In my last blog post I reflected on growing. This week I want to reflect on learning and lessons that I have gained during internship. While creating this week’s blog, I struggled with figuring out what to write about and found myself not feeling completely done with what I started in my blog post two weeks ago. Going into my last month of internship it has been feeling hard for various reasons, so I wanted to focus on what I have learned and achieved in my time so far.
The importance of mindset
My entire life I have been a worrier. If given a situation, my brain would find all the ways it could go wrong before thinking of one positive thing that may happen. Even after finding multiple positive things that could happen, I focused on the bad. I was conditioned by life to assume the bad outcome. Life is different now. My circumstances are different. Why am I still choosing the mindset that every outcome will be bad?
We create and invite in what we think. You might be thinking ‘GraceAnne, you are sounding a little bit like a self-help book’. My only reply would be ‘Yes, I have been reading one and this resonated with me’. If I enter every situation anticipating the bad, I will only ever see the bad. I liken it to when you come across a word you were unfamiliar with and now you see it everywhere. It’s not that every book and sign added that word overnight, but that you are now conscious of that word.
It is my choice whether or not to focus on the bad even after I have come up with all the positive outcomes. I know that one does not just wake up and stop thinking negatively. It takes time and the conscious decision to do so. This week, I have been asking myself does worrying about this help me or change the outcome or does it just use energy.
Today, I talked with my coworker Jess and she gave me some advice that she used in her last month of internship. Create a sticky note wall of all the positives, all the wins from the day. Any win, no matter how small. Choose to focus on and acknowledge the positives.
The art of doing things outside of your comfort zone
You may not be surprised to learn that I don’t like doing things outside of my comfort zone. However never leaving your comfort zone is not conducive to growth and learning.
Without leaving my comfort zone, I would not have found out that I love teaching lessons. I wouldn’t try anything new with my clients. I wouldn’t have gotten this internship.
This week, I worked on going outside of my comfort zone in a different way than usual. Making calls was not in my comfort zone. Can’t it be a text or an email? Do I really have to call and talk to another human being? Oh, the horror. If given the choice to make a phone call myself or give someone my entire bank account to do it for me, it would be a tossup . Being that I can’t pay someone to make phone calls for me and that even if I could, I need my money to be alive, I made my own phone calls this week. It turns out that a part of my final project requires me to make phone calls. Having no other choice I did it and I survived.
Communication and asking for help
A big point of growth and learning has come in the form of me working to better communicate. Is it something that I am still working on? Absolutely, but I have also come a long way. In my worrying and perfectionism, I thought I had to do everything alone. I thought I had to fix the problem before anyone noticed and just hope that they didn’t bring it up. With previous experiences and my own conditioning to assume the worst, I curled up with my head as far down in the sand instead of communicating.
I am definitely not a master communicator by ay mean, nor have I gotten it all figured out, but I continue to work to do better. Communicating make me a better professional, clinician, and coworker.
What matters at the end of the day
I love myself, quirks and all. Being myself has made me a happier person and a better clinician. I trust that I am good at what I do and that I have or am gaining the skills I need to do so. As my internship goes into the last month and it feels like we have entered crunch time and are diving into the details, I am imploring myself to remember what matters most. I enjoy what I do. I am doing my best for my clients. I like who I am.
GraceAnne
