How I stopped playing victim and started taking responsibility

My wake-up call on leadership and overall approach to life

I grew up with unique challenges learning new skills, playing sports and in general getting along with others. Sometimes that led to me having problems fitting in at school, as I painstakingly tried to figure out a math problem or ride a bike, always feeling so far behind my peers. In grade school, I remember rushing to complete assignments because I thought getting finished first would hide my lack of understanding the material. Too scared and too embarrassed to ask questions and get further clarification, I felt isolated and ashamed. I was terrified of showing vulnerability.

Back then, I never would have imagined that this struggle would one day become an asset. That my troubles in learning, in relationship building and figuring out my identity would make me the relentless fighter I am today.  

However, first I needed to get over myself. I had to stop thinking I had it so damn rough. I didn’t. I simply never learned how to cope with the everyday pressures of life. I lacked resiliency. I lacked toughness.

To the young me, kids were just mean. The school was too hard. I felt like a victim and acted the part. I was wronged by the world for so many, many years. This attitude of throwing blame around and an inflated sense of entitlement bled over to poor dating choices and avoidable work conflict.

I wish I could say that one day I simply woke up and snapped out of it, but that’s not how change happened. Instead, slowly over many years of crappy decisions, I learned how to stand up for myself by calling out disrespectful behavior. I stood up to bullies, which I wrote about many years ago here. I then raised my standards in who I’d date and made myself stick to them instead of backpedaling in a moment of weakness. This led to me meeting and marrying Jordan, which I wrote about here. I stopped blaming others when shit went wrong and stopped owning everything that goes wrong. It’s not one extreme over the other. Sometimes it’s just dumb luck. Sometimes it is the other person acting like a jerk. What I needed were methods to respectfully and calmly address relationship difficulties.  

When I wrote this blog earlier this year, I was still playing the victim. I thought as a leader in charge of 30 people running a media department on a deployed aircraft carrier, people just didn’t get my vision. No, that’s not what happened. I had the best of intentions in making my team better by raising the standards (for which we won many awards like the one pictured), but I lacked the empathy and understanding to properly field people’s concerns. I didn’t listen enough. I was stressed and overwhelmed. I let my fears and insecurities take over. I felt my competence was at stake anytime I was criticized.

It wasn’t. If I had just believed in myself as I do now, I would have been ok.  

My lack of trust in others kept me from seeking help, and I sometimes became a passive-aggressive leader as a result. After this job assignment and with a fresh start in San Diego, I decided to get curious about what really happened and intensively studied effective leadership. I consulted multiple mentors, many of who admitted to me that they too had struggles similar to mine. I read books like Crucial Conversations, which gives actionable advice on how to diffuse tension. According to the book, a person’s fight or flight response blocks any rational conversation. My inability to create a safe, non-threatening space led to numerous interpersonal conflicts, which could have been resolved had I better understood what was going on. I could have better identified when things were going wrong at an earlier stage before the resentment festered and all trust was lost.

Toward the end of that tour, I feel I got a little better. I had a few key bosses and one amazing senior Chief that didn’t give up on me. My superiors didn’t fire me but instead gave me an opportunity to lead more effectively. I didn’t magically resolve every conflict I had at the time, but gradually I learned how to more skillfully navigate tough conversations. Looking back, it was one of the hardest, but most rewarding Navy assignments I’ve had in my career and one where I grew the most as a naval officer, a leader, and as a human.

I’m still learning. I still have a lot of growing to do, as I think I always will, but I’m relieved that I know now what I could have done differently, and I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to better understand myself and others. This experience helped me in a way nothing else had prior to this point. My relationships at work and in my personal life are emotionally healthier because of this experience.  

Today, I’m so happy and blessed in life. I love my new job assignment and feel so much support there. I have a great husband and overall a blessed life. I will likely encounter conflicts again in my personal life and with colleagues. That’s why I needed to learn these skills, to take a more holistic look at myself and strive to be better.

I hope by sharing this story other people will know they are not alone in facing the courage to lead, and that I know how hard it can be at times. I hope my story can inspire others that they too can become a more effective boss. It’s ok to make mistakes, andit’’s ok not to be perfect. It’s the recovery that matters. We’re all learning something in this messy world.