42. Keeping Your Career Dreams Alive
What’s your ultimate career dream that you would love to pursue? Why aren’t you going after it right now?
All of you have an idea of what you want your next career steps to be, or have a goal in mind that you’re working towards. But since the pandemic, you’ve not allowed yourself to plan for the career and life you want because you’ve told yourself it’s no longer possible, or that you have to wait until this all blows over. But this is a lie.
There are a whole host of factors that have made life and our jobs so hard. But just because it’s a challenge doesn’t mean you have to give up on your dreams. Join me on the podcast this week as I urge you to keep your career dreams alive, how this is always a choice that is available to you, and why giving up is such a disservice to your passion and genius.
If you’re ready to go after your dreams, completely change the trajectory of your future, and have a more joyful day-to-day experience, you have to come work with me. I’ll show you how to go from being burnt out and exhausted to excited and eager about your career, so don’t wait to talk to me. Click here to find out how.
What You Will Discover:
The lies you might be telling yourself about what you can achieve in your career.
How you’re letting your brain dictate your experience and your future.
Why your career dreams are completely possible, even during a pandemic.
What I would have missed out on if I’d given up on my dreams when it got hard.
The skills I’ve cultivated that have helped me love and embrace every step of my career.
Resources:
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Full Episode Transcript:
If you're two to five years out of your MPH degree, love public health, but find yourself secretly unhappy at work and maybe even thinking about quitting your job, then this is the podcast for you. I'm Marissa McKool, host of the Thoughts Are Your Root Cause podcast. Join me each week as I share tips, tools, and resources to help you have the career you've always dreamed of without any of the stress you are experiencing right now. Come along.
Hi, everyone, Happy Valentine's Day. I know some of you Valentine's Day is your favorite holiday. You love it. Maybe it's Galentine's Day you celebrate, and others of you kind of hate it. You think it's kind of just a commercial marketing scam to get lots of money. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, I just hope you have a great day, nonetheless.
As this episode is coming out, I'm actually in Half Moon Bay, not celebrating Valentine's Day, but celebrating my anniversary with my partner. So, I'm not super into Valentine's Day. Personally, I don't hate it, but I don't necessarily feel the need to exchange gifts with my partner or go to a nice dinner. I've given gifts to my girlfriends, or my friend's kids, like, I still like it. I'm not on the end of the spectrum.
But, our anniversary is in February, and I have—It's been on my bucket list for so long, dreamed of staying at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay is an area on the California coast, and the Ritz Carlton is kind of gets from the pictures at least, like, Game of Thrones vibe. Like, not medieval, I don't want to say that. It's definitely boujee and fancy. But it's right on the cliffs of Half Moon Bay, and it just seems secluded and just like luxurious.
And I really thought I probably won't be able to stay there, you know, for many, many, more years, I think the minimum for one of their like lowest rooms is 800 a night or something. But I finally got enough credit card points to book it. Like, really, when I realized this, I just, it was a dream. I'm so excited, and we're not going for our actual anniversary because that's on the weekend, and that required way more points, but I could get it from Monday through Wednesday, even on Valentine's Day, which was kind of crazy.
So, I'm super excited for that, and it relates to what I want to talk about today because in 2019, right, several years ago, before the pandemic, I actually had a goal to find someone to date. To find someone I wanted to be in a relationship with, particularly what I wanted at that point was friends, one who also wanted to eventually get married and go down that path. And in 2019, I worked towards that goal wholeheartedly.
I dated a lot, and I met a lot of people, and some just were one date, and some many dates. There were some people I met that I didn't want to commit to and some people that I met that they didn't want to commit to me, right? Probably, most importantly, I was getting and doing a lot of coaching on my day-to-day anxiety. Self-coaching getting coached by my coach, I was doing a lot of mindset and emotional work to achieve this goal.
And I didn't achieve it in 2019, but I kept the goal for 2020. I didn't make it mean it was never going to happen. I just made it mean, okay, it's going to take longer than I thought it would. That's all, and I was seeing so much progress of myself through coaching and how I showed up, my confidence, my beliefs, and who I became in 2019 as I really worked towards that goal. I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone.
