I didn’t get promoted. And I couldn’t be happier.

No, I haven’t ODd on happy pills.

Unless Martha Beck books count as happy pills? Maybe they should.

Anyway, I raised my hand for a promotion recently during my company’s mid-year review process…a promotion that would be a pretty significant accomplishment in my career. In fact, it would be the highest role/title I could hold at an agency:

The coveted C-Suite.

In my younger days, I had plotted a very rigid timeline for when I expected-slash-needed all of these professional milestones to happen—

• Associate Creative Director by 30: ✔️

• Creative Director by 32: ✔️

• Group Creative Director by 35: ✔️

• Various Creative VP titles with fun bonus letters attached over the next few years: ✔️

• Chief Creative Officer by 40…

Not so fast.

With all the unlearning I’ve been doing over these last few years, I now understand that all of this arbitrary, professional goal-setting was a partially a byproduct of “hustle + grind culture,” but also partially my own doing. By my early 20s, I was already well on my way to checking-off most of the personal goals that people usually set for themselves. I got married at 24, bought a house at 25, had one kid at 28 and the next one at 32…so it only made sense that I would hyper-focus on meeting all of my overachiever-y professional expectations instead.

Go go go! Work those long hours! Get that raise! Prove everyone wrong!

Ah yeah, that last one.

“Prove everyone wrong.”

I have always considered myself the underdog, for several reasons. One of them is because I grew up in the shadow of my older brother, who set the bar for academic and professional success higher than anyone should be allowed to. He’s six years older than me, but because we went to the same Jewish Day School through 8th grade, and then the same public high school after that, I ended up having many of the same teachers he did. And so instead of being Amy, I was “Larry’s little sister.”

• He got straight As, so I was expected to do the same.
  (And I mostly did, with the exception of a D in Algebra II. Math is not my strong suit.)

• He got a full college scholarship, so that’s what I was aiming for, too.
  (I ended up with a 25% scholarship and a shit-ton of loans, instead.)

• He went to Yale to become an environmental justice lawyer. I went into advertising, writing radio spots for car dealerships.
  (I don’t think there was any judgement by my parents on this one, but I felt like I was constantly defending my vocational choice to my brother, who is a true lawyer through-and-through, and can make an argument out of anything.)

I didn’t realize it at the time, but once I’d finished college (and graduated Magna Cum Laude, to boot), professional success became the newest measure of my success and self-worth. Body size would become another one later on, but that’s an entirely different post.

For so much of my career, I felt like I needed to be the best at everything. I was constantly trying to prove that I was worthy of whatever assignments and responsibilities I was given. That I was worthy of people trusting me to deliver. Worthy of getting up in front of clients and presenting ideas (even when I was scared shitless to do it). Worthy of leading projects and teams. Worthy of dreaming big. Worthy of continuing to excel in an industry where you’re only as good as your last win. It’s not an easy world to exist in.

Throughout most of my 20s, and maybe even into my mid-30s, my professional confidence was always one negative comment or criticism away from being shattered. So I did everything in my power to avoid being on the receiving end of anything but praise. For the longest time, I held my tongue even when I knew something wasn’t right, or that there might be a better way to do it. I doubled-down to fix things myself instead of speaking up and rocking the boat. I dug-in harder, instead of loosening my grip.

I finally snapped, though, in 2016, when something so egregious happened that “people pleasing” to prove I deserved to be there just wasn’t worth it anymore. I ended up leaving a coveted Creative Director role at a well-respected, global agency for a Group Creative Director role (and admittedly, more money) at a shitty, unknown agency. And well, that didn’t go very well, either. I realized that the title didn’t matter if I wasn’t enjoying or finding meaning in the work I was doing. I couldn’t prove my way into being happy this time.

Which brings me to where I am now.

Well, sort of. I need to share a little more backstory first, though, in order for all of this to make sense.

When I created the role for myself at my current agency in 2018, I knew it was where I was meant to be. The work was impactful, and I was going to be building something meaningful. It felt like, for maybe the first time, that I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. I’d found a professional home that respected and appreciated me for exactly who I was. They wanted ME. My ideas, my perspective, my voice, my passion. It wasn’t about proving I could do things their way, it was about bringing new ways of thinking to the table. It was like…letting go of the reins, and being carried by the wind. (Yes, I enjoy some woo.)

But of course, things never stay the same.

As the agency grew, the feeling that I needed to work harder, do more, be bolder, and keep climbing started festering again. I felt like I was being pushed into a job description, rather than being encouraged to chart my own course the way I had been earlier on. The best analogy I can use to describe this sensation is like, in horror movies (or Indiana Jones), when someone’s caught in creepy a room where all the walls are closing in. It gets harder to move, harder to breathe. You feel the space around you shrinking. You know you need to stay calm and conserve air, but all you can do is panic and scream.

The equivalent of that scream, for me, was all of my proving tendencies rushing right back in. If I wasn’t “good enough” at work, I’d just have to double-down on my efforts. Not only in my professional life, but everywhere else, too.

I’ll prove I’m worthy by taking on more responsibility, working longer hours, and never asking for help!
I’ll show those 3 extra pounds who’s boss by restricting my food and exercising to the point of exhaustion!
I’ll make sure bad things don’t happen by worrying about them excessively!
I’ll be happy and successful by pushing down all of my feelings and letting them simmer!

