Roughly one year and three months ago I decided to put myself out there and seek employment. I was willing to do anything on the planet that could give me an insight into how the real world works and put something substantial in my pocket. So I went hunting.
I was a hunter with zero experience in the field and no idea about what exactly I wanted to pursue. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t aiming my arrows into space hoping they’d hit a random target. I had some sort of idea about what I wanted to contribute to. Something in line with changing the status quo and breaking the bias which is that we as a continent can't do much for ourselves. So yeah, that was my blurry target. The question was, where could I be that would allow me to do all this? Luckily, I came across Impact Africa Network, and honestly, my life hasn’t been the same since. Allow me to share with you a year-long experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
Quick question? Have you ever gone to a restaurant to get a quick order, like a burger? You probably have. Now imagine you go to this restaurant and you’re told that in order to get that burger, you need to actually fix it yourself. That’s fine, right? Sounds even fun. Okay, how about they tell you that you need to make the bread first, then cut up the meat and figure out how to put it all together so that you can get your order? Sounds challenging, doesn’t it?
That’s exactly how it was for me, a big challenge, a good one but a hard one nonetheless. I was tasked to create and develop what was by that time a business idea and I had to make sure it came to life. Now, remember I am just trying to get a grasp on what it’s like to be employed;
Here I am with no experience, building a whole business. Wow! At first, I was really anxious. “How the heck am I going to pull this off?” But I wasn’t alone, and that’s the first thing I had to learn.
As a person, I like to do things alone, not because I can’t work with people, on the contrary, I enjoy working with people. But I like to know that I have things under my control. Little did I know that this would prove to be a huge weakness on my end until I had to build something I had no clue about. I had to learn to work with people and not just on my terms. I had to learn to accept that I didn't know everything and therefore I couldn’t have everything under my control even though I wanted to. The first thing that working at IAN showed me was my weak points. In a few months, I was learning things about myself I didn’t know.
I didn’t know how to communicate when things weren't going as expected or when I needed help with something. Thankfully now I do.
There are a billion other things I didn’t know, and I’m so grateful for the great team I work with that helped me learn these things one step at a time.
As everyone else might have experienced, the wave of imposter syndrome hit me like a bomb. “Am I equipped for this task?”. Heck, half of the time I wasn’t sure if I was doing things right, and this frustrated me. It felt like I was locked in a room and I couldn't trace where I had placed the key, so I couldn’t move. Being able to get up every day, and choose to grind and try every possible alternative is something I only learned when I joined IAN. Previously, if something didn't go my way, I would find something else to do because I hated feeling stuck.
Looking for the motivation to figure things out was a whole other ordeal on its own. Later on, I learned that those who succeed are those who chose to stay in the game despite the circumstances. This is a lesson I’ll never take for granted.
The fact that I’m confident but shy was an alarming discovery that hit me the day I was told to head a meeting with a client. Suddenly I was dreading the day of the meeting one week before. I couldn’t even sleep on the night before the meeting. One hour to the meeting I was reciting positive affirmations to myself. It was a funny sight honestly. I had to work through it and get over my cold feet so that I could eloquently sell the product I was pitching.
I was constantly put in these uncomfortable situations and this eventually helped me grow out of the fears I had. A month back, after heading a successful client meeting, one of my workmates complimented me saying I had done a great job in pitching the product to the client. No words could paint the feeling of accomplishment I had in that moment. Finally, I had gotten over my fear.
If you don’t work on your fears they will work on you, another valuable lesson I learnt.
I remember the day I told my dad I had gotten a job. He was happy but also quite confused. Who would hire someone who is still in school, with zero experience and task them to do something this important? Only a crazy person would do that.
The Impact Africa Network family
So to the IAN family, I want to say thank you for being crazy. I definitely wouldn’t have learned all I have had I not been chosen. So a big fat thank you. That’s my final lesson to you, You have to be crazy enough to do the impossible.
~Pamela.
