Shoot Your Shot

September 26, 2019
by Kaho

Life Hacks

More often than I would prefer, I find myself setting limitations for what I can do. I’m a pretty logical person and I like to think things through. I’ve always been the type of person to meticulously plan out my life and think WAY into the future. I first decide on a goal that I want to achieve and then work my way backwards to figure out the steps that I need to take in order to achieve that goal. During this process, I always run into a roadblock. I suddenly realize that a certain step is unattainable (or at least I think it is). I begin to overthink and stress out. I convince myself that my goal is impossible to achieve. It’s over, I must give up. It wasn’t meant to be. At times like this, it helps me to verbalize my dilemma and talk it over with a person I trust. He/she pulls me out of my dramatic act and knocks some light into my tunnel vision filled with darkness. I realize that there are alternative paths that I can take that goes around the obstacle. In other cases, I’m given the courage and determination to continue down the path that I had initially planned to take and deal with the obstacle once I run into it. In past experiences, I was provided with tools to overcome the impediment right before running into it or the obstacle turned out to be much smaller than I had anticipated. As cliché as this may sound, everything really does work out in the end.

I’m sharing this with you today because I experienced another self-limiting episode very recently. The application deadline for the OTD is fast-approaching and it feels like there is a huge cloud of anxiety and uncertainty hovering over the heads of second year students. Every corner I turn and every door I open, I hear students discussing whether they want to pursue the OTD or not and where they may want to do their residency. It seems as though I can’t even use the restroom in peace. My ears are hypersensitive to this topic because I am also uncertain about what I want to do and where I want to go. Once again, I see a goal for myself, but I also saw a roadblock in my way that’s telling me to not even try because I’m unqualified or I don’t have the means. I expressed my concern with a friend and she looked at me, very confused.

“Wait . . . what? So you want something really badly, but what are you going to do to get it? Nothing. That makes no sense.”

Worded simply and bluntly like that, I realized how irrational I was being. I was telling myself that I should give up before even trying. There’s really no way of knowing whether I qualify or not until I try. If I don’t apply, then there definitely is zero chance. There have been numerous times throughout my life where situations that seemed impossible somehow turned out possible, and yet I still haven’t learned, apparently. 🙄

The moral of this story is to first, find a friend, significant other, family member, mentor, or anyone that will honestly and bluntly tell you when you’re not making sense. Find someone that will validate your feelings, but will also remove your horse blinders and contribute a fresh new perspective to your situation. More importantly, however, shoot your shot. You never know if you’ll make it without trying and the worst that can happen is you miss, right? And in that case, just pick up the ball and shoot again.

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