I met my now partner just a few weeks before the pandemic, the lockdown in 2020, and it's funny because there were plenty, so many challenges that came up that I could've easily given up on dating or being in a relationship. Like, in the beginning, I was dating, it was full lockdown; everyone was freaking out. His roommate didn't want me to come over at all because they were so scared of getting COVID.
So, for a month or two, I couldn't even go hang out at his place, you know, all the restaurants, all the date spots are closed. We basically had dates where we picked up food to go, sat in the car at the marina, and looked at the sunset. We didn't have much we could do, right? We may be played games or watched TV at my house. We weren't at my house all of the time; I wanted to be respectful of my roommate. We didn't meet any of each other's friends until like over a year into the pandemic.
Not to mention, I still was working through my day-to-day anxiety. It continued to come up. It was even heightened because of the pandemic, and when I experienced all of these challenges, and there are many many more, I could have easily said, well, this will never work because of the pandemic, or I can no longer dream of being in a healthy, successful relationship because of the pandemic. How long is this going to last?
Or the pandemic isn't allowing me to figure out if this is someone I want to be with because I'm not going to be able to see him around his friends, family, and it's just that part of him, or a million other thoughts, right? But I didn't. I still believed I can make it happen, whether with him or someone else, right. Like, I still was doing the work. I still dreamed, I still worked towards the goal, and here we are two years later.
Still together, living together, now, and celebrating our anniversary, but so many of you are not doing this with your career. Before the pandemic, you had an idea of what you wanted your next step to be. You had a dream of what you were working towards fulfilling in your career. You had a goal in mind for your career.
Maybe it was to be an executive director, or to do more research, or to get a doctorate degree, or on a business, or work the federal level, or get in a position where you supervise someone or moved in a different topic area, or travel more in your career, or make more money, right? But now, you haven't let yourself dream at all about your career since the pandemic. Since you realized the pandemic was going to last longer than two weeks.
And you're low-key, even without realizing it, telling yourself it isn't possible anymore. Or you just don't know how, or you have to wait until the pandemic is over. Whether you like your current job or hate it, you aren't letting yourself plan for the future, the long-term future, and the short-term future; you aren't letting yourself set a career goal.
You're not letting yourself work toward your prior career goal. Y'all, this is bullshit. This makes me so mad. Not angry at you; I love y'all. But it makes me so mad that you're giving up on your dreams because I know you don't have to, and I know you have so much passion and genius inside of you, and you can create a life you want. It's a huge disservice to yourself to give up on this. Stop giving up on yourself because that's what you're doing right now.
You have worked far too hard for too long to do that. You are using the excuse, yes, it is an excuse, of the pandemic to give in to the part of your brain that (A) doesn't want to put in energy and just wants to hide in a cave doing nothing, and (B) the part of your brain that didn't really fully believe and had some doubts about your dreams or goals even before the pandemic. Listen, you are human. You have a human brain.
Every brain wants to conserve energy by doing nothing and hiding out and not trying new things, pandemic or not. That is totally normal, and every human brain has thoughts about doubt or not being able to believe or confidence, about ourselves, about what's possible, about our goals. This is all normal, but the problem is you're letting that part of your brain guide you, make decisions, and be in charge, dictate your experience in your future. Stop it.
Your dreams are important. Not only that, they are possible. They are worth it. They can happen even in a pandemic. Your dreams for your career and your dreams for what you want your life to look like, and even if you feel like you can't dream anymore because of the pandemic that is a lie you are telling yourself. Yes, the pandemic has been extremely hard for so many reasons, maybe juggling homeschooling kids, constant work changes, losing a loved one, losing a job, getting sick, higher workload, and a whole host of other reasons.
It has been fucking hard, but just because the pandemic has been hard. It doesn't mean you have to give up all your goals. Listen, the pandemic has already taken so much from you. Don't let it take this. You're letting the pandemic take away your ability to dream, your career goals, and, honestly, your future. That is a choice you are making.
