fear is a powerful motivator...

and sadly i got reminded of this on friday when i decided to read a work related email about 30 minutes before the big game...

turns out the job i have been offered, is now dependant on me doing a psychometric assessment, and of course my ONLY other experience of such an assessment can't be described as anything other than a shocker! an experience i hoped never to have again...and one that rocked my confidence, badly :-(

see some years ago, i was approached by an organisation (not one i held in high regard really, due to their awful reputation with respect to work life balance) and in order to progress, i had to do a psychometric assessment...turns out that they considered me to have inadequate mathematical reasoning skills, i know i know, hard to believe - especially since at that point i had spent 17 years working in finance, successfully...but no, for this particular company (there is some irony in this story, but can't be revealed just yet) decided i wasn't good enough...reality is, despite my subsequent counselling training and years of therapy, i still see this as something of a failure...

of course, i am happy that i didn't end up getting the job in that organisation because who knows if the path i am now would have eventuated...and i DO believe that things happen for a reason, so eventually i got over not getting the job...

but the nagging voice of doubt about my capabilties remains

so imagine my horror when i see an email on friday asking me to go thru the same process all over again! now admittedly, it's for an HR role (so my mathematical reasoning will not be anywhere near as important) but it sent me into a spin

i'd be lying if i said i recovered quickly...i didn't :-( i spent most of friday night tossing and turning, playing over in my head the possible outcomes, and interestingly, none of them were 'i'll do fine and will get the job'...nope, all scenarios were bad, negative and not in line with my actual capabilities! didn't help that Umpire No 25 was a complete and utter imbecile during game, so his capability, or lack of, also featured in my tossing and turning...

when i finally woke up, after giving in to a sleeping tablet at 4am, i felt exhausted and convinced that i would fail and thinking that the job that has been offered to me, would be rescinded because the assessment will reveal me to be inadequate...

fuck...what an awful place to be! i found it really hard to think about anything other than the certain impending doom...and no, i haven't yet done the assessment (i'm booked in for 27th april so i can practice over easter!)....it took me the better part of the morning to realise that this sort of thinking wasn't going to cut it! rather than continually thinking about the possible bad outcomes, i realised that i needed to actually 'do' something...

so i took myself to the computer, googled 'practice psychometric assessments', and turns out there are HEAPS of test sites where one can practice! turns out took now that i've done some reading, that only between 1 and 5% of people are supposed to be able to complete the assessments correctly within the allotted time frame! shit, wish i'd known that...

soooo now some days later i don't feel that concerned about it! sure i'm going to read up, practice and do enough to feel confident and why i didn't think of doing that the last time is beyond me! or did i? i have a vague recollection that i may have, but i can't be sure...but that was the old me! the person who thought she was if not perfect, pretty close, the one who thought i could blitz a test without preparing...

silly old me! but on my side now is experience, wisdom and the knowledge that practice will help! and even if the result ain't what they want, at least i will feel more confident going in...

i had forgotten just how powerful, and frightening, fear is as a motivator - i really don't want to experience that feeling again anytime soon...

difficult, frightening, all encompassing and basically stopped me accessing ANY of my ordinarily rational thought processes...

and any belief in myself? it left the building...:-(