A friend of mine asked if I have a word of the year. I had never heard about it before then, but I am so glad I know about it now. My word of the year is vulnerability.
If you haven’t already seen Brené Brown’s talk on vulnerability, do yourself a favour and see it now! I must have seen it for the first time when I was still in undergrad. Since then I have been an avid follower of Brené Brown’s scholarship. She has found a way to make her research useful to a general, public audience. Not only is she an example of the kind of scholar I want to be, but she also changed my idea on what it means to be courageous through one word: vulnerability.
When it comes to vulnerability in relationships, I have become fairly comfortable with the risk involved in making yourself vulnerable to a friend or partner. But for some reason, when it comes to my ambitions around what I want for my career, I get so knotted up inside myself. In her Atlas of the Heart, Brown has the perfect words to explain why it feels so difficult to put my work out into the word:
“In a world where perfectionism, pleasing, and proving are used as armour to protect our egos and our feelings, it takes a lot of courage to show up and be all in when we can’t control the outcome.”
When I am writing traditional academic papers I feel safe because it is work that is institutionally sanctioned. By virtue of being funded, I know that someone other than myself thinks that the work I do is important. But the moment I venture out and try to do something new (like blogging, or gasp starting a YouTube channel) I lose that institutional sanctioning and loose that validation of importance.
To take on projects that are the product of my own imagination is to believe that what I have to say, or what my mind is able to create, is valuable. To put my work out there feels so risky because its acknowledging that someone might think what I have to say is indeed valuable, and another might think its stupid.
And that’s why vulnerability is my word for the year. This year, I want to do all the things that make me feel vulnerable: Consistently post on my blog and actively work to figure out how to make it successful, make a YouTube video, try my hand at creating an annual magazine. This year, I want to choose to be brave, I want to choose to be vulnerable! What's your word of the year?