Price tag

First order of business:
Heck yeah to all the page views I've gotten!! I've got all my months beat, even May, and June ain't even half over yet!! I must give thanks to Tara, the Cake Betch, from The Hot Mess Chronicles, because a whole heck of a lot of traffic has been coming here from her blog. SHOUT OUT TARA!! Damn I wish we could hang sometime, because she's awesome, too. And I want to meet her dog.

Anywho
Anyone here ever too hard on themselves?

I think we all are at one point are another, right? I mean, we expect something out of ourselves, then the words "should have" or "could have" enter our language. Those are damning words. They can really bring a person down. Whether it's kindergarten and I "should have" been able to recite the alphabet, or high school and I "should have" known the quadratic equation, (I forgot it, trust me, if you're in high school and read this, you'll never use it except when you get in college and have to take a class. Unless you go into some engineering or something, but I don't know about that, I'm "just" a social worker).

See what I did there? "Just" a social worker. Are we ever "just" anything? Do you work hard for what you do? Heck yeah! You may not be a doctorate in something, or get paid six figures, but that doesn't mean you don't work hard. Heck, you may get something more out of your job than money...maybe something like, I don't know, satisfaction. I know that what I want out of my job at the end of the day is to feel like I've helped someone feel better about themselves and their future. Who cares how much I make? (as long as it's enough to feed, clothe, and house me, of course).

How often, though, do we run ourselves through the wringer, not giving ourselves credit for what it is we do? How often do we plant a seed, water it, get a nice, lovely plant, but criticise ourselves because it's not the plant we expected (even if it turns out looking great, or even better than what we expected)? I find myself doing this all the time. So the project wasn't what you intended it to be, but it turned out stellar and everyone loved it, but you can still see the flaws. When are you gonna give yourself credit? You've worked hard for something, you deserve credit, right? It may not be what was asked for, but you still deserve credit for what you do! Hard work deserves recognition. That's why it's called labor.

I've been doing a lot of hard work lately. I've been volunteering, I've been doing my internship with the MHMR, I've been going to school, but I have yet to receive much recognition for what I'm doing. I really work my ass off, but I don't get much for it. I don't get a paycheck, and I don't get any sort of pension. You know what though? THAT'S OKAY!! After I've put in my hours, I get credit at school (oh how rewarding!) and I get the occasional feeling of having helped someone. The occasional feeling of having helped someone is what it's all about! I live for that feeling. I don't care if it takes 10 or 100 hours to get it, I want that feeling. It's like a natural high. I've cried before from the power of that feeling. It's not a monetary or physical reward, it's an intrinsic reward with enough power to keep me coming back, and enough to even make me want to keep volunteering there even after my internship is over (if they'll allow it). Seriously!

When you really appreciate what you do, and give yourself credit for the things you do, you'll start to feel so much better about the things you do, and you'll feel so much more motivated to do them. When it came to things I hated to do, I always waited until the last minute. I feel this much less with my internship; in fact, I often like to arrive as soon as I possibly can, traffic allowing. I like to be there to do things. I like to complete individual sessions. I don't mind typing up notes and putting packets together. I don't mind co-facilitating or even leading groups. I really like what I do. I enjoy it. I'm motivated. It's not something that I dread getting up in the morning to do. It doesn't take an extrinsic reward for me to know that I've done a good job.

Other things, i.e. school, volunteering, home, it takes some acknowledgement for me to feel like I've done anything that matters, and I'm really hard on myself. If I haven't done it the right way the first time, I'll do it again and again until I get it right. Sometimes, I get that way at my internship, when I know I'm doing something wrong. I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm my own worst critic. We all are, at times. We all have to push past that, and remind ourseles that we are worth much more than what we would put on a price tag for ourselves. We do so much more, and what we do is worth much more than what we think it may be worth. No more shoulds and coulds. What we do is worth much more than that We can't put a price tag on that.

Image Credit Here

"Wanna make the world dance, it ain't about the price tag"