It is a choice; you don't have to make that choice. I want to tell you all a little story. Since college, back in the day, I knew I wanted to work in sexual violence prevention. I always knew that and after I got my MPH where I did focus on sexual violence prevention, and I did so much work to make that happen because there's not a specific concentration in that. So, I really had to hustle to get the education that I wanted, and the projects I wanted, and the internships, and work with the people I wanted, and yada yada yada.
So, after I graduated, I went to CDC, and I worked in the division of violence prevention as a fellow on the specific sexual violence prevention team. Y'all, this was the dream job. The sexual violence prevention is a tiny, tiny sliver in public health. Right? There's not a million jobs in this topic area, and I got this job at the federal level. It was the dream job, and my goal became to finish my fellowship and get a full-time position there.
Which, those of you who've worked in the CDC or any federal government, you know, getting an FTE is no small feat, and my goal was to stay there for my career and become an expert and build my life there, and all of that. In a year and a half into my fellowship, my mom got sick. In the middle of the night, I got a call saying she has a staph infection in her leg. She's going into surgery right now. They hope she will live, and if she does, they will try to save her leg.
I was on the first flight from Atlanta to Tahoe, cross country. She ended up getting three surgeries in the course of only one week, staying in the ICU. Then, moving to the main hospital floor. Then, into kind of short-term care. She was in the hospital for six weeks, and then when she left the hospital, she didn't even have a hip bone. They had to remove that, and they put a block of cement to hold the space between her femur and pelvis together because they couldn't do a hip replacement until the infection was completely gone. Which wasn't until three months later, right?
Then, even after the hip replacement, there was another several months of recovery, and I stayed home to take care of her, right? In that, working in the hospital, changing my schedule, and taking care of her insurance and her work stuff, and taking care of her, and helping clean and take care of all of the pets. And when she was at home recovering, feeding her, helping bathing her, and dressing her, and all of that stuff for months.
My dream of staying at the CDC during that was completely challenged. Just like many of you are experiencing during the pandemic, and I could have decided to still pursue that dream. I could decide, okay, after the six months or however long, once my mom's fully recovered, I'll go back to Atlanta and still go for it. That was totally an option. Or, I could have decided not to pursue that dream or any other.
I could have pouted about having to be in Tahoe, about my career being disrupted and blown up about everything not going how I had planned, or I could decide not to pursue my old dream and create a new dream. Right? I had all the reasons not to do that. I was exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, right? From that huge earthquake that happened in my life and that shift and the work I put in to take care of those challenges that were happening with me and my family and my mom, and my career. Right?
But I still decided to pursue my career and dream about it. It was a different dream, but I decided to keep dreaming. And at that time, there were like no jobs, especially, you know, in the West Coast where I was looking in sexual violence prevention. This was right when Trump got elected. A lot of organizations didn't know what was going to happen to their funding. Right?
They were kind of frozen, and I ended up getting a job in public health academia which I never really had a goal of, and in maternal-child health, which also really wasn't my goal. It wasn't my original dream at all, and to top it off, I initially actually hated my job. I was stressed out all the time by it. But I decided even with that, I wasn't going to give up on myself or my career.
I was so dedicated to my career and my life. To having a fulfilling career. To making an impact. Right? To creating the life and career that I wanted that would give me the things I wanted to experience, and I did everything. I could not just to keep it alive but to figure out how to thrive, right? I went to therapy. I started coaching figured out how to love my job. I started to dream even bigger about my next phase. I set my eyes on being an executive director, and I got the goal. And when I got that, I set a new goal, and then I got that goal.
I could've so easily y'all so easily given up on myself, and my career, and my dreams. I had all the reasons to in the world. I have all the excuses in the world. I was exhausted. I was pissed. I was shocked. I felt stuck. I felt lost. Right? But I didn't give up, and I am so so glad I didn't because I would've missed out on so much.
First, and most importantly, learning how to create my own fulfillment and happiness no matter the job. Even if it was in MCH, maternal-child health, instead of sexual violence, even if it was in academia and not government, even if I didn't love the way leadership was dealing with issues, I also got to have a deep impact on people's lives. It was a different community than I thought.
