For months, I felt trapped in a recurring nightmare.<\/p>\n
I went through seven job interviews across three different school districts, and every one followed the same script. I would put on the suit, sit in a quiet room, and answer some variation of the same five rehearsed questions. The interviewers would nod, offer practiced enthusiasm, promise to be in touch… and then disappear.<\/p>\n
The worst part wasn\u2019t the interviews. It was what came after.<\/p>\n
Every interview started another two-week stretch of waiting. I would sit around hoping the phone would ring, replaying the conversation in my head and searching for the answer I must have gotten wrong. Maybe I should have phrased something differently. Maybe I hadn\u2019t sounded enthusiastic enough. Maybe one mistake had cost me the job.<\/p>\n
Then another interview would come along, and the cycle would start again.<\/p>\n
Interview. Hope. Wait. Silence.<\/p>\n
It was one of the lowest periods of my life because I had accepted a role I didn\u2019t even realize I was playing: I was waiting to be picked.<\/p>\n
I was playing their game by their rules because I assumed it was the only game available. They decided whether I was qualified, whether I moved forward, whether the phone rang.<\/p>\n
As long as I accepted that arrangement, all I could do was perform well and wait for permission.<\/p>\n
Everything changed when I realized I didn\u2019t have to remain a passive participant in someone else\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n
I could stop waiting for the phone to ring and start making calls myself. I could create opportunities instead of merely applying for them. I could choose where to go next instead of waiting for somebody else to open the door.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t always have to wait to be chosen. Sometimes the most important decision is realizing that nobody needs to give you permission to move.<\/p>\n
RW
\n.
\n.
\n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For months, I felt trapped in a recurring nightmare. I went through seven job interviews across three different school districts, and every one followed the same script. I would put on the suit, sit in a quiet room, and answer some variation of the same five rehearsed questions. The interviewers would nod, offer practiced enthusiasm, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mindset","category-personal"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}