Thirty minutes before an important job interview my beloved dog Augie (short for Augustana, the name of the college my husband and I attended. Adorable right?) ran away from me and across several of my neighbor’s yards. I ran out in my flip flops, hair half done and wearing nice work pants. Once I finally caught up to her I scooped her up and she looked at me and excitedly licked me in the face like “hey, mom that was quite the run!” It’s probably my fault for trying to train her to run with me in the mornings. She was just doing her thing as usual. But this was not just a usual morning for me. I had been scouring job postings for days trying to find agencies that are hiring counselors, and on this day I finally had a job interview that had a very desirable job description attached. I had been looking forward to this conversation since I received the interview invitation earlier in the week.

I ran back to my house, completely out of breath with fresh mud-caked dress pants. Thank goodness this interview was by phone! I calmed myself and began reviewing my notes as I patiently waited for the phone call. I started to stare at my phone five minutes before it was scheduled to ring. Finally, it rang and I quickly answered and enthusiastically I said “Hi, this is Keena”. The HR lady asked me if I was good with jumping right in with the first question and I stated that I was ready.  She asked me why I wanted to work at this organization and I had my answer all ready to go. After I finished answering, she said “oh, you don’t have an LCPC”. For those of you wondering what that stands for it is: Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC). And I am a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). So in my world, this is one step up from where I’m currently at. I stated “yes, that is true, but the job description says ‘or eligible’ and I will be eligible once I gain all of my hours”. Her response was “you’re not qualified. Have a great day”.

Ouch…that stung. At first I was angry because I wondered why they even set up an interview with me if they knew that I was an LPC looking to gain my LCPC as stated on my resume. It felt like a waste of time and I had prepped and everything! After anger subsided I became self-conscious and ultimately just felt disappointed and sad. When she said “you’re not qualified”, I heard “you’re not good enough” and “you’re a failure and stupid for thinking you were qualified for this job”. This lady did not say these things at all, but this is how I felt.

Failure. Not good enough. You’re stupid. These self-deprecating thoughts were bouncing around my head all day. These thoughts left me feeling emotionally and physically spent.

This is when I start to let myself think that everything I’ve done has been for nothing. I often think that I’m never going to find a job in my field or actually be successful at this. And this is so far from the truth. No one tells you how long it takes leaders to gain their success. It takes YEARS of experience and careful strategy and planning. Having the right people in your corner also doesn’t hurt. But here I am thinking that I’ve done the work now and I’m ready! But the truth is, I still have a lot of work to do. Instead of praising myself for having achieved my educational goals and being a go-getter about making another goal of gaining my clinical license, I’m calling myself a failure.  Even though I’m still building my tool box needed to support my future, sometimes I feel like I am doing it all wrong.  

I am struggling to figure out how people are supposed to gain work experience in the field when EVERYONE wants someone who has a few years of experience. Where in the world do you start? As I was reflecting on this the only thought that came to me was “at the bottom”. You start at the bottom and you climb that ladder with everything you have. I feel like I’ve been climbing the ladder for a very long time. Literally, it’s the never-ending skyscraper-high ladder. Up to this point I have spent all of my life getting my education and making financial and personal sacrifices to get where I am today. I’ve done the hours, I’ve put in my sweat, blood, and tears (mostly tears) and still find myself facing hiring managers telling me that I’m just not qualified.

This is so frustrating and very disappointing.

One thing that I would always ask my therapy clients when I was practicing was “would you say the same thing you’re saying to yourself to a close friend?” Their answer was always “no”. If you would never say these words to a friend, why would you say them to yourself? I have to ask myself this question, and when I do, I realize that I am being really mean to myself. I’m beating myself up and cutting away every shred of confidence I have left. And for what? The only thing I’m accomplishing is putting undue stress on my shoulders and asking myself to achieve unrealistic expectations. But I would never do that to anyone else…so what makes me so special?

Nothing. I’m just being a big bully…to myself.

When I’m having my failure feelings I always try to remind myself of what some of my favorite beach body workout trainers say because the relevance reaches beyond the workout room. Beach body trainer Sagi Kalev always shouts “fail forward!” during his difficult workouts. I wrote this down on the white board my husband and I keep in our workout area in the basement. We use the board to write down positive phrases that gets us through challenging workouts. This particular phrase stuck with me because so often we think that failure is falling backwards when it really moves you forward. Every time you miss the mark, you work that much harder to improve and get where you want to be. Reframing my thoughts on failure is helping me to push myself forward. But it's taking me a lot of work to fully embrace this. Failure becomes less negative and rather something to celebrate because it’s part of our own personal success story.  


I need to keep doing what I’m doing. Keep climbing that ladder and setting the next goal. I will continue to reframe my failure feelings to allow myself to fail forward. Ultimately, all of these small steps and goals will build me up to be what I’m envisioning. It’s going to be a tough climb, but I am up for the challenge. The climb is manageable as long as you love and support yourself like you would a friend. You deserve that self-love. I deserve that self-love. And when we fail, remember we are failing forward.

How do you fail forward?

With love,
Keena

Happy Friday everyone! Today’s a vacation day for me so I’m starting the 3-day weekend by jumping into my next blog. Happy reading!

