New Beginnings
Hey Fab Fam!
Well, the time has come for me to begin yet another new chapter. My mother once asked, “How many times can you reinvent yourself?” I’m not sure I have an answer for that but since I love cats, I’m going to say I have at least nine attempts. A colleague of mine recently observed that I’m high strung (he made this remark affectionately) and I accept that is an accurate depiction of me. I wish I was the kind of person whose mid-life crisis would compel her to date someone twenty years younger than she, or pick up skydiving. But alas, that’s not how I roll.
Tomorrow I begin a journey to obtain another graduate degree. I’m joining a cohort and will spend the next sixteen months - while also holding down a full-time job - working to obtain a Master’s of Science in Health Leadership. This is an accelerated executive program that caters to professionals in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. I’ll once again be the different kid in town, because rather than working directly in these sectors I work as a tech consultant who advises healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. And yet, I’m the student most likely to understand what it feels like to live with chronic medical issues, pain, and fatigue. In fact, I’m in the process of trying to find time for a major surgery. I’m continuing to take very high doses of hormones until such surgery can be scheduled. These differences put me at a disadvantage, but my differences are also what motivate me to obtain this degree. After so many years of being dismissed, invalidated, minimized, and overlooked, I can’t help but try to reach for more. I don’t know when I’ll ever overcome the need to prove myself. Maybe this will be my last hurrah, but probably not.
For the past few weeks, I have been immersed in all the pre-work reading: texts about healthcare policy, strategic planning and leadership, and beginning to think of how I want to approach my thesis project. In keeping with my habit of always setting the bar ridiculously high, I’m choosing a nearly insurmountable objective for my thesis project. I’ll be excited to share more with you when I can. Let’s just say I’m going to use a combination of storytelling, technology, and a passion for public health to try and build a new approach to delivering healthcare. In fact, this past week I had an appointment with a new physician. As I witnessed him struggling with his EMR system, a task that distracted him from getting to know me, I cheerfully told him to carry on and validate my existence. So already, this program is helping me to obtain that validation I have always sought.
Yesterday I took time off from work and drove up to Rhode Island to join my classmates for orientation week. I arrived just hours before a massive blizzard that seems to be dumping about two feet of snow on the ground. This is certainly an epic start to what I’m certain will be an epic journey. It nearly deterred me, but I ultimately chose just to get out ahead of it.
I expect I won’t have much time to write over the coming year and a half, but I’ll do my best to check in and share what I can when I can. I’m also going to take this opportunity to try and learn how to be less of a perfectionist. Maybe the program will be too much and I won’t be able to handle it. I have to show compassion to myself if this simply isn’t feasible. That is a lesson I have struggled to learn, and I want to encourage each of us to show ourselves some grace. Don’t give up, but don’t beat yourself up if you try and don’t succeed.
I have never heard anyone express anguish over a decision to try something new. Nearly seven years ago I left a cushy job, a fourteen-year track record with an employer, and job security in favor of something new. Although things didn’t work out at my next job, or the one after that (and the two after that!) I don’t regret it. I have grown immensely since trying to change my trajectory. So let us never be afraid to try. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to be a passenger who is just coasting her way through life, doing nothing more than setting aside funds to allow an early retirement. Working towards a goal of doing nothing doesn’t sound like much of a goal to me.
I started with a word about something my mother said to me, and I’ll end with something else my parents always said, “Aim up.” Don’t let anyone convince you not to try, because failure to try is the only true failure in life.
