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Zooming Out: How Changing Your Perspective Changes Your Life

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One of my good friends has this beautiful little piece of paper sitting on her dresser with perfect little handwritten letters spelling the words “Zoom Out”.

A few months ago I was with her when she decided to start repeating this as sort of  a “weekly motto”.  If she ever finds herself feeling anxious, judgmental or overwhelmed she thinks to herself, “It’s time to Zoom Out”.

At the time I was very far removed from this concept of needing to “Zoom Out”.  I was always thinking big picture, I was always planning my next move while dominating my current project and completely focusing on my career. I was totally zoomed out…or so I thought.

In December of 2013 I met Self Doubt while bunking in a strange old Brooklyn apartment in the dead of a New York winter. Having just wrapped a really big movie and feeling exhausted I started to wonder if “the creative business” was for me.  Do I want to give up what they call “The American Dream” of a house and a yard and kids?   Is moving around the country without a stable home or a husband really how I imagined my life?  Is filmmaking my true calling?  As you can tell, Self Doubt and I became intimate very quickly.

And then just like that, Self Doubt and I decided to head to Seattle to pursue a more “typical” career, a more “stable” career.  We moved into a beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill, went to work every day with really great people and started to build a life in Washington-a corporate life, a 9-5 life, a what Beyonce calls the “Working 9-5 just to stay alive” life.  Self Doubt was having a great time while I was so far from my true self that I felt like someone had taken my dreams, put them in a blender and pushed “frappe”.  My life was one big dream crushing smoothie.

Self Doubt and I also met a really handsome, smart, ambitious man, the kind of man that is the perfect distraction from the dream crushing smoothie that is now tragically dripping all over your silk dress.   See the thing about being in a relationship with Self Doubt is that you are constantly trying to find a way to validate so you can break up with it.  I need a job that fulfills me so I can leave Self Doubt, I need to be financially well off so I can leave Self Doubt, I need someone to love me so I can leave Self Doubt.  The truth is, you find out later, way after you needed to find out, that you can leave Self Doubt at any time.

All you have to do is wake up, look in the mirror and say “Screw you, Self Doubt.  This is over”.

But I decided, instead of just breaking up with Self Doubt, I was going to “be loved by someone else” in order to replace Self Doubt with ya know, someone else.  So I took all of my energy and all of my love and all of my self and I gave it to that “really handsome, smart, ambitious man”.  Now Self Doubt and I could break up right?  Finally, the validation I’ve needed to leave my abusive relationship with Self Doubt and be the best version of myself!!!

Wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong wrong, so wrong.

One of the biggest attributes of being a smart, ambitious, talented, driven woman is that I am a giver.  Boy do I love to give!  I love to give to my friends, my family, my job, my mailman, my dog walker. I give give give give give.  You know what happens when you give everything to everyone else?  You have nothing left.  You make the wrong decisions.  You forget who you are.  You accept behavior that is against your beliefs.  You focus on other people instead of yourself and you end up quitting your “9-5 just to stay alive” job and moving to another new place because you’ve zoomed in on “really handsome, smart, ambitious man” and you can no longer see.  And when “really handsome, smart, ambitious man” turns out to be exactly that..a really handsome, smart and ambitious man he doesn’t have enough to give you to make up for what you lost when you left Self Doubt back in Seattle.  So now you look around you and your friends are doing well, your mailman is solid and your dog walker has opened her own dog grooming shop and your boyfriend well, let’s just say he really likes his relationship with “ambition”.  You, on the other hand, you’re empty, your gas light is on and you’re so zoomed in that you can’t put one foot in front of the other.

But ironically you’ve successfully hit rock bottom and you start to realize you’re becoming jealous of your dog grooming friend and things are going to need to change. And because you are a smart, ambitious, talented driven women you’re actually going to kick ass at “Project Self Improvement” and you wake the F up.

You call your adorable friend with the “Zoom Out” sign and you ask her if you can borrow it, just for a couple of weeks.  And she obviously obliges because she knew the entire time that you needed the damn sign but she couldn’t just hand over the answer, you had to discover this on your own.  And you wake up every morning and you say to yourself “It’s time to Zoom Out” and you say “Screw you, Self Doubt” and “Gonna need a break ‘really handsome, smart, ambitious man’, ” and you drink that damn dream crushing smoothie and you start to get your life back.

You show up.  You breathe.  You put one foot in front of the other, and some days you trip and you fall but you keep coming back to the motto “It’s time to Zoom Out”.  And you proudly say “I am a storyteller and that is a beautiful thing”, and you walk your own damn dog and your life is yours again, because a change in your perspective can change your life

It’s time to Zoom Out.

 

 



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