Generation “You Can Be Anything” Backfired
I grew up in the decades where parents would tell their children "you can be anything you want to be!" But since my mom didn't believe that to be true for herself, she didn't know how to support me toward creating that sort of success.
I believed my mom! And I wanted to give her the successful daughter that would make her proud! But nothing ever big seemed enough. enough to live up to the idea of "anything". Besides, I wasn't sure if what I wanted was something I wanted enough to be forever.
And I told myself if I didn't want it enough, I'd fail even if I were capable.
But in my mind if I really could have anything I want to be anything I want to be it should be clear to me I should know what I want I should have a plan it shouldn't be messy.
The support I got from my family, teachers, mentors, and even from the experts was:
Fake it till you make it
Just do it
baby steps
I'll love you anyway
None of the baby steps, fake it advice really helped me. Because I didn't want my mom to need to be ok loving a failure.
"Just do it" didn't heal the hurt or demolish the doubt. And it certainly didn’t uncover what's underneath.
The trite platitudes of encouragement were just one more Band-Aid put on a cut that had long since healed scarred over. Bandages just covered up the "truth chasm" that prevented me from reaching my dreams. Gauze and tape are not safe bridges to attempt to walk over a deep, dark "truth chasm".
The truth chasm is dug by all of the early experiences I held as proof of who I was and how successful I could be. Our nervous system is wired to remember the negative more easily than the positive. And call those warnings up much more quickly and powerfully too.
Those experiences, that data, turned into a belief system that made me small and made the chasm enormous.
