Looking Up - Becoming More

We can have more than we've got because we can become more than we are - Jim Rohn

I love Twitter. PhenomenalLife has some really great quotes, which I share here and on Facebook. This is one of three I found this evening as I roamed Twitterland.

Becoming more than we are. Wow. I could have stayed a high school drop out welfare mom, or an administrative assistant, or a budget analyst, but now, I'm a program and project manager. Why? I really don't know. Well, that's not exactly true. I was on welfare (AFDC - Aid to Families with Dependent Children) because my mother was in her last years, dying of emphysema brought on by a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. However, her philosophy was that welfare was a hand up, not a hand out, and that it was not a lifestyle, but rather a lifeline when needed.

After she passed, I went back to school through the JTPA (Jobs Training Partnership Act) and got a clerical certificate. I took the exam to get on the Federal job roles and started my career as a GS-2 military personnel clerk at one of our local air force bases. From 1988 to 1997, I worked for the Air Force, and moved up from a GS-2 to a GS-6. In 1997, I transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers as a GS-5, and have worked my way up from being an administrative assistant (GS-5/6), to a budget analyst (GS-7/9/11) to a program and project manager (GS-12).

My education beyond high school consists of that clerical certificate that got my foot in the door, two associates degrees - one in general business and one in financial accounting, and various classes provided by my employers.

I was not one of those kids who had a grand plan. My parents divorced when I was 10, my dad died of lung cancer when I was 13, I'm a high school dropout with a GED. My mom died when I was 22 and my older two children were 2 1/2 and six months old. They are now 26 and 23. I had one more child, who is now getting ready to embark on college. I've been through three divorces, and am finally content in my fourth marriage.

What I've been blessed by in my life is people who see my potential and continue to encourage me (and at times push me) even when I don't see it for myself. And I've been blessed with supervisors who allow and encourage their employees to grow, even when that means they may lose them to higher level jobs.

I truly believe if I can do it, so can others. I never said easy. I said it can be done. And I'm proof of that.