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