Micki's Musings

I had an interesting mindset shift recently. In my new career, there is a lot of encouragement and motivation and recognition of even small wins. Every time I have been contacted in my new career, it has been to praise and encourage or let me know I have been referred or specifially requested because of how well I have served previous clients. However, the first few months, even though all interaction had been positive, I found myself feeling heavy anxiety whenever any of the leadership wanted to speak to me. I quickly realized this was because in the past, whenever admin reached out it was because of a conflict or issue that had arisen that they wanted to address with me. Oftentimes, it was based on something that I hadn’t actually done “wrong” but that was construed as some sort of mistake on my part where I had to clarify, defend, and mediate. It didn’t happen frequently (until my last year with a different school and admin), but it still apparently left its mark. I am extremely gra

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed on a podcast and share a piece of my story. The host asked me about my fear-facing experiences and we discussed how I now use fear as a compass to guide me instead of shying away from it. The interview went really well and the host complimented me afterward and asked if she could also reference our discussion on her blog. I happily agreed. Of course, once the podcast came out, I listened to it. Nothing too cringy. I still felt proud. And then the transcript of parts of our discussion was printed.  The host did a beautiful job weaving her thoughts through my words and explaining how she felt inspired by what I had said. And what I said was great...except for one word repeated over and over and over again: Just. "I just...I'm just...it's just..." In writing, there's a hard and fast rule that repetition is annoying. It's the same with speaking. If a person says "um" or "like" too many times, it