Our executive board member, Seerat Kaler reflects on her journey of finding perseverance and how she's applied it to her career goals.
Recently, I started an intensive physical therapy rehabilitation program to help me recover from a major knee reconstruction surgery. It was, by far, one of the most painful life experiences I’ve ever had. I never thought at 21 years of age, I would have to re-learn how to walk, run, and jump. Rehabilitation is by no means a linear process, and I often struggled with understanding discomfort and pain are vital to the process of growth. At the DePaul Females in Finance Initiative, we are strong believers of the concept that growth and comfort do not co-exist, and that success comes from challenging ourselves. I was annoyed with my new reality and became fearful to try anything that was outside of my immediate comfort zone.
At some point in our lives, we will all experience pain. It is an emotion and experience which has the power to transform into various forms physically, emotionally, and spiritually. At times, these forms of pain can even occur at the same time. Pain is something which can change us, but it doesn’t always have to be a bad change. It's the importance of taking that feeling and turning it into wisdom to create positive change.
As humans, pain can be a type of fear we try to avoid. But often, pain is a signal that something in our lives needs to change. The process of embracing this signal can be empowering. In our professional careers, rejection can be painful. Sometimes it’s learning you didn’t get the internship from the company you really thought you had a real shot at, or it’s being turned down from a promotion you really wanted. We tie all these outcomes to our personal worth, intelligence, and ability rather than our strategy and approach to achieving career goals. Not getting the internship we wanted or the desired grade in a class isn’t something that is life-defining. Opportunities to improve or show our skill set will emerge, and those are the moments worth training for. Often I find those setbacks are the most valuable lessons in change we can engage in. Sometimes what we want for ourselves in life just isn’t what is best for us. Our judgement can be clouded by society, unrealistic expectations, and an idea of who we want to be rather than who we really are. Rejection in the moment is painful, and it’s important to validate how we feel.
However, it’s more important to keep the larger goal in mind. This larger goal is your long-term vision and idea of how you visualize success. Ruminating in pain for long periods of time is a distraction, and ultimately hurts us in achieving our long term goals. Rather than treating pain, discomfort, and rejection like a surprise, it’s something we need to normalize.
As I continue to hit milestones with my rehabilitation process, I’m building a relationship of acceptance with discomfort. I remember a distinct conversation I had with my physical therapist about accepting the fact I’m going to have to deal with some level of chronic pain for most of my life as I return to normal activity. However, it was empowering to know I had control over how much I was going to let it affect my daily life. Instead of getting caught up in the feeling of that chronic discomfort, I’ve learned to embrace it and move forward. Similarly, as I look to beginning my career in the near future, I know I’m going to expose myself to new skills and concepts that will be outside my comfort zone. However, I find solace in accepting challenge. Even when I make mistakes I want to do more than just moving on, but using those moments to move forward, where I can act on feedback and implement positive change.
When I was a junior in high school a teacher gave me advice that has stayed with me; focus on the process, not the reward or product. At the beginning of my recovery, I would lose my patience often after going through immense amounts of pain and discomfort during sessions. I just wanted to be able to be a normal person again and do things without my entire leg feeling like it was constantly on fire. My mind was deeply fixated on the future while I ignored the present, but it is only by engaging with the present you can invest in a process that will take you to your desired reward. Learning to reevaluate my relationship with pain has highlighted a new shade of resilience I never thought existed.
If I had to go back and give career advice to my younger self, I would have told myself to accept rejection as part of the process as much as the success. As a perfectionist, I’m always looking to make sure everything I do is of the highest quality, and when that doesn’t happen as planned, I struggled with acceptance. Learning to take difficult feedback in a positive manner has been one of the best learning experiences I’ve had in college. Often, we shut out the people giving us that difficult feedback because it’s uncomfortable to figure how to deal with it. However, I look to those people as my most prized assets in life. Embrace discomfort with confidence and apply it to all challenges in life. Lastly, remember pain does not have to be something you need to go through alone. Build a strong support system around you which comprises your family, friends, mentors, and mental health professionals.