One of the things about taking a bet on oneself is the uncertainty that the new reality will birth. I mean we are asking to get hit in the face when we apply for more responsibilities. Yet, nothing is more liberating than admitting that what we don’t know exceeds what we know - and not being afraid to be wrong. This makes one understand that we will be wrong more times than we are right and this is fine as well. This is what builds experience stacks and generates hindsight knowledge.
Truth is, trying to know everything ahead is a lie we tell ourselves to avoid the pain of failure. In every emerging market, the people that will become the experts are those that are ready to pay the price of failure until they figure things out. Recently, I have been seeing new job openings such as DeFi Analyst, NFT Artist, Web 3.0 VC, Discord Community Manager, e.t.c. These are roles that no school can teach yet but are now opening up for those that embraced/are embracing the new paradigm with curiosity and a learning mindset. Thus, in my weekly activities, I tried to inculcate the art of learning. This helps me track my progress irrespective of what the outcome of the week is.
So how do we navigate growth and the overwhelming feeling that comes with it? Switching from fear of taking up more responsibilities until I have enough knowledge to I will figure it out can be challenging. I mean we all do this, there is a new opening and our self-doubt comes to the fore. Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say I am capable of driving a jet engine or I will learn to when I’m in the air. What I am saying is in our daily work and the act of playing safe as against taking a risk that can hurt us if things go wrong. So to face this, what is the worst-case scenario if this didn’t go right? Well, I will learn about what doesn’t work and avoid such in the future.
I admit, there is no one way to live. Switching our thought process about our work can help us do better instead of running away from the anxiety of being discovered as an imposter. As earlier mentioned, considering our knowledge gap awareness; what is it that I know that I don’t know? This can help us unlock how to ask for help because we can be specific on what we don’t know.
I hope as we embrace this new week, we are able to avoid task anxiety with new learnings in the week and ask for help when necessary.