[nabs-l] What I Think I Want To Do...More Questions...

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi Kerri,

>From what you just wrote I believe you do know what your passions are,
perhaps more clearly than most people. You know you are passionate
about sports writing and about helping blind people to better their
skills. You have also come up with a very clear, concrete plan of
finishing your journalism degree.

It might help with your confidence if you could break your goals down
into smaller immediate objectives that aren't as overwhelming. For
example, it sounds like you have informally decided to earn a
bachelor's degree in journalism. That may sound overwhelming, but
really it is just completing a series of classes. If you plan one
semester at a time, and try to focus as much as possible on your
current semester and not on the semesters afterward, you may find you
are less overwhelmed and more optimistic about completing your current
courses. At the end of each semester, you can go back and evaluate how
the semester went, which classes you enjoyed, which ones you didn't,
which courses you excelled in most, etc. This may help steer you
toward one direction, if you find that after taking a special
education class you are less excited about that content and more
excited about journalism classes and projects you worked on, for
example. However, it is also possible that you have multiple passions
and there are ways to integrate those different passions into a single
program of study, to pursue one interest as a career and the other as
a hobby, or even to find a job that integrates both interests equally.
You could even take on a double major and if both degrees are liberal
arts/sciences kinds of degrees, it isn't much extra work because many
of the electives from one major can come from the other one. That's
what I did by majoring in both biology and psychology because I
couldn't decide which direction to go in initially and the psychology
major courses could double as social/behavioral electives for the
biology major.
I try to follow a one-to-two-year plan and not to plan too much
further ahead than that, because things change and because planning
further out tends to be more overwhelming than it is helpful, in my
opinion.

Best,
Arielle

On 6/8/13, Kerri Kosten <kerrik2006 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone:
>
> Last night, I did some more thinking. I believe I have come up with a
> plan, and thought I'd share to get everyone's thoughts. I decided to
> change the subject line.
> The problem is I don't know what my passion is. I suffer from very
> very low self-esteem and lack belief/confidence in myself. As I said
> in my previous message, I have no problems doing things for someone
> else, but when it comes to myself and what I want to do this is where
> I majorly struggle.
> My other problem is that because of lack of confidence when I think of
> my interests I question myself and convince myself out of it. There is
> a difference between just liking something and actually doing it for a
> career and being good at it.
> Maybe I just don't know what I am really good at.
> Okay, here are my interests and potential career plan.
> My interests are sports, braille, rehabilitation counseling,
> rehabilitation teaching, journalism, reading, writing, and
> communications.
> Here is what I was thinking.
> I really love sports. When I went to WVU before, I was a journalism
> major because I thought I wanted to be a sportswriter.
> I was thinking I'd finish my journalism degree. I say journalism
> because I feel it could teach me a lot of transferable skills that
> could help me in other areas and I could learn to become a better
> writer. I could also try to better figure out whether I want to
> actually be a sportswriter.
> My top interests besides sports are rehabilitation counseling,
> rehabilitation teaching, and braille. I figured if after I got my
> journalism degree, I could get my master's in either rehabilitation
> counseling, rehabilitation teaching, or teaching blind students.
> I need to probably say I've never had any real experiences teaching,
> but I am an excellent braille reader, and with there being such a
> shortage with braille teachers I figure I could do something with
> that.
> The same with rehabilitation teaching. While I have no experience with
> teaching, again, I do have skills and figure I could teach them.
> I became interested in rehabilitation counseling when I joined the
> NFB. I became very passionate about seeing blind people reach their
> full potential and getting the training they need.
> I also have severe hearing loss in addition to my blindness so I am
> also passionate about seeing others who have severe hearing loss in
> addition to blindness reach their full potential.
> My problem is though, I have no trouble writing or speaking about
> these interests but when it comes to doing things/taking action I
> struggle and become nervous and lose confidence in myself and then
> convince myself I can't do it.
> I can talk the talk but when it comes to walking the walk I have no
> idea and that is where I lose confidence in myself and become
> negative.
> Does what I wrote above sound like a good plan?
> Do others struggle with this whole thing about being afraid and unsure
> when it comes to taking action and convincing yourself you can't do
> it?
> In West Virginia, we do not have a community college. I live in the
> same town as West Virginia University, which is the state landgrand
> institution.
> I am no longer in high school;I graduated in 2006.
> Thanks so much for your input and thoughts!
> Kerri
>
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