Doing It Wrong

My desire to do things right is holding me back.

That F is killing me. Is it killing you?

Last week I was talking to a trusted mentor about this internal drive I have to do things right. Following the rules is something I naturally excel at. I have been a classically trained musician, an "A" student, and a quick study. If I ever start to feel vulnerable, I count on correctness to keep me safe. Doing it right means I stay in control because I have the rules on my side.

Unfortunately, correctness also keeps me - and my ideas - small. And boring. And anxious.

Recently, I've been trying to learn something new, and it is hard. My mentor listened with compassion as I described the difficulty I was having with being a middle-aged beginner, with knowing the rules but somehow not being able to summon or follow them in the moment. Then she hit me with a truth bomb. "This desire for correctness is really holding you back. What if instead of right, you did it wrong?"

My inner perfectionist was aghast. Weren't the rules there to help me succeed? And yet, I could hear the wisdom of the question. Doing it wrong has helped me before.

In 2012, I stepped away from my 12-year career with the Federal Government, a job I thought I was going to retire from. After years of being a working mom, managing a department while coping with intense post-partum depression as well as ongoing kid medical issues, I was burned out and overwhelmed. I told everyone it was time for me to take a sabbatical. Some time away should make me feel like a new woman. Six months, tops.

Try six years.

Six years before I earned my Master's degree, seven before I found a full-time role in my new field of choice, and nine before my earnings exceeded what I had been making when I walked away in 2012. Six years of staying home with toddler and elementary-age kiddos and combing households with my parents. Six years of giving my time away in community service and working part-time, exploring what else the world might have for me. Six years of figuring out how to express my value without a big corporate title or a dollar sign.

Back at the six-month mark, my old boss had called. Is it out of your system yet? he asked. Surprising both of us, I said no. That's not the right answer, he quipped. I know, I answered. Maybe I'll get a T-shirt: "Sabbatical: I'm Doing It Wrong."

Those six "sabbatical" years were some of the most fruitful, joyful, challenging, and clarifying years of my career. I was not "not working." I was learning new skills, clarifying my values, and gaining confidence in how to pursue my life's work. I was teaching, leading, and writing. I was contributing. I was healing.

It was "wrong" to pass up the chance to return when it was offered to me. It was wrong to take such a long career gap. It was wrong to work odd jobs and explore new industries in my mid-to-late-30's. It was wrong to give up my12 years of retirement benefits and federal reinstatement preference to pivot my career towards - what? I wasn't sure.

And yet not doing my sabbatical "right" gave me the freedom to play, to make my time my own, to show up with curiosity and intentionality when I had no idea what was going to happen next. It was the best way I could have done it - even if (because?) it was wrong.

I'm barreling headlong into another pivot these days, another iteration and clarification of the impact I want to create, and for who, and how. Change is hard, sometimes crazy. My mentor was right. It is impossible for me to be a perfectionist in the midst of change. Not if I actually want to change.

I do, I think. I do want to change. I want what's next. I want it more than I want to look good doing it.

In return, I have to be willing to do it badly, full of doubt, imperfectly. Wrong.

So here's to doing it wrong! This is my commitment: To showing up wholehearted, transparently, and with maybe a stupid amount of courage. I have no idea how it will turn out. Or why on earth I feel like I should be writing about it.

If all this sounds fun, stick around.