Contemplating my Professional Evolution

My word for this year is "Evolve." I selected the word at the end of last year as a way to focus my energies on the things I think are really important to me - learning, growth, and enjoyment of life. I have done pretty well with this word as a guide, especially considering what has been happening in this 2020 year, so I am continuing to make it a focus for myself.

This word has led me to do some things that I would have been scared to do if I didn't have this inspiration prodding me along. Now, many of these things did not work out the way I thought they would (again, 2020), but I put myself out there and tried to grow!! I feel like I am doing my part to keep this word a part of my focus.

I have been thinking about my professional evolution lately. I feel a bit stagnant in how I am doing my job lately. I feel like I am wasting time, and that is a feeling that I do not like in myself. I need a professional goal and something to challenge me while I'm at work.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love being a music therapist, and I love doing music therapy. Those hours are when I feel the most fulfilled by my choice of profession, but my schedule has been rearranged so I have large gaps in my treatment schedule. There are lots of days where I am sitting rather than doing music therapy for most of the day. My students are so busy and there are significant restrictions about when specific kids can be in my therapy space due to coronavirus, so trying to schedule individual sessions is almost impossible. As a result, I have all sorts of time and not much to fill that time.

I am not someone who wants to be bored. I do everything that I can to be occupied by something at all times. Most of my go-to time fillers include things like playing instruments (mostly curtailed by two broken fingers), making visual aids (ditto), crafts of other sorts (you get the trend here, right?), and reading fiction. I feel guilty when I am spending time at work reading my latest novel, and I can only listen to new music for so long before I have to turn things off in favor of silence! To be fair, I struggled with these things before I broke my fingers, but the situation has been exacerbated by my current restrictions. I miss the guitar so much that it hurts my heart! As a result, I am going to spend some money to take a music therapy course - not because I need the CMTEs but because I need some music therapy knowledge and a refreshment of my music therapy perspective.

I've done it. I took the leap and will be attending a virtual training on Saturdays starting on Halloween. It is money that I really don't need to spend, but I think this particular training will reconnect me to a type of music therapy perspective that I have enjoyed in the past and have been a bit disconnected from in my current job. If not, at least I will have some new things to think about and maybe some new folks to talk to! It is kinda strange to be thinking that I am seeking connection in the music therapy world, but I really am. I miss those connections right now.

So, now I have decided to join this training (via Zoom!), and I am hoping to find a bit of my old spark in my same old job through learning and thinking from a different place than I am sitting in now. Isn't that how we evolve and grow as humans? Learning and thinking and trying new things?