It was an impact for a different reason, but I still got to do that. I got to publish manuscripts on the work I was doing. I got to mentor students and change their lives. I got to implement ways in the work I was doing in academia to be more equitable both for the staff and for the students coming on board. I even got to figure out a way to continue doing some sexual violence work.
I was able to do some manuscript publications and mentor students who were interested in the topic, be on their capstone committee and even develop and help lead a committee within our school to prevent harm in our organization among staff and faculty. I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I gave up on myself and stopped dreaming, and I achieved big goals.
I achieved the goal of being an executive director, achieved the goal of making more money, and then, another new goal, starting a business, and all the while, I also bought a condo and got into the relationship that I wanted to. Like, all of that wouldn't have happened if I had given up on myself. Do not let the pandemic take away your ability to dream. Whether your past dream or new dream, whether working toward the same goal or a different goal, you have already lost so much in this pandemic.
Why are you choosing to lose more? Choosing to miss out on dreaming. Choosing not to go for goals and choosing not to reach your goals, and choosing not to create the life and the career you want to have. It may look different than what it would have before if the pandemic didn't happen or different than what you had envisioned. The way to get your goals might be different, right?
But that doesn't mean you don't get to dream and achieve your goals. You have a choice. A choice to believe in yourself or not. The choice to believe in your dreams or not. The choice to go for your goals or not. What sounds more fun and fulfilling? Going after what you truly want and seeing what happens along the way, even if they're challenges or sitting at home blaming the pandemic? Giving up on yourself is the easy part. It's so much easier to blame the pandemic. It would be so much easier if, in twenty years, you said my career was ruined because of the pandemic.
Or never got to achieve that goal because of the pandemic. That's so easy, but it is so much more fulfilling to keep dreaming in twenty years to say I didn't let the pandemic hold me back, and I went for it, and I got my goals. Or I figured it out and achieved things I wanted and achieved things that I didn't even know at the time I didn't want. And you have done this before.
You did it with getting an MPH. You did it with getting the job you have now, right? You could have taken the easy route and not done any of that, sat at home, given up when it got hard, but you didn't. So, what is your dream? I know you have one. I know it's there. You won't let it come to the surface. This is a safe space to do that.
Where do you want to be in a year? What goal do you want to accomplish in three years? What do you want your career to look like in the future? Let yourself go there, envision it, think about, dream about it, and come work with me to make me a reality. What got me to keep going after my dreams totally changed, right, and I had to live at home taking care of my mom in my, I guess, late 20s, right?
Then, getting a job I hated, what helped me to keep going was someone who helped guide me. I have to seed of belief, right? I had all these challenges, and I had difficult emotions, but I still had the seed of belief, and honestly, that is all that I needed. And if you have a seed of hope, of dreaming, of belief in you, that is all you need. Because I am going to help you grow it, help you achieve your goals. Help you see, and believe in the possibilities fully again, get excited about the future again, dream like you did when you were in grad school, and together we'll make it happen.
I'll teach you exactly how to get what you want, and it will be easy. You'll have me right there with you, guiding you, supporting you, helping you every step of the way. And after we work together, you're going to have less stress than you do now, and feel way better, be way more excited about your life, have half the workload you do now, so you have more time for the things you love, work or not, right?
Whether it's working out or sleeping more or more times with friends, or traveling, you'll have a plan for achieving your next goal and the next goal after that. You'll know exactly how to get any goal even with the pandemic still going on and feel confident excited about your work, career, and your future again. And you'll feel in complete control.
Seriously, y'all, what are you waiting for? You already waited two years, right, sitting back in the back seat. Not in the driver's seat. Enough is enough get in that freaking driver's seat. It's time to take back control and create the life and the career and experience you want to have. I'm going to show you how. I'm going to help you get there. I'm going to make it easy and simple, like, literally, why would you pass up on that?
You spent two years waiting; let's take six months, that’s a quarter of the time, and completely change your life. Change your future. Change the direction of your future. How you feel. Your day-to-day experience go from being overwhelmed to having more time than you even know what to do with. Go from being burnt out to being excited about your future in your career. Go from being exhausted, depleted, and dread every day to eager, right, and excited about your next career goal.
