Where are the Wild Things, Anyway?

This month’s CareerCollective Blogging Topic is:  “How to avoid scary career mistakes”.  As always, I’m writing through the lens of living with chronic illness and it’s impact on your career.  But these ideas apply to healthy folks , too.  Be sure to scroll down for the list of the other bloggers’ posts – there’s a gold mine of info here.

I’ve finally realized why I don’t like Halloween.  Forget the candy.  I don’t see the point in building my fear  — the  ghosts, the scary noises and the dark.  Bah, humbug.

I’ve spent my adult life learning not to be afraid of the unknown. What about you?

Living with chronic illness can create disabling fear.  As I see it, the only way around this  is to learn to notice the fear without letting it hobble you.  I know how easy it is to slide into the “what if”  – worrying about the unknown.  It seems to happen the most in the middle of the night, when I’m most vulnerable.  And when you’ve experienced illness that you thought didn’t happen to people like you, the possible slides easily into the probable.

Do you wonder, “How sick will I get?  Will I be able to keep my job?  Will I be able to take care of  my family when I can barely take care of myself?” Fear can make you feel totally powerless.  I think that’s why  children are so easily scared.

My oldest daughter hated reading “Where the Wild Things Are” when she was young.  All she had to do was  look at the pictures, read about the Land of the Wild Things,  and she’d freeze in terror.  She must have gotten the scared gene from me. As a kid, I trembled playing hide and seek with my brother.  Even as an adult with children of my own, I left lights on when we went to bed if my husband wasn’t home.

But at some point,  I stopped being afraid of sleeping alone in a dark house.  In fact, I was no longer afraid of much, including becoming very sick, because I no longer felt powerless.  Somewhere along the way, I’d learned that I could deal with whatever happened to me.

Not that the clammy moments don’t creep up in the middle of the night, especially when symptoms are active.  But I can calm them more easily now.  And, most importantly, fear doesn’t stop me from taking risks.

Let’s face it, living with chronic illness  increases the possibility that something can happen to prevent you from getting what you want.  Gaps in your resume due to illness can mean you don’t get that job.  Missed time  for sick leave can cause under performance and you lose your job.

But what happens if you don’t take the risk at all?   If you don’t look the dark in the eye and say, I can face this?

Facing the unknown and your fear is possible when you:

• Focus on what you can control.
• Train your thinking on where you can succeed rather than what might go wrong.

This Halloween, maybe you can stare into “their yellow eyes without blinking once”. Maybe you’ll be “King of All the Wild Things” -just like Max.

Be sure to scroll through the  following list of CareerCollective Bloggers and  read their ideas on “taking the scary out of job searching and career”.