Back in 2016, as I was on the verge of graduating college and faced with the multiple possibilities life offered me for the future, I started dealing with anxiety. The situation was overwhelming and for the first time, I was leaving the safe space that school was and was confronted with the fact that decisions were going to be harder to make from now on, as many paths were opening up for me and the one to take wasn’t an obvious choice.
From then on, I had to deal with anxiety attacks every time a life decision was coming up. I have a very analytical mind, so I would drive myself crazy trying to analyze (and over-analyze) every option and trying to decide which one would lead me to the highest level of happiness. I never really understood why I was struck with such anxiety every time I had to make a decision. I just told myself that it was simply because I was scared to make a bad one and have regrets.
Then came Covid-19
When the pandemic reached our continent, all spheres of my life pretty much fell apart. I lost my job, things ended with the guy I was dating, I couldn’t see my friends anymore, and I had to move back with my parents. At first, I took it as a forced vacation and took some time for myself to process the situation and be at peace with it. I succeeded, but as time passed and I wasn’t called back to work yet, I knew I had a decision to make concerning my career… and with it came back my anxiety.
I found my life passion in hospitality and tourism, which is unfortunately one of the industries that got hit the hardest during the pandemic. No one knew when we’d see the day when people would travel again and when we’d have our jobs back. I therefore had to decide if I wanted to hold on to this job and put myself in a precarious financial situation or resign and move on with my career to insure a more stable revenue and career advancement.
I am someone who always asks my whole entourage for advice when I have a decision to make. For me, it’s a way to insure that I’m not forgetting any detail that could help me make my decision. My friends and family often have different arguments than the ones I can think of, which I find interesting. With their opinion and arguments in mind, I feel better equipped to analyze every option and make the most enlightened decision.
Therefore, this time, as usual, I asked everyone around me what I should do, having no idea what would be best. Half of them told me that I shouldn’t waste any time doing nothing at home and should go look for additional experience in another industry until things return to normal. The other half told me to not resign from my current job, as it had taken me a long time to get there and had just finally gotten it before the pandemic hit. They thought I should just wait it out, enjoy the time off and be ready to go back to work when I’d be called back, the chances of my position being cut permanently being very small.
I felt completely lost. I didn’t know who to listen to and I didn’t know what I should do or even what I wanted to do. In my mind, both options made equal sense and I just couldn’t decide. Then, when the amount of subsidies I was receiving to live in the meantime decreased, I took that as a sign to start looking for another job and I quickly found myself in the interview process for another company. However, I ended up not getting the job and that’s when everything became clear, because I was actually relieved.
See, I don’t want to brag, but in the multiple jobs interviews I did so far, it had only happened one other time that I didn’t get the job, so for it to happen again lit up something. The first time was back in 2017 when I was freshly back from living 6 months in the Cook Islands and was feeling uneasy being back home. I was lost and didn’t know which move to make next, so I had interviewed for a job in Montreal which I didn’t get. It had then became clear to me that I actually didn’t want to stay in Montreal and wanted to go abroad again. I had been relieved.
When I recognized the same feeling of relief when not getting the job this time, I realized that I actually didn’t want that job. I realized that I had forced myself to go through this process because my mind had rationalized it as the best option, but I wasn’t really feeling it. What I truly wanted to do was to hold on to my current job, even if it came with a level of uncertainty at the moment. I truly believe that companies can feel when you really want a job and when you don’t. This time was no exception. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that EVERY time I won’t get a job it will be because I didn’t really want it, I’m not that cocky! It just happens that so far the two times it happened had something in common.
Stop being in your head & trust how you feel
I realized that all along, I had known deep down what I wanted to do, but got distracted from my gut feeling by my analytical mind. I realized that life decisions should be rationalized to a certain point, yes, but should also come from the heart, not the head (which I was doing very unconsciously). It should come down to “Does this feel good?” I realized that this need to over-analyze everything in my head rather than following my gut is actually just insecurity. Because I don’t trust myself. I realized that maybe if I stopped seeing every decision making as a problem to solve (head) and just follow what feels good (heart), maybe I would not only make choices that make me happier, but would also ease my anxiety a lot. Now, easier said then done, but even just realizing that is huge I think, since it isn’t obvious to an anxious mind like me once I get caught up in my head.
I started thinking back to all the times in my life when I just took a leap of faith and jumped in without over-thinking things and realized that these decisions were some of the best I had ever made in my life. Going to live in the Cook Islands was a very impulsive decision, not rationalized at all, and turned out to be a life-changing experience. Going to Greece this summer with someone I had seen twice in my life, when everyone thought I was crazy for doing so, also turned out to be such a positive decision. I realized my best experiences, the ones that make me feel alive, all came from times when I didn’t overthink things.
Don’t get me wrong, not all of the decisions I took with my gut turned out to be super positive ones. Leaving solo at 19 to live in Bali for a few months turned out not to be my best move. However, I just realized that I actually never regretted it. And this is the second lesson just I learned. The very reason why I over-analyze things in the first place is because I am scared to have regrets. However, thinking back, even the experiences that turned out to be less positive ones never ended up being regrets. So, why am I so scared to make a bad decision when I know that I can turn even the most negative ones into learning experiences for which I eventually end up being grateful for?
This pandemic will have pushed me to explore my decision-making process and given me the time and space to dig deeper into the learning process of trusting my instinct, of what feels right and what doesn’t. Of course, I am not delusional, my anxiety won’t just magically disappear with these recent realizations. However, I do believe that I now have a better understanding of its root and how to work on it in the future. The pandemic will have had many negative impacts, but I am grateful for the silver lining it brought me.