We all had preconceived notions of what we were going to be when we grew up. My best friend wanted to be a vet; my cousin wanted to be a movie star. Well, I always wanted to be a lawyer, and I wanted to go to college, maybe it’s because everyone always told me I was going to be a lawyer, and that college was the only option for me. All I know is that it’s always been the plan. Now I’m in college on a prelaw track. I’ve prepared for the moment that I could finally get my chance, to finally start my career that’s been in planning for probably way too long, and to get out of my small town to find myself. But now that I’m here, I’ve never felt so lost.
My first semester of college has been bombarded with life-changing moments, both good and bad, the start of a self-discovery journey, and getting very lost along the way. My expectations were squashed when I was handed back my first direct examination for this year’s case, and it was not an A+ staring back at me. Of course, as a college freshman I began to spiral and questioned if this was meant for me and if I’ve wasted half of my life on an idea of something I couldn’t even do. What was I made for if I couldn’t do what I thought I was put here to do well? Along with my academics, I wasn’t transforming into this new girl I imagined myself to be in college. I began to get so frustrated by the fact that nothing was going the way I had imagined. This led me to make many different efforts, I moved, I started going to the gym, I switched majors, and studied endlessly, I went to counseling, I picked up hobbies, I dropped hobbies. But I hadn’t seen a change in myself since I left. I was stumped and I felt like I didn’t have the capabilities to fill the shoes of the future Isabella Potter I’ve created in my head.
But this is when I found my answer, I wasn’t going to wake up one day to see this version of myself I’ve glorified in my head, but I was in fact changing, just not in the ways I had planned. I knew first semester was going to change me because of the new challenges I would be facing, but what I didn’t know is that it also was changing me and my mind without me even knowing. I finally realized that all my efforts to change have made a difference, I just didn’t realize because I was so focused on fitting the mold of myself that I created years ago instead of just letting myself grow, this was the root of feeling like I was an imposter in my own life. I’ve found my stride in law, and I’m more excited than ever to continue, I’ve gained confidence and learned a lot of lessons, the most prominent one being that good things like success take time. Life changes and so do we, just most of the time not in the way we were expecting or hoping it would. Its also important to learn that imposter syndrome is not possible, no one else can be better at being yourself than you. Now looking back at the past few months, I think of this experience as a good thing, I was pushed out of my comfort zone and gave up some of my control, and it allowed me to grow and change in the direction I needed it too, not where I thought I wanted to.