Anxiety, depression, burnout, disordered eating, and orthorexia were all things I’d dabbled in before. But this time, they joined forces in a tsunami of emotional darkness that would take me several years to climb out of. (To be fair, my dad also passed away during this time, which added another layer to the mix.)

It was in the process of emerging from this shitstorm where all of my unlearning really started. The cliffs notes version of what I found out was that an overwhelming majority of my issues were rooted in fear.

• Fear of not being good enough, and of not living up to other people’s expectations.
  (I’m “Larry’s little sister,” right??)

• Fear of failing, and of letting other people down.
  (This one is inextricably tied to the first one, but also much more internalized. I’ve been afraid of letting myself down, too.)

• Fear of being too much, and of not being worthy of love because of it.
  (I found something in my childhood diary a while back that cracked this one open. I had written about a time that my mom said something really hurtful to me, probably when I was around 14 or 15. A few years ago, in a moment of honest and vulnerability, I shared this memory with her. She said she didn’t remember it at all—that she didn’t know what would have made her say something like that. But either way, she was sorry. I’m in a place now where I have a better understanding of what she was going through herself at that time, and I fully accept her apology. But I also still know that this was part of what formed my early identity, and it’s taken me a long time to unravel.)

So what does all of this have to do with not getting promoted into the C-Suite earlier this week, and being unreasonably happy about it?

1) Old Me—the one before the tsunami—would have been incredibly triggered by not achieving something that I was working so hard for. All of my deep-seated fears and insecurities would be rearing their ugly heads. “If I didn’t get promoted, it means I’m not good enough. I let someone down. I didn’t meet my CEO’s expectations. I’m a disappointment. Why am I even doing this? I failed, which means I am a failure.”

But New Me knows that’s all bullshit.

Because I. AM. FINE.

The world didn’t end.

I didn’t beat myself up.

I didn’t take any of the feedback as personal criticism.

I listened, and asked questions, and spoke up, WITHOUT FEAR.

In failing to get this promotion, I’m succeeding at realizing that my value is not tied to a title. I know that I don’t have to fit someone else’s definition of a role in order to be worthy of it.

So that’s one thing that’s making me happy.

2) Here’s another one: choice.

If I can be candid for a minute (and yes, I know folks from work read this blog, so please and thank you for holding this in confidence), there are tasks I’m being asked to take-on in order to reach the C-Suite that make logical business sense, but aren’t my strengths. I haven’t come this far in my creative and leadership career because of my prowess with analyzing financial spreadsheet data. I CAN do it, but it would be on my list of “things I am dreading this week,” which not only makes me less happy, but also makes me less effective as an employee, as a manager, as a leader, and as a compassionate human.

I am, of course, seriously evaluating all of the feedback, all of the requests, and all of the insight from my recent review. I’m dedicated to this agency, and have no plans to leave anytime soon. But I am also considering what the next right steps are for me to continue growing, not for anyone else. And, by extension, I’m also asking myself a simple yet not easy question:

What direction do I actually want to grow in?

I know that when I’m nudged into tasks or skills that aren’t naturally part of who I am, or that don’t spark joy (h/t to Marie Kondo), I lose my unique dreamer-believer-questioner-woowoo-magic. And that’s the magic that got me here in the first place, in spite of (not because of) all of my people-pleasing, worthiness-proving fears.

So this process of evaluation? That’s making me happy, too.

It’s also bringing me a tremendous amount of energy. To quote Martha Beck in Steering by Starlight, it’s a “shackles off” kind of feeling. Expansive and warm and fresh and scary and exciting, all at once. Old Me would have immediately turned inward after my review and sulked for a while. Then I would have started making a checklist of everything I need to do in order to get promoted next time, and accelerated into action mode in 0-60 seconds, feeling determined, but not necessarily excited. That would have been “shackles on.” New Me is pausing and contemplating, instead. I’m making time and space to lay all of my cards out on the table and see what’s there. To figure out which ones speak to me, and which ones don’t. My goal isn’t to win for the sake of winning this time. To meet someone else’s expectations of who I should be, and what I should do. If a set of cards doesn’t feel purposeful and fulfilling and joyful, it’s not the right hand for me to play.

And I’m pretty cool with that, because saying no to a hand that’s not the right fit means I get to say yes to a different hand that is. I get to question and discover and dream and create. Just the thought of doing something because I’m passionate about it, rather than because someone else told me to, makes me happy. I realize that it’s a privilege to be able to think this way, and an even greater privilege to be able to actively choose my next steps without fear of repercussions, or of losing my job. I’m secure enough in my current role, and my natural strengths, to chart my own course from here—even if it leads me sideways rather than upward.

One of these sideways moves may be figuring out how to make this kind of fulfillment and self-discovery more accessible to everyone at all levels of their career. I’ve been noodling on an organizational philosophy/book idea…and if you know me, you know that when my gears are spinning like this, I’m truly in my zone. We’ll see where this particular exploration takes me.

3) Remembering my inherent worth also makes me happy. I finally know that it’s not in the work I produce, or how profitable my team is, or what title is in my email signature. I am worthy simply by being who I am, as a person.

My worth is in my heart, my spirit, and my creativity. It’s in my ability to change, to listen, to teach, and to learn. It’s in my imagination and my curiosity. It’s in my capacity to invision just how good things can be if I let go of what I think they should be. And maybe, it just might be in helping others remember how good things can be for them, too.

This place I’m in right now—this “shackles off” moment full of wonder and light and optimism—this is what possibility feels like.

All because I didn’t get promoted.

And I couldn’t be happier.