Ensure that you have trained enough for the next challenge, because it is the training that will see you through it, not your agenty conscious thinking.
Spent the last 5+ years of my life trying to do this, specifically for the role of Nurse (and Lifeguard before that). It’s been fairly successful, and even generalizes a little–I am frequently the Person who Gets Shit Done in non-nursing contexts.
I’m not sure that the competence/learned skill routines/martial arts for rationality aspect is the same thing as “Being Responsible For This Shit.” The former is something that takes years of doing hard things over and over, training the right mental motion the same way you’d train the physical motion. Almost all the things that actually make me a competent ICU nurse fall into this category.
The latter is something that can change in a day, with the right mental reframe. (Example: I usually basically never volunteer to drive places, although I’ve learned how–I’m not super comfortable and I don’t have to. Then I was The Person In Charge of logistics for a large event, and hardly anyone else could drive, and I was responsible–so rather than spend a ton of energy convincing other people to drive places for me, I just got in the car.)
The two skills are probably related and probably correlated–for example, I suspect that many people have trouble taking on the role of “Person In Charge” because they have low confidence in their ability to actually take the right action and make things better rather than worse. (Given that in plenty of situations, taking the wrong action confidently is worse than doing nothing, that may be justified). Acquiring competence in one area, like nursing, brings confidence, and I think that’s the thing that generalizes to the rest of my life, rather than any of the specific routines and skills and dealing-with-emergency templates that I’ve spent years training. It feels like I have a good understanding of which situations actually require very little skill, where the main thing is having the necessary confidence to speak. (Then again, I’m not sure I could distinguish this from “having ingrained a skill to the point that it doesn’t even feel like a skill anymore.)
This correlates with my experience in the military. I had a job for a while that did not allow time for thoughtful analysis before each decision. In order to become competent, I had to do simulation after simulation after simulation, then live exercise after live exercise after live exercise...to the point where I could just react (hopefully competently).
Although I was well-trained in that role, it didn’t automatically make me good at “Being Responsible For This Shit”. Being Responsible (well, being good at Being Responsible) requires consideration of additional factors above and beyond your own skill-set when making decisions. I couldn’t have been In Charge without having first acquired my automatic skills, but Being Responsible required the ability to think strategically.
Spent the last 5+ years of my life trying to do this, specifically for the role of Nurse (and Lifeguard before that). It’s been fairly successful, and even generalizes a little–I am frequently the Person who Gets Shit Done in non-nursing contexts.
I’m not sure that the competence/learned skill routines/martial arts for rationality aspect is the same thing as “Being Responsible For This Shit.” The former is something that takes years of doing hard things over and over, training the right mental motion the same way you’d train the physical motion. Almost all the things that actually make me a competent ICU nurse fall into this category.
The latter is something that can change in a day, with the right mental reframe. (Example: I usually basically never volunteer to drive places, although I’ve learned how–I’m not super comfortable and I don’t have to. Then I was The Person In Charge of logistics for a large event, and hardly anyone else could drive, and I was responsible–so rather than spend a ton of energy convincing other people to drive places for me, I just got in the car.)
The two skills are probably related and probably correlated–for example, I suspect that many people have trouble taking on the role of “Person In Charge” because they have low confidence in their ability to actually take the right action and make things better rather than worse. (Given that in plenty of situations, taking the wrong action confidently is worse than doing nothing, that may be justified). Acquiring competence in one area, like nursing, brings confidence, and I think that’s the thing that generalizes to the rest of my life, rather than any of the specific routines and skills and dealing-with-emergency templates that I’ve spent years training. It feels like I have a good understanding of which situations actually require very little skill, where the main thing is having the necessary confidence to speak. (Then again, I’m not sure I could distinguish this from “having ingrained a skill to the point that it doesn’t even feel like a skill anymore.)
This correlates with my experience in the military. I had a job for a while that did not allow time for thoughtful analysis before each decision. In order to become competent, I had to do simulation after simulation after simulation, then live exercise after live exercise after live exercise...to the point where I could just react (hopefully competently).
Although I was well-trained in that role, it didn’t automatically make me good at “Being Responsible For This Shit”. Being Responsible (well, being good at Being Responsible) requires consideration of additional factors above and beyond your own skill-set when making decisions. I couldn’t have been In Charge without having first acquired my automatic skills, but Being Responsible required the ability to think strategically.