Tired of being a Generalist

Both good and not-so-good at everything I touch

All my life, I have lived as a person who is not great at anything in particular. This had its perks, because everything I did was never BAD. It was mediocre. I spoke 3 different languages, played the guitar, knew how to sing, played sports in high school, won a silver medal in boxing in middle school, and even scored pretty well in different subjects like math and history. (I do not do well in those areas now.)

Once graduating college, I found that being mediocre in everything also meant that I didn’t excel in anything else. They even had a word for it– a “generalist.”

I am still at a period where I am discovering the things I want to do most. I published a book 2 years ago, (which failed-– of course) I took a job at a doggy daycare center where I learned basic dog training and grooming, and I also worked at a failed NFT company for a few months, which I was kicked out of (for calling my boss out, but that’s a whole different story)

With all these changes, I kept spiraling down into an endless pit of self-loathe, hating myself for the fact that I had not done anything right. Even today, I still feel like a bad daughter, a bad employee, a bad girlfriend, and a bad pet owner at times.

At this new job, I started off in an operations team, and soon after– my manager left the company. I was sent to business development, which I had never done before. I was okay with a change, in fact, my tarot reading had told me that this change would benefit my career. (Cannot say I have one right now anyway.) The change ended up with me taking care of tasks related to pre-sales, making news and media for buzz marketing, writing blog articles to boost visibility… etc.

The funny thing about the job that I am doing right now is that it excites me a lot. It has a very small connection to business development though. I am continuously learning about new tools, services, SEO strategies, and content writing tactics…. which are all very interesting and fun.

In the near future, I will be going from business development to the content marketing team. Yay, another change, right? Exciting as it is, I am still terrified that this change for me will be another tiny step down the spiral of self-loathing.

I hate being a generalist. I would rather excel at one thing and be less than par in other fields rather than be mediocre at everything all at once. At this point, I am worried that being “okay” at everything will ultimately ruin my career.

I hope that this job will make me a semi-specialist in one field… and if not…. how many more job titles will I need to go through to find my path?