On Finding Your Niche

Future goals of this little plant in my office? To be a field of wildflowers.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I’m sure you were asked that as many times as I was as a kid. And I bet some of you had an answer.

A teacher.

An astronaut.

An engineer.

A member of an elite crime-fighting team that poses as a dance troupe by day.

(No? Just me? OK, then.)

Some of you became that thing and it was everything you wanted it to be. In case you haven’t heard it from anyone else lately - fantastic job! You nailed it!

Many of you changed your mind (and perhaps your major) multiple times until you finally found your niche. Marvelous work! Congratulations on your success!

I confess that the title of this post is a little misleading. Because I don’t think I could pinpoint just one niche if I tried. I apparently missed the memo that I had to choose. Even when I decided I wanted to change majors in college, I ended up just adding a second one. When I went in to do my grad check, my advisor said, “Oh, you’re a dance…English…women’s studies…minor. Nope, you have a double major. Well, that’s a lot.”

It was, indeed, a lot. And I liked it that way.

One of my favorite things about my upbringing is that I was encouraged to learn all the things. My sister and I got to take all sorts of lessons - gymnastics, ballet, tap, twirling, piano, cross-stitch, and more. My mom took us to the library on a weekly basis and let me check out the maximum number of books allowed. When I devoured all of those in a few days, she started using her account to check out more challenging books for me, which I also inhaled as fast as I could.

This fostered an insatiable curiosity that seeped into other areas of my life. I joined all the clubs and actively sought out fun new things to try. Because neither of my parents had the opportunity to finish college, they were insistent that I did. And I loved it so much I went back for grad school, but even the rigors of pursuing a master’s degree didn’t keep me from other passions. What I ended up doing was prioritizing a well-rounded education that was just as much about what I did outside the classroom as in it. 

It worked. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve. And a lot of good stories for when there’s a lull at a party.

After graduation, I taught public speaking for quite a few years. I didn’t always like teaching, but I usually enjoyed speech days, because I got to learn new things. Even things I didn’t think I cared about were interesting to me if the speaker was passionate. You want to talk about the different types of rocks for 5-7 minutes? I’m there for it.

Today, I work in student affairs by day and do some copywriting by night (not quite the Flashdance-meets-Charlie’s-Angels scenario I had in mind as a child, but it mostly pays the bills). I also have two microfiction projects, an essay collection, and a couple of novels I’m working on.

I am a member of 4-7 book clubs (four that I regularly attend and three online that I lurk in/occasionally catch the Zoom meeting for). One of them is at my church, where I also sing in the choir, lead the writer’s group, maintain the fair trade coffee supplies, and help keep the library manageable.

I’m in two bands and occasionally perform with others. I’m part of an art collective that gives me the opportunity to collaborate with all kinds of artists and supports my branching out in any way I can imagine. Through their book club, I met a friend who invited me to a cookbook club that meets monthly to share delicious treats and geek out about food. Which reminds me - I’m in the editing stages of two foodie writing projects, complete with some delicious recipes.

[Aside - testing recipes to ensure that they make sense and are user-friendly for other people of varying skill sets is hard. Shoutout to anyone who’s ever put out a cookbook.]

Now, sure there are limitations - time constraints, financial limits, etc. I am notorious for biting off more than I can chew and having to reluctantly regroup after a period of frenzy occurs. I occasionally have to carve out a weekend in which I tell everyone to pretend I’m out of town because I need some serious downtime.

But that’s a small price to pay for building a robust life that I love. 

If you have never found that one thing that you want to be when you grow up, I have good news for you. You don’t have to choose. You can be more than one thing. You can be a writer and a musician. And a cook. And a voracious reader. And a librarian. And a teacher. And an engineer. And a dancer. And whatever pays the bills. 

You can be as many things as you want to be. 

You just need to find the resources to help you (and a solid support system doesn’t hurt, either). Some of us lucked out and had a lot of help. Others had to constantly forge their own paths. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, I believe you can have the life you want. If you have gotten a lot of encouragement and assistance along the way, I challenge you to be that person for others who didn’t. It’s in humanity’s best interest to help each other come alive as often and in as many ways as possible.

And if you figure out how to do that vigilante dance troupe thing, let me know. My younger self would be so excited.