“Don’t live for the finish line” is a quote from a book called Illogical by Emmanuel Acho that I just finished this week and it’s a powerful read!
I decided to name this blog post with one of my favorite quotes from the book because it resonated so much with what I’ve been learning the past year or so. There is more to the quote that I’ll share here and also how it relates to my journey:
“Don’t live for the finish line. Achieve flow not through aiming for one specific thing, but through living in the moment. Run your own race and see where it gets you. If you open up your peripheral vision to different paths, your impact is so much greater than crossing one finish line.”
Emmanuel Acho
WOW! I mean I cried a few times reading this book because it really hits me to the core of everything I’ve been learning about and dreaming of. While there are so many quotes I absolutely loved from this book I really want to focus on this one and share why it resonates so much. So here is why…
Since I was 16 years old I wanted to be a school counselor. My high school counselor was the one who inspired me to pursue this career. As a teenager, I was going through many family and mental health issues. I was also doing typical teenager things at one point such as cutting class. The combination of these things led to my school counselor asking me, “how will you feel if your mother doesn’t get to see you walk across the stage on graduation?” At that moment, my heart sank. I couldn’t disappoint my mother. I got my act together and was able to graduate high school on time. During this time I also was observing other school counselors interacting with students and I thought to myself, “this seems like a cool job!” It was the impact my high school counselor had on me and seeing how other counselors worked with students that led me to decide that I wanted to be a school counselor. Since then my main goal in life was to make this dream a reality.
In college, I majored in psychology and I went onto getting jobs that would help me build my foundation to be a school counselor. My first job in the education field was a teacher assistant which helped me develop teaching skills. I then worked for an organization helping victims of abuse and crime that helped me develop clinical counseling skills. During undergrad and graduate school, my vision has always been clear and that was to become a school counselor to help and empower the youth to be successful in school and beyond. It was my dream job. I would cry thinking about the moment I would graduate and finally become a school counselor.
When I graduated from my master’s program and landed a job within weeks, I was so happy and excited! I was also very enthusiastic about my first job as a school counselor. I definitely was someone who was very passionate about school counseling. I think others around me could see my passion in how I helped my students and how I even advocated for the role. I was so passionate about school counseling that I became frustrated with how much the role was misunderstood and not utilized in the right ways. As I began to experience this, I also began to realize I was working in a toxic work environment. After my first two years in the job, I informed the school I was working for that I was not returning for the upcoming academic year. In other words, I quit.
When the school year was over, I certainly doubted if I made the right decision but soon after I realized that I made the best decision to quit my job. Through this process, I realized how much I identified with the role of a school counselor and applied everything it came with and applied it to who I am. This could be tricky because you can get lost in your career and forget who you are outside of your job. Quitting my job allowed me to rediscover who Anina really was…a spiritual, passionate, ambitious, caring and so much more human being. And truthfully, there were a couple of times during my first two years working as a school counselor that I felt that I was meant for something more.
So how does all of this relate to the quote I shared previously from the book Illogical? Well, since I was only focused on being a school counselor, I couldn’t see anything outside of that. Becoming a school counselor was the finish line for me and when I accomplished it I began to question what is next in my life? I never even really thought about my life past becoming a school counselor. I can see how the goal of becoming a school counselor limited me. It’s like it did not allow me to think outside the box. It was like it prevented me from dreaming about other possibilities or exploring other aspects of who I am outside of my job.
After I quit my job, I decided to give up alcohol for one year and start a blog to share my sober journey. Although I was not able to land a job offer (I was unemployed for a whole year and a half), I was able to tap into my creativity. I was blogging, creating quotes, and reels on Instagram. If I had not quit my job, I wouldn’t have had the mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity or space to even think of new ideas and learn new things about myself. I realized that quitting my job was probably meant to happen so that I can re-birth, re-discover, and re-learn things about myself and so that I can envision something beyond being a school counselor because I had made it the center of my identity.
And so as I mentioned before, since becoming a school counselor was the finish line for me, I couldn’t think about other paths, possibilities, and/or opportunities because I was just focused on one path. While I did learn so much in pursuing that one goal/dream of becoming a school counselor, I don’t think I couldn’t have understood the quote I chose from Illogical here in this blog post the way I do today and for that I am grateful. I love that I am able to dream up new things while being aware to not get too attached to one thing but to allow myself to explore something new. Even though I’ve gone through so many waves the past year or so questioning everything, I can say that it feels beautiful to be where I am now.
It feels beautiful because I am learning to come from a place of curiosity and potentially discover new things about myself. I think I am becoming more willing to step into the unknown more without being concerned about the outcome. I am learning to open up my vision to different paths as Emmanuel Acho encourages in his book. I am dreaming up new ideas and ways of living. I am slowly opening myself up to try and explore something new so much so that this week I decided to start something new and I can’t wait to share it with the world in the near future!
Have you read the book Illogical by Emmanuel Acho? When you read the quote I picked for this blog post, what did you think? What came up for you? Can you relate?
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it if you are a big dreamer or are afraid of trying something new.
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