How to Handle the Uncertainty of Carving Your Own Path
One year ago today, I woke up at 4:30am for my last day of barista training.
My Uber driver was a couple minutes late and my heart started to race while I thought about the day ahead. Will I have to make my first latte? Will a customer yell at me for being too slow?
Our training shift was supposed to start at 5:30am that morning. I sat in front of the dark, locked store at 5:17am, surprised to see a group of drunk people walking by so late (early?) and a half empty pizza box on the steps outside of that old bank turned Starbucks.
I waited, my anxiety growing as the clock approached 5:30am.
I wasn’t nervous about making coffee.
I tried to calm my nerves, breathed in the coolness of the last day of September, and felt that familiar feeling that comes with the breeze. The seasons were changing.
In the weeks prior, I had lost my two biggest clients — the ones who gave me the confidence to make full-time freelancing a reality.
Starbucks was supposed to be my cushion as I relocated to a new state and built off of my existing clients. With two of them gone, I was pretty much starting from scratch.
I knew in my bones that things were going to get worse before they got better.
When I sat on those steps, I felt the weight of the months to come. The anxiety of learning a new job, the uncertainty of whether I’d be able to work for myself one day, the dread of failing again.
This was step one.
At the end of my last training shift, I let myself feel excited. Ready for a new start. I told myself I would focus on networking and writing and trusting the process. I sipped my first of many free Pumpkin Spice Lattes, hoping that one day I’d look back and be glad I was here.
I had no idea what step two or three looked like. But I knew there must be something true in the phrase everyone kept repeating: “One step at a time.”
Carving your own path.
“You haven’t really had a normal path, have you,” my boss at the time laughed.
“Yeah most people follow their own path…And I’m out here hacking my way through the weeds.”
Everyone in the circle shifted on their feet. I kept smiling because I meant it.
I knew in that moment I wasn’t even close to where I was headed.
I was somewhere in between, still carving my own way.
How to get through the “in between” stages
If you’re thinking about becoming a full-time freelancer or changing your career, here are 3 tips for the in between moments when you’re carving your way and your anxiety takes over.
1. Keep your goal close.
Remind yourself where you want to be. Throughout the day, when your brain kicks itself and says you’re never going to get there, remember that struggle is a part of your story.
When you zoom out enough, you might even find some humor in the struggle.
As a barista, even when it got hard — when I held my breath and cleaned shit off the public bathroom floor, I reminded myself where I was headed.
Once, I was bringing trash into the dumpster and that putrid, old coffee and milk smell wafted around me. One heave over the ledge and, to my horror, that sludgy liquid of old and sticky coffee grinds spilled up my arm. (This is why we double bag, folks!).
It could have been much worse. So I just laughed. I pictured future me, and I knew she’d be proud of me for sticking with it and fighting for my goal.
2. Think about what makes you happy right now.
What parts of your life right now would last year’s version of you be jealous of?
What parts of your life right now will future you miss one day?
I used to go straight to checking emails or social media as I walked home from Starbucks. Then, it hit me: One day I wouldn’t be walking through that park on my way home everyday. We wouldn’t live in this same city forever, things would change. I’d miss getting to look up at the trees and relishing in a few more minutes outdoors.
You can’t skip this step. Focusing on the things you love about your life right now will help carry you through the next rejection or failure.
If you’re not happy now, you’re not going to be happy when you hit your next goal. So take a moment and ask yourself: What are you grateful for right now?
3. Say your fears out loud.
“I’m worried I’ll have to go right back to Starbucks and everyone will laugh at me, and call me a complete failure.”
“WHAT! Who’s saying these things?! You have some really mean friends!”
I didn’t realize how ridiculous I sounded. But my friend’s immediate reaction told me everything I needed to know.
When I confided in my fiancé, telling him how scared I was, how I’d have to go back to square one if this crashed and burned, he said, “Don’t say it like that. If you have to go back, you’ll still be ahead from where you were before.”
“I know but I still feel like if I don’t make it work this time, I am a complete failure.”
“It’s just one step. You’re taking one step in the right direction,” he said.
The people you love in your life are your sounding boards. Don’t let your inner critic bounce her ugly voice around in your head all alone up there. Speak what she says out loud and your loved ones will talk some sense into you.
Today, I started my first day as a full-time freelance writer.
I feel like a fraud typing that. I haven’t updated my (very ugly) website since January. I haven’t shared any blog posts since June. I don’t “go live” on Instagram or actively comment in any Facebook groups. But I’m here.
Anxiety-ridden half the time? Sure.
I’m serving my clients and writing as much as I can anyway. Whether I have to go back to making lattes or decide to get a traditional job one day, I‘ll be writing my way through it.
Start moving through your uncertainty. One year from now, you’ll be glad you did.
