Reflections on fear and confidence 10 years after graduating
After finding an early draft of my high school graduation speech, I’ve learned that I’ve had to reteach myself the same lesson around not fearing the unknown. I reflect on how dependency kept me in fear, but independence grew my confidence.
An early draft of my graduation speech
I recently came across an old notebook that contains the start of a very early draft of the speech I gave at my high school graduation.
I gave a speech at my high school graduation because I was the salutatorian. For my UK readers, that means I had the second-best grades in the graduating class. (I know, I’m disappointed I wasn’t first either.)
Only some bits of this made it into the final version of my speech.
Here is what 18-year-old Lauren wrote in this draft:
It’s graduation and I know nothing.
I’m about to enter the world, and I feel like I know nothing.
Despite the confidence I try to have toward my friends and family members about going to college an ocean away, I’m scared.
Sorry to my parents who have willingly consented to let me go so far away and are probably hearing this for the first time.
But secretly, I think we’re all this scared no matter how far or close we’ll be to home next year.
We’re scared of our ignorance. We’re scared of learning new things.
But I rather spend my life learning new things than perfecting old things.
Remembering the fear when graduating
Even without reading this draft, I definitely remember feeling scared back then.
But I knew everyone before me had managed to graduate and learn how to function in the adult world. (Or at least they acted like it.)
I said something similar to this in the final version of my graduation speech:
My brother, our parents, our teachers, and millions of others have all experienced this day and serve as living proof that one day we will learn how to adapt to our new routine in life.
Parallels to my ContentEd talk on building confidence
While reading this early draft, I was immediately reminded of the talk I gave at the ContentEd conference earlier this year. I spoke about the lessons I’ve learned in my career that have led me to becoming more confident.
One of those lessons was around the importance of continuing to educate myself. I shared a story of how I felt unsure about taking on consultancy role for a startup because I didn’t feel like I knew enough to take on such a role.
But I told myself this at the time (which I repeated in my talk):
I know what I know, I know what I don’t know, and I can learn what I don’t know.
When I rewatched the video of my graduation speech (the final version), I learned I said a line that was very similar to this:
Despite my qualms about not knowing what comes next, I know I’ll learn about it when I get there.
I couldn’t believe it. I spoke these 2 lines 10 years apart, and I was pretty much saying the exact same thing.
It’s made me reflect on what has happened in the last decade that has made me have to teach myself the same lesson.
I graduated high school feeling scared, but with enough confidence to face that fear of the unknown.
How did fear overtake my confidence, and what made me overcome it again?
What kept me in fear
I can think of a few key things that contributed to me letting fear take over:
Being in a long-term relationship
I entered into what turned into a 9-year relationship at the end of my 1st year of uni. I recently ended that relationship.
Don’t get me wrong. There were positives to being in a relationship. But looking back, I see that I didn’t have much time to face the unknown by myself before I started relying on the safety of someone always being there.
Opportunities for growth took a back seat because of it.
Having temporary immigration status for 9 years
I recently wrote about my experience of silence in the UK immigration system.
Before I got indefinite leave to remain, this system kept me in fear of saying or doing anything that might jeopardize my ability to live in my own home.
Being ‘temporary’ is an absolutely terrifying feeling to live with. This is why I’m using my time now to campaign for immigration reform and fundraise for an immigration charity.
Sticking to my comfort zone socially
I was a pretty indoorsy kid. Only in my last year of high school did hanging out with friends after school become a thing.
When I got to uni, I continued this trend and was very active in the societies I was part of. But when I graduated, I spent the first few years basically avoiding any post-work socialisation. I was much happier remaining in the comfort of my own home.
The girl who wrote in her speech she rather spend her life learning new things was shutting herself off from that.
Sticking to my comfort zone professionally
Like my social life, my professional comfort zone was sticking to what was familiar:
- In my ContentEd talk, I shared a story about my first big project where I ran this workshop for a (paying!) customer that I had run many times before. It ended up going horribly because it was not what they needed, and I didn’t know how to adapt the workshop format on the spot. This event showed how I was sticking to skills I already perfected because I was afraid to admit my own ignorance and that I wasn’t fully prepared for this new challenge.
- In 2019, I nearly didn’t take a chance to move jobs at the University of Edinburgh because I didn’t want to leave my old teammates. As already mentioned, that year I also nearly didn’t take on a consultancy gig because I didn’t think I knew enough (and I also didn’t want to learn how to fill out a self-assessment tax form!).
What helped me build confidence
Over the past few years, there have been some important events that have helped me build confidence:
Running
I started running 3 years ago. In high school, the idea of me running (and liking it) would have been laughable.
But now I’ve run 20 different races from 5k’s all the way up to half marathons. Today, on the 10-year anniversary of my graduation, I start training for my first marathon in October.
Nothing builds your confidence quite like achieving what you once thought was impossible.
Traveling solo
Before 2018, I never went on a trip by myself. I didn’t even realize traveling alone was something people did. It was never a done thing in my family.
I had my first overnight trips on my own in 2018. Toward the end of that year, I came up with the idea to spend 2019 traveling the UK to run a different 10k race each month.
And I did it.
In my running recap post of that year, I shared how my 2019 runs boosted my confidence. I came away from those trips with the ability to navigate myself in new places, deal with train travel mishaps, and walk around fearlessly at night.
Going to professional meetup groups
I started regularly attending professional meetup groups toward the end of 2018 when I was invited to present a talk at UX Edinburgh.
The Lauren who was a homebody started going out and meeting new people on a regular basis. Going to one of these events was actually how I ended up getting that consultancy gig.
Sure, it certainly helps to have a baseline of confidence to be able to regularly interact with strangers. But the more I do it, the more it builds up.
Career changes
I said in the last section that fear made me not want to change teams at the University. But I did it. I actually wrote in my 2019 running recap how I came to that decision.
Changing teams gave me the new challenges and learning opportunities I needed to grow in my career. So did taking on that consultancy gig.
I’m a more confident content designer because I chose to not let fear prevent me from taking on new experiences.
All the other things I’m not going to mention
If you didn’t notice, I mention 2018 above in a few instances. It was a transformative year for me, and I’ve been building on that transformation ever since.
I haven’t mentioned everything from that year because I don’t want to share it all. But a special shout out to the year where fear and confidence converged and set me on a new path.
Independence builds confidence, dependency creates fear
I’ve come to this conclusion based on these 2 lists of fear and confidence events in my life:
Relationships of dependency have kept me in fear, while the opportunities to explore my independence have helped me build confidence.
What I just described in the fear section is all about dependency. Dependency on a partner, an immigration system, old habits, and the people I worked with.
On the other hand, the confidence section is about exploring my independence through:
- starting a hobby (running) that was just for me
- traveling to new places
- getting out of the house and socializing
- working with new people and on new challenges
The person I was meant to be
So that’s what’s been happening in the last decade that has both kept me in fear and helped me build confidence.
If I could introduce myself to 2011 Lauren, I think she’d be shocked by who I am now, but equally still see herself in the new me.
I like to say that in the last few years I’ve gone through an entire personality shift, but I’m still on-brand.
I feel like I’ve become (and am still becoming) the person I was meant to be. The person who I knew I could be when I gave that graduation speech.
My development journey might have taken some unexpected turns 2011 Lauren wasn’t anticipating. But I’m happy to report 2021 Lauren is once again ready to face the unknown.
Just with a lot less fear and more confidence this time.