Sign up. Do not wait to talk to me. So we can grow that dream and work together to achieve your dreams and goals, career, and life overall. Go to McKoolCoaching.com/coaching that's mckoolcoaching.com/coaching. We will also leave a link in the show notes for you. Come talk with me. Let's completely change your life and go after those dreams that you secretly have and let's make them not a secret anymore. Let's make them achieved. Done. Good as done, and feel amazing while you're doing it, and not stressed. Like, seriously, what's better than that? Alright, y'all have a great Valentine's Day. Have a great week. Talk to you next week.
Are you ready to make a change? Whether that's learning to love your job, making a career move, or anything in between, I can help. I'd be honored to coach you through figuring out what's next and navigating the steps to get there. So, head on over to mckoolcoaching.com/consult that's mckoolcoaching.com/consult to set up a time to chat and talk about how you can achieve the career of your dreams.
Hi, everyone, Happy Valentine's Day. I know some of you Valentine's Day is your favorite holiday. You love it. Maybe it's Galentine's Day you celebrate, and others of you kind of hate it. You think it's kind of just a commercial marketing scam to get lots of money. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, I just hope you have a great day, nonetheless.
As this episode is coming out, I'm actually in Half Moon Bay, not celebrating Valentine's Day, but celebrating my anniversary with my partner. So, I'm not super into Valentine's Day. Personally, I don't hate it, but I don't necessarily feel the need to exchange gifts with my partner or go to a nice dinner. I've given gifts to my girlfriends, or my friend's kids, like, I still like it. I'm not on the end of the spectrum.
But, our anniversary is in February, and I have—It's been on my bucket list for so long, dreamed of staying at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay is an area on the California coast, and the Ritz Carlton is kind of gets from the pictures at least, like, Game of Thrones vibe. Like, not medieval, I don't want to say that. It's definitely boujee and fancy. But it's right on the cliffs of Half Moon Bay, and it just seems secluded and just like luxurious.
And I really thought I probably won't be able to stay there, you know, for many, many, more years, I think the minimum for one of their like lowest rooms is 800 a night or something. But I finally got enough credit card points to book it. Like, really, when I realized this, I just, it was a dream. I'm so excited, and we're not going for our actual anniversary because that's on the weekend, and that required way more points, but I could get it from Monday through Wednesday, even on Valentine's Day, which was kind of crazy.
So, I'm super excited for that, and it relates to what I want to talk about today because in 2019, right, several years ago, before the pandemic, I actually had a goal to find someone to date. To find someone I wanted to be in a relationship with, particularly what I wanted at that point was friends, one who also wanted to eventually get married and go down that path. And in 2019, I worked towards that goal wholeheartedly.
I dated a lot, and I met a lot of people, and some just were one date, and some many dates. There were some people I met that I didn't want to commit to and some people that I met that they didn't want to commit to me, right? Probably, most importantly, I was getting and doing a lot of coaching on my day-to-day anxiety. Self-coaching getting coached by my coach, I was doing a lot of mindset and emotional work to achieve this goal.
And I didn't achieve it in 2019, but I kept the goal for 2020. I didn't make it mean it was never going to happen. I just made it mean, okay, it's going to take longer than I thought it would. That's all, and I was seeing so much progress of myself through coaching and how I showed up, my confidence, my beliefs, and who I became in 2019 as I really worked towards that goal. I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone.
I met my now partner just a few weeks before the pandemic, the lockdown in 2020, and it's funny because there were plenty, so many challenges that came up that I could've easily given up on dating or being in a relationship. Like, in the beginning, I was dating, it was full lockdown; everyone was freaking out. His roommate didn't want me to come over at all because they were so scared of getting COVID.
So, for a month or two, I couldn't even go hang out at his place, you know, all the restaurants, all the date spots are closed. We basically had dates where we picked up food to go, sat in the car at the marina, and looked at the sunset. We didn't have much we could do, right? We may be played games or watched TV at my house. We weren't at my house all of the time; I wanted to be respectful of my roommate. We didn't meet any of each other's friends until like over a year into the pandemic.
