The Girl Without A Face

What a week it has been. Busy to say the least, but I’m not complaining. It’s felt like a whirlwind. So much to process, somehow I feel like I’ve barely had time to catch my breath. Work has been incredibly busy and that of course has a huge impact on what I am able to do outside of that. It’s been a week of growth, triggers, ups, downs, in-betweens. I can feel myself becoming something I cant quite recognize but in a good way. Someone who isn’t afraid to be vulnerable, someone who sees her downfalls, someone who has admiration for others instead of secret jealousies. I’m not afraid to admit it, all of this I am unlearning. All of this passed down to me like a tradition. It’s as if I completely wiped all of it away and started new. That doesn’t mean fear doesn’t creep in, but when it does I recognize it. I figure out how to conquer it. Fear has no place within me anymore.

I’ve now been working this new job for about 5 months, I enjoy the job. There are of course ups and downs. And I’m in sales, so the main objective is to reach an arbitrary number that someone above you sets. They are not interested in the obstacles you may come up against. You are a hero if you meet that goal, even if it took you a day and one sale. You feel the pressure come down on you if you miss it, even if you submitted 30 sales and worked the last two days of the month without a lunch break. Unfortunately, the latter was me this month. I was struggling to get last minute submits in. I was still nowhere near where I had to be. My boss called me two hours after the month officially closed. “We need you to get to 100%, these numbers are unacceptable.” That’s what I heard, I’m sure he was less harsh than that. There are a lot of factors, he sees all my notes, I can speak to every single one of my accounts. That is the nature of sales. You have to close or else. As soon as we hung up yesterday, the team got an email that the other person who started with me was no longer with the company. I spiraled. I tried to stop thinking about it all day. I was angry with my boss, I was angry with everything. For the first time I started questioning my decision to leave the toxic job I left months ago. I started to catastrophize. What would I do if I lost my job like that? The fear of failure. The fear of falling. Seeing all that could go wrong 20 steps down the line.

Long after I logged off I was still trying to shake off this conversation. I tried reading, I tried treating myself to ice cream, I messaged my sister. Nothing was working, I had terrible dreams. I woke up and decided that I had to do the one thing I like to avoid: vulnerability. I messaged my boss first thing, “Can we talk this morning? Nothing urgent.” I also messaged one of my team members who is consistently over 100%. My boss called me almost right away. “I called you yesterday so you WOULDNT feel like this when you saw that email come out. You have nothing to worry about. Keep working hard.” I thanked him for easing my mind, he even specifically told me that the last thing he would want would be for me to go looking for another job. Then I talked the person on my team, he had great advice. Then someone else from my team reached out, “Are you ok after that email went out yesterday?” “NO!” I replied. We talked and laughed and she told me she thinks she’s getting fired at the end of every month and she’s been doing this for 3 years. Maybe it’s a sales thing? Who knows. Either way, because I was vulnerable I was no longer alone.

It was so interesting because I could’ve easily kept to myself today, not said anything, kept my head down, kept working. But I knew that this would continue to eat away at me. I knew I had to address it honestly, openly. I knew I had to understand where I stood. And it paid off ten fold. Not only do I now feel even more secure in my job, but I now feel like I’m not alone with my thoughts. Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are wrong.