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!

<3 <3 <3<3

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

My goal is to create a weekly blog post, and in true therapist fashion I’m going to write about what’s pressing on my mind in the moment. Focusing on the here and now is a great skill I try to use and have used with others in therapy, so I’m going to practice here. So with that said, let’s begin.

Lately I’ve been asking myself the question, “what is the best way to learn?”  How do you master a certain skill set? For me (and probably most people), it’s through doing. You can’t really learn something until you’re forced to do it yourself. One of my high school math teachers used to say “if you can’t explain it, you don’t really know it”. I always keep this tucked away in the back of my mind. If I’m struggling to explain it, chances are I have more to learn.

Another great way to learn is through watching others who have the skills that you aspire to have.  I would say that this is very crucial to learning. Every day I listen, watch and act as a sponge. I take notes on how people say things so that I can practice saying it myself. Yep, I even practice saying it out loud before I have to talk to others. I still fumble through my work and I’m always tweaking how I explain things, but I improve through watching those who have mastered it.

While this is a great strategy for learning, there is a potential downfall to this method. There is the possibility that you might lose yourself…you might forget who you are. You might try to be something you’re not by trying too hard to become like the people you admire. You know how I know this? Because I’ve been there. I’ve done it. I have lost myself and have tricked myself into believing that “Keena’s way is the WRONG way”. That if I don’t sound like or perform like everyone around me, then something is wrong with me. And my biggest self-defeating thought of all is, “I’m just not as smart as them”. Just so you know, that was painful for me to type because this is an ugly battle I struggle with regularly…and I feel vulnerable sharing that.

The point is, you must strive to be genuine, and that can be hard when you’re a newbie. Here’s a list of questions that I came up with to ask myself to keep this in check:

       1.       Does it sound like me?
       2.       Is what I’m saying align with what I believe?
       3.       Does it feel right? Does it feel natural?
       4.       Where do I feel uncomfortable and why? (These are likely the places you need to improve).

It can be incredibly useful to have others around you to observe and learn from, but don’t forget the ways you already shine. Be YOU and avoid twisting yourself into the image of what you think you should look like. Because the outcome? Well, let’s just say, it’s not a happy place, and if you’re like me you know from experience.

The beautiful reality is, is that we have the opportunity to embrace our creative selves. I always used to say “I’m not a creative person”. And this friends, is a big fat lie. I am creative and so are you. So let’s tap into that and let it drive our work while we look to others for guidance and helpful tips.

Staying true to you, is the best gift you can give yourself. Be kind to yourself, and most importantly love yourself through it all.

After trying desperately to fall asleep the other night, I decided at exactly 12:16 am that I would start a blog. I got up, grabbed my computer and began this first entry. For those of you who know me well, you will understand that it’s unusual for me to be awake and conscious at this hour because bed time happens routinely for me around 9 or 9:30…even on the weekends. (Yes, the age 26 is that exciting.) If I don’t follow my regular scheduled programming, I am not a pleasant person. However, my brain is wrestling with some pretty big thoughts and I just felt that I had to get these down in writing…mostly for own self-care but also with the hope of reaching others.  

The thoughts that are keeping me up are not new. They are with me every day and everywhere I go. I want to talk about them because I think others can easily relate and I know I need to talk. But first, let me give some background on me…

My name is Keena Wilson and I am a 26 year old recent graduate entering into the professional world for the first time. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor with a focus on clinical mental health. Currently, I work as a consultant within a state government setting helping to reform the world of children’s mental health. It’s truly incredible work…but this experience is what I find often keeping me up at night. Not just around the issues surrounding the field of mental health (although there are tons of issues  that keep me grumbling) but it’s more about the thought I have too many times of “what the heck am I doing here? I can’t possibly be cut out for this work.” This is my first big girl job, and it is not an easy one. Being a young professional is challenging. Every day I am learning and trying to keep up with the big dogs who have decades more experience than I. I am slowly learning to deal with the stressors of not knowing everything that I think I should.

I’m not someone who looks for sympathy when life gets hard, but I do think it’s important to talk about the trials we face, so…I am sharing my story. I am sharing my story and my on-going experience of learning to embrace my journey. I also hope to inspire others who too often feel consumed by self-doubt and fear which can hold us back. I know it holds me back. I want to start a conversation about developing a professional career by shedding some light into the real challenges of aspiring to be a leader. I LOVE reading and consuming the stories of great leaders today and how they got to where they are at now. I can’t finish one book fast enough before I’m on to the next, or finish a single episode of a podcast before my interest is piqued by the title of another. I’m hungry (maybe hangry) for knowledge, wisdom, and success. But it’s not something you just receive wrapped with a bow. It’s a process. And the process is a struggle. And the struggle is real.

During my graduate training my professors would always say “trust the process”. Silently, I thought “screw the process”. Every time I heard them say that I wanted to crush something because I truly thought they said it only to cause pain. And now, I’m beginning to realize that is not true (I certainly hope not because these people were counselors after all). What I’m opening my eyes to is that this life is an adventure, and at every step of the way we will experience new challenges and we will be forced to adapt in some way. I get this, but man oh man, do I ever struggle with accepting it. I want to be great NOW. I want to be an expert at this moment and I want to get there fast. When I think like this, I’m missing the essence of the gifts given to me that I’m CHOOSING not to acknowledge. I’m being given the opportunity to wrestle with and figure out who I am and where I can have an impact on this world. I don’t appreciate what I have to offer and what I already bring to the table. I need to acknowledge that right now, my gifts are motivation, drive, and passion. These are all important qualities when entering into a professional career. The rest of what I am striving for will surely follow, but first, I need to live it out. I need to live out the discomfort that comes with mistakes and failures. Living it out is the ONLY path to success because it is the best tool for learning. I need to allow myself to stumble and fall and then stand back up and push forward. I need to LIVE IT OUT! Not living it out leads to stagnation. You know that saying, "no pain, no gain".

I want to bring my struggles here and start a conversation about fear and self-doubt while becoming a young leader. I also hope to provide some tools that I’m learning to incorporate into my life that others may also find useful. My goal is not to make it big in the blogging arena. Quite frankly, I’m not sure if this will even be of interest (ugh I sense some self-doubt as I write that!). But I’m willing to try, to put myself out there because really, I want to challenge myself to manage my fears and push to deal with them head on. I hope others want to share this process with me because I don’t believe that anyone gets anywhere alone. It’s simply not possible because we are not designed to exist in isolation.

So won’t you join me? Maybe we can figure this out together.