount.
Two weeks ago, I was standing in front of everybody on my team at work. I found myself informing them that I am kicking ass at my job. Why? Because I am and they need to know it. But I didn’t plan to stand in front of them that day and put that information in their heads. I didn’t wake up that day with that item on my agenda. It just happened. I didn’t hesitate as the words started coming out of my mouth, and I don’t regret saying it either.
It was like a positive word vomit.
That’s what I meant about putting yourself out there.
I’m having the same mentality that I was trying on at the beginning of this journey, which is to dial up my IDGAF meter. The meter has been dipping, and it is time to get it back where it needs to be.
I am realizing that I am becoming a different person depending on who I am in front of. If it is my boss, I act one way. When it is this colleague, I act another way. If it is a friend or acquaintance, I act this way. And it isn’t just in the type of way that I am more open with this person or joke more with this one. What I am seeing is that all of a sudden my whole personality changes to conform to others. I think this is because I am aware that the person in front of me presents in that way, so in my head I should adjust myself to be more like them.
And why would I do that? It’s quite exhausting to be that way.
At another work event a few weeks ago, I had to do this really odd and uncomfortable exercise with a coworker of mine. I don’t know this coworker as well as others, and I welcome the opportunity to talk with him when I can. We had to discuss a question on a card, among other things, but our card was related to whether or not we hide from talking to others about racial equity (or something to that effect). After we discussed our answers to our mandated question, our conversation segued into a different conversation completely, about taking things personally, instead of how they are actually intended.
It arose because I had been given the feedback recently that I needed to not take things personally all the time as more often than not it isn’t intended in that way.
In talking with this coworker, he said: “I’m just unapologetically me. I try not to conform to what others want me to be, instead, I just see it as this is the way that I am and the way that I present and people need to be okay with it”.
Well damn. He’s definitely practicing putting yourself out there.
He was telling me this because I was afraid that the way that I am personality-wise was causing people to doubt things about me. But I have yet to see anyone doubt my coworker in anything. In fact, everybody loves him and raves about him.
So I decided to mimic his confidence. And I told my coworkers that I am kicking ass at work. They didn’t disagree, which is nice. I also didn’t get fired for swearing in front of the director, which is doubly nice.
And then I tried out this new confidence thing in a different way. After a conversation with another colleague, who graciously offered to mentor me a few months ago, I realized that perhaps I should explore writing in my work and professional life as well as my personal life. I obviously blog, but she helped me to realize that there were missed opportunities in my daily work life that I wasn’t seeing. So I am jumping into those as I see them come by me. I just put myself in between the writing task and the end-user. If I see a chance coming up to flex the writing muscle, I state: “I’ll write a draft up and email it to you for review”.
It works. I’m getting to do what I enjoy a lot more than what I was, and it makes my hours at work every week all the better because of it.
But then there was another personal push.
Putting yourself out there…
My ultimate dream is to freelance full-time. Not now, but in the future sometime. Maybe while also writing a book. But you can’t always just write a book and keep the lights on while you’re writing it so freelancing would help that issue. The kids need electricity. And my phone charger doesn’t work without it.
So I gave myself another push, one that I would have never even tried to do just a few short weeks ago.
I reached out to an online magazine about freelancing for them.
The last time I tried to professionally publish anything that wasn’t independently done, I was turned down. It was one time and one time only. I didn’t want to try again after that.
But do you know how many times Stephen King was rejected for his book Carrie? 30 publishers told him no. THIRTY. Do you know how many times J.K. Rowling was rejected for Harry Potter? 12.
I thought I should probably put my big girl pants on and try again. Suck it up, buttercup.
So I emailed the editor and pitched a few titles that I would be interested in writing and attached some samples of my work.
She didn’t like any of my pitches. Not one.
She asked me to look at their website again and send her a new list of ideas. So I did.
She then asked me to write up the fourth idea on my list of five and send it to her within 72 hours. So I did. In 36.
AND
SHE
LIKED
IT!
She sent me paperwork to officially be put on their payroll, and that article is now in their queue for future website content.
In addition to that, she is giving me the green light on two more of my pitches for the future.
This, I think, is what they call a “holy shit” moment.
I call it a giant bucket list item.
Whatever it is, it feels awesome. And I’m going to keep that meter dialed up to ride this wave of confidence as long as I can.
To quote the Daniel Tiger show:
“It’s a good feeling, a very good feeling”
And I’d like to keep it that way.
