Welcome, Dear WIG.ng!!!
Over the years, I have discovered through experience and my conversation with other great women, that we are wired to focus, so focused sometimes that we are not willing to stir off the path we have painstakingly curated for ourselves.
We do not open the door to step a little further off our course, and sometimes when doors are open and opportunities made available to us, we even boldly say NO, due to our wired focus.
While it is not much of a bad idea to remain focused on one’s career path, it is necessary perhaps to retract, revaluate, recalibrate and determine if that focus is doing you more harm than good. What about that novel, golden, once-in-a-life-opportunity that passes you by or is handed to you on a platter of gold? Truth be told, I was a victim of this focus. Maybe that brewed alongside a little bit of fear because I had charted my career path a while a go, and started taking necessary steps to achieving same, shutting my eyes to other great doors of opportunities simply because they did not fit career goals. A glance at my curriculum vitae would simply reveal where I was headed.
About 2 years ago, I was reading a book about women and their careers (which I will include in our recommended reading) and the author said so many things about women not applying for roles they were qualified for and not taking on great opportunities because we considered those opportunities off tangent to our prior plans. Coincidentally, while reading that book, I had been asked to take on a particular role which was within the overall niche of my career, yet outside my plan. For over a year, I kept being asked and I consistently declined for the same reason, it was not part of my career plan. Needless to say that this move was one that a large number of people within my field would hustle to get into. It was a great opportunity, but I just did not think it was for me.
I was in my office one fine afternoon when I was told someone was looking for me. I realised later that he was the head of the new department I had refused to join. I guess he himself was convinced that I fit the role and decided to reach out, considering I had declined every other attempt to get me on board. We had a chat about myself and the role, which I later realised was an interview. I asked questions and also informed him that there were aspects to my present role I was really enjoying and was not willing to compromise if I agreed to take on the new role, as this was critical to building my career. He assured me that those aspects would continue in this new role.
For the first time since being asked to join the team over a year ago, I decided to give it an extra thought. I reached out and spoke to a few trusted persons and they encouraged me to take the role…after weighing our combined assessment….and so I did. I took the leap.
It is exactly two years this month (July 2021) since I veered off my career path by taking up a different role. All I can truthfully say is that I would encourage you to try same. I never anticipated what my experience would be. I have not only grown as a person and in my career, I have also met and bonded with many some amazing people, I have built a decent career network, met and shared a few words with some of my greatest mentors, acquired more invaluable mentor(ship), developed new skills, pursued bigger and better career goals, honed dormant skills and even excelled in things I had no idea I could take on. With an extra push from one of my newly acquired mentors, I got the confidence to pursue other dreams I have long nursed, such as WIG.ng. Within this same period, I was called up to an additional role, which made me the first woman in history to ever be accorded such a task. I am still overwhelmed that I was ever considered to fill that vacuum. This would have never materialised if I stuck to my career plan and said NO to other open doors.
I truly believe that once we decide to take a deeper look within, we will realise that all have buckets of interests and opportunities that we can well handle and also excel at, but in the famous words of one of my favourite bands Coldplay, “…if you never try, then you will never know just what you are worth”. So I urge you, in August 2021, take that chance! Take that course! Write that exam! Improve that skill!! Say yes to that new role! Ask for that raise! Move to that department. Resist hiding in your corner and say YES, YES, YES to opportunities.
I cannot wait for you to share your success story.
Nwatam
Founder.