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This week has been a very emotional and mentally exhausting week for me. If you read my blog from last week (which I know you did because this is your favorite blog, right? J) you will remember that I have been focused on what my future will look like and what that means for me. To fully disclose, I have been going back and forth on a decision to make a move to a new job. Anyone who has toggled with the idea of changing jobs or making a career change will understand how difficult of a decision this can be for a wide variety of reasons. The struggles range from financial concerns, new schedules and just adjusting to a new work environment. But sometimes there’s something else that makes it hard to move on and spread your wings. It starts with the letter S and is followed by 4 other letters. Can you guess what it is?? That’s right friends, it is:

SHAME.

I am feeling very ashamed. Why you ask? Well I’m not sure I know. All I know is, I’m feelin’ it, and it’s an icky feeling; one that is hard to shake. I want to spend some time unpacking that right here with you in total therapist style because let’s face it, it is what I do.

I, like everyone else, buys into the same idea of how society defines success. The idea of success is measured by the size of the deposit made into your bank account on pay day. It’s glorified by what you have versus what you contribute. Success is when people listen to you instead of you being the listener. Success equals the long hours you spend in the office (probably being too tired to really get anything done) than by what you did accomplish during the day. Success is working harder even though you’re completely stressed and burned out and hanging by a thread. Success is not showing emotion because it is a weakness. Do people really think down on you when you show emotions in the work place? Oh heck yes they do. I have cried in front of my boss more times than I care to admit, but that’s how my body handles stress and I’m working on being okay with that.

I am feeling shame because I’m burdened with this image of success as I transition to something new.  Will my bank account take a hit? yes, probably. Will some view me as a quitter? yeah, maybe some will. But I’ve been robbing myself of true happiness, and the only one who has to live my life is ME; and I want happy, so I need to let some of this go (cue the “Let it Go” song from Frozen). 

I need to make this change to protect my happiness. So I will take the pay cut. I will keep letting my tears flow when they are forcing their way out because sharing vulnerability IS leadership. I will be the listener. I will put in the hours, but I will make time for me and my family. I will value what I contribute over the things I have because I’m choosing happiness. I’m choosing me.

Deciding to take a moment to figure out your next step is simply knowing who you are. In my opinion, that makes for a great leader. If you are in tune with your strengths, weaknesses and your passion, you will achieve great things and you can guide others to do the same. WE are society and that means it is directly in our power to re-shape what success means. It should look different for every person and that is really beautiful!

So if you’re up for it, ponder this question: what does your success look like?

With love,

Keena

P.s. If you want to dig in and learn some more about shame, I highly recommend all the books written by Brené Brown. She dedicates her work to researching shame. Her work has been a blessing to me so look it up!

Welcome to week three! Three weeks of blogging in the books and it feels great to be writing so much these days! I hope you’re ready to jump in!

When I was in high school I used to give the end of the day announcements over the entire school sound system to my fellow peers reminding them about upcoming events and the endless tasks kids that age need constant reminders about.   One day, as I was finishing up with the school announcements, the school secretary looked at me and stated “Keena, I could just see you in school for a long time pursuing a great path. Yeah, I see that for you”. To this day, I have no idea what prompted her to say that. Who knew that she could somehow see my future and know that after high school I would be spending the next seven years of my life pursuing multiple degrees and landing with a professional counseling license?! I didn’t see that. And I definitely didn’t see it all happening before turning 26 years old. And while some of you might think I’ve got some things figured out, the truth is…I don’t.

Yes, after seven years of school (and mountains of student loans) and one year of a professional job under my belt, I can honestly say…I’m still soul searching.   Don’t get me wrong, the work I’m doing is great and often times exciting, but I think a lot about the vast opportunities this world has to offer. I am blessed to have my education and work experience, but it does not mean that this is what it will always look like for me. And sometimes (actually most times), I worry about that. I’ve had the following thoughts:

“If I change my path will everything I’ve done so far be for nothing?”

“What if I can’t do anything else?”

“Am I doing everything wrong?”

I am passionate about the mental health field and the work to reduce stigma around mental illness. I enjoy supporting programs and building policy to help others. My soul is really moved when I get to be WITH people walking along-side them in their journey in that counseling office. I love this work, but I have MANY other interests too such as health and fitness (those of you who follow me on Facebook probably have gathered as much  J ).
 I realize that there’s not a “perfect” job, but I do believe there’s something out there that I haven’t discovered yet that interweaves many of my interests. However, sometimes I feel like I have boxed myself in and have closed myself off to doing anything different. Because different is scary.

So my question is…how do people figure it out? The answer? The only thing that comes to mind is: keep doing exactly what I’m doing. Keep living and learning. I may not have my vision quite yet and I don’t know what this life will bring me, but I show up every day in my work…and in my life. I truly believe that the only wrong thing to do is to do nothing. I believe things happen when you choose to show up.

Another thing, and I beg you; do not let anyone tell you there’s no such thing as enjoying your job. The people who say that are not happy and they likely did not hustle to achieve their dream. Don’t settle. Life is way too short not to love what you do.  The people who question this cannot think outside of the box. There has to be more opportunity outside of that box right?

I’ll leave you with this:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” –Steve Jobs

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

With love,

Keena