Not to mention, I still was working through my day-to-day anxiety. It continued to come up. It was even heightened because of the pandemic, and when I experienced all of these challenges, and there are many many more, I could have easily said, well, this will never work because of the pandemic, or I can no longer dream of being in a healthy, successful relationship because of the pandemic. How long is this going to last?
Or the pandemic isn't allowing me to figure out if this is someone I want to be with because I'm not going to be able to see him around his friends, family, and it's just that part of him, or a million other thoughts, right? But I didn't. I still believed I can make it happen, whether with him or someone else, right. Like, I still was doing the work. I still dreamed, I still worked towards the goal, and here we are two years later.
Still together, living together, now, and celebrating our anniversary, but so many of you are not doing this with your career. Before the pandemic, you had an idea of what you wanted your next step to be. You had a dream of what you were working towards fulfilling in your career. You had a goal in mind for your career.
Maybe it was to be an executive director, or to do more research, or to get a doctorate degree, or on a business, or work the federal level, or get in a position where you supervise someone or moved in a different topic area, or travel more in your career, or make more money, right? But now, you haven't let yourself dream at all about your career since the pandemic. Since you realized the pandemic was going to last longer than two weeks.
And you're low-key, even without realizing it, telling yourself it isn't possible anymore. Or you just don't know how, or you have to wait until the pandemic is over. Whether you like your current job or hate it, you aren't letting yourself plan for the future, the long-term future, and the short-term future; you aren't letting yourself set a career goal.
You're not letting yourself work toward your prior career goal. Y'all, this is bullshit. This makes me so mad. Not angry at you; I love y'all. But it makes me so mad that you're giving up on your dreams because I know you don't have to, and I know you have so much passion and genius inside of you, and you can create a life you want. It's a huge disservice to yourself to give up on this. Stop giving up on yourself because that's what you're doing right now.
You have worked far too hard for too long to do that. You are using the excuse, yes, it is an excuse, of the pandemic to give in to the part of your brain that (A) doesn't want to put in energy and just wants to hide in a cave doing nothing, and (B) the part of your brain that didn't really fully believe and had some doubts about your dreams or goals even before the pandemic. Listen, you are human. You have a human brain.
Every brain wants to conserve energy by doing nothing and hiding out and not trying new things, pandemic or not. That is totally normal, and every human brain has thoughts about doubt or not being able to believe or confidence, about ourselves, about what's possible, about our goals. This is all normal, but the problem is you're letting that part of your brain guide you, make decisions, and be in charge, dictate your experience in your future. Stop it.
Your dreams are important. Not only that, they are possible. They are worth it. They can happen even in a pandemic. Your dreams for your career and your dreams for what you want your life to look like, and even if you feel like you can't dream anymore because of the pandemic that is a lie you are telling yourself. Yes, the pandemic has been extremely hard for so many reasons, maybe juggling homeschooling kids, constant work changes, losing a loved one, losing a job, getting sick, higher workload, and a whole host of other reasons.
It has been fucking hard, but just because the pandemic has been hard. It doesn't mean you have to give up all your goals. Listen, the pandemic has already taken so much from you. Don't let it take this. You're letting the pandemic take away your ability to dream, your career goals, and, honestly, your future. That is a choice you are making.
It is a choice; you don't have to make that choice. I want to tell you all a little story. Since college, back in the day, I knew I wanted to work in sexual violence prevention. I always knew that and after I got my MPH where I did focus on sexual violence prevention, and I did so much work to make that happen because there's not a specific concentration in that. So, I really had to hustle to get the education that I wanted, and the projects I wanted, and the internships, and work with the people I wanted, and yada yada yada.
So, after I graduated, I went to CDC, and I worked in the division of violence prevention as a fellow on the specific sexual violence prevention team. Y'all, this was the dream job. The sexual violence prevention is a tiny, tiny sliver in public health. Right? There's not a million jobs in this topic area, and I got this job at the federal level. It was the dream job, and my goal became to finish my fellowship and get a full-time position there.
Which, those of you who've worked in the CDC or any federal government, you know, getting an FTE is no small feat, and my goal was to stay there for my career and become an expert and build my life there, and all of that. In a year and a half into my fellowship, my mom got sick. In the middle of the night, I got a call saying she has a staph infection in her leg. She's going into surgery right now. They hope she will live, and if she does, they will try to save her leg.
