Plateaunic Opportunity

I faced rejection repeatedly. Sometimes with months in between, sometimes years, others weeks. Over and over and over. 

Until I finally broke through the wall I had been ramming into for years. 

Now the wall lies in shambles behind me and all of the opportunities I had been rejected for have suddenly become accessible. 

Just over a year ago, I was an interim team leader in a different department. 

It took me three years to temporarily obtain that status. Three years. 

First and foremost, I will accept that I 100000% could have worked harder to obtain that position faster. I own that. But still, it took time for me to get there. 

After my time as an interim leader, I shifted back to my old position for 5 months before finally landing an official gig as a leader. 

People didn’t want to take a chance on a person lacking formal leadership experience. I had to convince them of my value. To get them to make a gut decision to hire me. 

And I did—with some help along the way of course. 

Yet, today, less than a year later, I found myself in an interesting situation where my former peers were asking me to rejoin their team. 

It is so interesting to me that you can work years to attain something and once you get there and prove your abilities, things change and opportunities become more readily available. 

It’s like your first time lifting 135 lbs on bench press. 

The first time you go for it, it’s intimidating. You have a big plate on there. None of the junior stuff anymore. You struggle and writhe under the weight, barely getting it up. But it feels so good when you do. 

And before long, that 135 lbs is your warmup. You add more and more weight until you are lifting two plates. Then three… Okay, I’m not at three yet but some of you know what I’m talking about. You dedicated, SOBs….

Now, the same thing is happening to me at work. I worked to get over a plateau for a long time and now that I have crossed it, the opportunities I vied for - I am getting proactively asked to go for. 

It has been a bit humbling. It’s not something that I would have expected, it just kind of happened. 

I joked to them that I needed to leave the room to deflate my ego but I was more gracious to them than anything for holding me in high regard based off of five months of working with me as a peer. 

Yet, I’m left to wonder: what has made me different from then to now? 

Have my skills grown that much in this short window? 

Or is it the title that I now possess? 

Is it the impact that I made? 

How I work with my peers? 

Or my newfound ability to be a contender for these roles? 

I’d like to think it’s a combination of everything—-and maybe I’ll ask—-but again I’m left sitting on a new plateau. The formerly desirable opportunities lay littered around me, serving as distractions as I look out to the higher platforms on the horizon.