Thoughtful Thursday: Success

It is time for another Thoughtful Thursday, and this week's quotation comes from Al Capp.

"Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most." - Al Capp

I often think about what would have happened in my life if my family hadn't moved from all the places that we had moved from in my elementary school years. Where would I be if we had never moved from Dallas? Temple, TX? Hacienda Heights, CA? Denville, NJ? Would I have ever heard of music therapy or would I be working as a special educator or a mom or something completely different? One of the things that I do know is that I would be working with children and adolescents and I would still be doing music in some form - performing or teaching of some sort.

The patterns of life that brought me to music therapy are the same ones that would take me into other paths - a love for music, helping, and people.

I was lucky and found one road that allowed me to combine my passions into one job, one profession, one career.

Within our profession, there are many different paths to take. This goes beyond simply choosing who you want to work with - both clients and co-workers. This goes into what you want to do - theoretical foundations, philosophical viewpoints, practice elements, and role in the profession as a whole. It is important to find your passion and life pattern in order to find your own success.

One of the things that keeps me from fully feeling successful is my need to compare myself with others. I continuously struggle with not feeling like what I do to contribute to the music therapy world is not valuable. My rational brain knows better, but my emotional brain gets caught up in my special form of self-doubt and then the goblins come to visit (I should, I would, I could - Goblins begone!!!) When I get particularly bogged down in these types of thoughts, I have to engage in some active cognitive restructuring.

It all comes down to what I love. I love talking to other music therapists about music therapy. I love composing music for clients to use. I love talking to music therapy students and interns about music therapy. I love the actual process of being a music therapist and of being THE music therapist for my clients. Therein lies my success.

We are fortunate to be in a profession where diversity of thought, style, song, and relationship is prevalent. We need to make sure that we celebrate this diversity and allow it to flourish in order to remain a growing profession. My success is not going to be your success - My life patterns are different from your own. My success should never destroy your success - we are not in competition, we are in collaboration. Your path through music therapy is not my path, and that is something to celebrate!

This week has led me to think about what I want out of my life as a music therapist. This is always a challenging thing for me to do as I tend to get bogged down by the goblins, but I am always able to identify what I do NOT want out of my music therapy life, so that's where I start. Once I know where, when, what, how I do not want to be, I can start to see the other opportunities.

This next month will be a time where I have lots of time on my hands to think and vision what I want my future to be. Expect lots of rambling on days without themes. I am trusting that I will be able to figure out some things that have been challenging me lately and will challenge me in the future. I will use these thoughts to lead me onward, towards my own definition of success.

"Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most." - Al Capp

Happy Thursday (or Thanksgiving, US readers!).