I was on the first flight from Atlanta to Tahoe, cross country. She ended up getting three surgeries in the course of only one week, staying in the ICU. Then, moving to the main hospital floor. Then, into kind of short-term care. She was in the hospital for six weeks, and then when she left the hospital, she didn't even have a hip bone. They had to remove that, and they put a block of cement to hold the space between her femur and pelvis together because they couldn't do a hip replacement until the infection was completely gone. Which wasn't until three months later, right?
Then, even after the hip replacement, there was another several months of recovery, and I stayed home to take care of her, right? In that, working in the hospital, changing my schedule, and taking care of her insurance and her work stuff, and taking care of her, and helping clean and take care of all of the pets. And when she was at home recovering, feeding her, helping bathing her, and dressing her, and all of that stuff for months.
My dream of staying at the CDC during that was completely challenged. Just like many of you are experiencing during the pandemic, and I could have decided to still pursue that dream. I could decide, okay, after the six months or however long, once my mom's fully recovered, I'll go back to Atlanta and still go for it. That was totally an option. Or, I could have decided not to pursue that dream or any other.
I could have pouted about having to be in Tahoe, about my career being disrupted and blown up about everything not going how I had planned, or I could decide not to pursue my old dream and create a new dream. Right? I had all the reasons not to do that. I was exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, right? From that huge earthquake that happened in my life and that shift and the work I put in to take care of those challenges that were happening with me and my family and my mom, and my career. Right?
But I still decided to pursue my career and dream about it. It was a different dream, but I decided to keep dreaming. And at that time, there were like no jobs, especially, you know, in the West Coast where I was looking in sexual violence prevention. This was right when Trump got elected. A lot of organizations didn't know what was going to happen to their funding. Right?
They were kind of frozen, and I ended up getting a job in public health academia which I never really had a goal of, and in maternal-child health, which also really wasn't my goal. It wasn't my original dream at all, and to top it off, I initially actually hated my job. I was stressed out all the time by it. But I decided even with that, I wasn't going to give up on myself or my career.
I was so dedicated to my career and my life. To having a fulfilling career. To making an impact. Right? To creating the life and career that I wanted that would give me the things I wanted to experience, and I did everything. I could not just to keep it alive but to figure out how to thrive, right? I went to therapy. I started coaching figured out how to love my job. I started to dream even bigger about my next phase. I set my eyes on being an executive director, and I got the goal. And when I got that, I set a new goal, and then I got that goal.
I could've so easily y'all so easily given up on myself, and my career, and my dreams. I had all the reasons to in the world. I have all the excuses in the world. I was exhausted. I was pissed. I was shocked. I felt stuck. I felt lost. Right? But I didn't give up, and I am so so glad I didn't because I would've missed out on so much.
First, and most importantly, learning how to create my own fulfillment and happiness no matter the job. Even if it was in MCH, maternal-child health, instead of sexual violence, even if it was in academia and not government, even if I didn't love the way leadership was dealing with issues, I also got to have a deep impact on people's lives. It was a different community than I thought.
It was an impact for a different reason, but I still got to do that. I got to publish manuscripts on the work I was doing. I got to mentor students and change their lives. I got to implement ways in the work I was doing in academia to be more equitable both for the staff and for the students coming on board. I even got to figure out a way to continue doing some sexual violence work.
I was able to do some manuscript publications and mentor students who were interested in the topic, be on their capstone committee and even develop and help lead a committee within our school to prevent harm in our organization among staff and faculty. I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I gave up on myself and stopped dreaming, and I achieved big goals.
I achieved the goal of being an executive director, achieved the goal of making more money, and then, another new goal, starting a business, and all the while, I also bought a condo and got into the relationship that I wanted to. Like, all of that wouldn't have happened if I had given up on myself. Do not let the pandemic take away your ability to dream. Whether your past dream or new dream, whether working toward the same goal or a different goal, you have already lost so much in this pandemic.
