Why I'm Starting Candor
"You don't have to get it right, you just have to get it going."
It's been voiced by those closest to me (i.e. my partner and my therapist) that I’ve had a bad case of analysis paralysis when it comes to my career. And they are absolutely fucking right.
This has lasted longer than I’d like to admit–but I will, as it’s been at least two years. For fear of making the wrong decision, I have just avoided the decision altogether.
Which, undeniably, is a decision in itself.
Instead of leaping with any of the dozen ideas I’ve had on what to pivot to for my own business, I’ve continued consulting as a sales trainer in the automotive space (a space I first entered into in 2005, and one I’ve grown tired of). Despite my lifelong dreams of writing and teaching for a living, my entrepreneurial spirit, and my fiercely creative nature, I didn’t get much closer to making progress. I indulged in information overload; reading articles, listening to books and podcasts, watching webinars and youtube videos.
I was more likely to listen to a podcast on how to do something than actually trying it, and then a youtube video on each step as described in the first podcast. And so the rabbithole would begin, arming myself along the way with ammunition of all the reasons it just wouldn’t work, becoming discouraged enough to abandon it entirely. I have learned that there will always be a reason (or several), whether true or fabricated, for not moving forward.
Then I had a conversation with my dear friend who happens to be a psychotherapist, entrepreneur, and now author.
Hard not to listen to a pal with that resume, eh?
And she served me a piping hot plate of common sense:
“Molly, know where you want to end up, but be open to how you get there, and just start. You have to start.”
There was a part of me that wanted to say “no shit!” out of spite given the simplicity of it. It had in fact been right in front of me the entire time but I absolutely did not want to see it. Then, I was hearing and seeing it everywhere:
“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
All things, and I mean all things pointed to that one very obvious yet consistently eluding answer.
What did I do in response to this? Absolutely nothing. Until now.
I recently discovered that my life was going to change more significantly than it ever has before. More than it has through grief and heartache, through the self discovery in years of continuous travel, and even in having committed to spending the rest of my life with my partner.
I am going to be a mom.
Underneath all of the wholehearted joy that has come with that notion is a grave fear that I will wake up one morning in the not so distant future with that new title having taken over my entire existence, having become my sole identity.
Cue the panic attack.
Starting for me looks like “Candor.”
It’s vowing to continue to champion for vulnerability and mental health; for people to feel enabled to speak their truth through the empowerment of sharing my own. It’s anticipating my first child, grappling with being a “mom,” and working to further establish and strengthen my identity as a writer and creative along the way.
This space is for revisiting all of that self-improvement material I was such a glutton for throughout many months of COVID, while making an effort to apply it as I share that journey with you.
Sharing my failures, lessons, and insights in embracing self love and acceptance, cultivating self worth, improving emotional intelligence, and seeking answers to relentless existential questions.
This post really resonated with me. Love it.