Why are you choosing to lose more? Choosing to miss out on dreaming. Choosing not to go for goals and choosing not to reach your goals, and choosing not to create the life and the career you want to have. It may look different than what it would have before if the pandemic didn't happen or different than what you had envisioned. The way to get your goals might be different, right?
But that doesn't mean you don't get to dream and achieve your goals. You have a choice. A choice to believe in yourself or not. The choice to believe in your dreams or not. The choice to go for your goals or not. What sounds more fun and fulfilling? Going after what you truly want and seeing what happens along the way, even if they're challenges or sitting at home blaming the pandemic? Giving up on yourself is the easy part. It's so much easier to blame the pandemic. It would be so much easier if, in twenty years, you said my career was ruined because of the pandemic.
Or never got to achieve that goal because of the pandemic. That's so easy, but it is so much more fulfilling to keep dreaming in twenty years to say I didn't let the pandemic hold me back, and I went for it, and I got my goals. Or I figured it out and achieved things I wanted and achieved things that I didn't even know at the time I didn't want. And you have done this before.
You did it with getting an MPH. You did it with getting the job you have now, right? You could have taken the easy route and not done any of that, sat at home, given up when it got hard, but you didn't. So, what is your dream? I know you have one. I know it's there. You won't let it come to the surface. This is a safe space to do that.
Where do you want to be in a year? What goal do you want to accomplish in three years? What do you want your career to look like in the future? Let yourself go there, envision it, think about, dream about it, and come work with me to make me a reality. What got me to keep going after my dreams totally changed, right, and I had to live at home taking care of my mom in my, I guess, late 20s, right?
Then, getting a job I hated, what helped me to keep going was someone who helped guide me. I have to seed of belief, right? I had all these challenges, and I had difficult emotions, but I still had the seed of belief, and honestly, that is all that I needed. And if you have a seed of hope, of dreaming, of belief in you, that is all you need. Because I am going to help you grow it, help you achieve your goals. Help you see, and believe in the possibilities fully again, get excited about the future again, dream like you did when you were in grad school, and together we'll make it happen.
I'll teach you exactly how to get what you want, and it will be easy. You'll have me right there with you, guiding you, supporting you, helping you every step of the way. And after we work together, you're going to have less stress than you do now, and feel way better, be way more excited about your life, have half the workload you do now, so you have more time for the things you love, work or not, right?
Whether it's working out or sleeping more or more times with friends, or traveling, you'll have a plan for achieving your next goal and the next goal after that. You'll know exactly how to get any goal even with the pandemic still going on and feel confident excited about your work, career, and your future again. And you'll feel in complete control.
Seriously, y'all, what are you waiting for? You already waited two years, right, sitting back in the back seat. Not in the driver's seat. Enough is enough get in that freaking driver's seat. It's time to take back control and create the life and the career and experience you want to have. I'm going to show you how. I'm going to help you get there. I'm going to make it easy and simple, like, literally, why would you pass up on that?
You spent two years waiting; let's take six months, that’s a quarter of the time, and completely change your life. Change your future. Change the direction of your future. How you feel. Your day-to-day experience go from being overwhelmed to having more time than you even know what to do with. Go from being burnt out to being excited about your future in your career. Go from being exhausted, depleted, and dread every day to eager, right, and excited about your next career goal.
Sign up. Do not wait to talk to me. So we can grow that dream and work together to achieve your dreams and goals, career, and life overall. Go to McKoolCoaching.com/coaching that's mckoolcoaching.com/coaching. We will also leave a link in the show notes for you. Come talk with me. Let's completely change your life and go after those dreams that you secretly have and let's make them not a secret anymore. Let's make them achieved. Done. Good as done, and feel amazing while you're doing it, and not stressed. Like, seriously, what's better than that? Alright, y'all have a great Valentine's Day. Have a great week. Talk to you next week.
Are you ready to make a change? Whether that's learning to love your job, making a career move, or anything in between, I can help. I'd be honored to coach you through figuring out what's next and navigating the steps to get there. So, head on over to mckoolcoaching.com/consult that's mckoolcoaching.com/consult to set up a time to chat and talk about how you can achieve the career of your dreams.
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