Is niching down good for mental health?
My angst about niching down began when I was in the 7th grade–decades before I’d ever hear the term niching down. We had a running assignment in my Language Arts class that year to turn in a creative writing project weekly. I decided to write a mock soap opera. And week after week, I’d write a new chapter of the drama.
I remember having fun with it. I remember feeling so crafty, so weirdly magnanimous because I was writing a parody.
I thought I’d get in trouble. I thought they’d tell me to stop, that this wasn’t valid, that I needed to get serious and write something literary. I never really got feedback on those soap opera scripts, but I always got credit. So I figured I was eking by.
But when June came around it was time for the end-of-year awards. The top student in each subject won a navy blue hat with the phrase ‘Top Gun’ in gold lettering.
I wanted that hat. But I wanted it for a different subject altogether.
I really thought I was the top student in science class that year. When they announced science, a person with my same first name won the award instead. Then, moments later, the Language Arts teacher put the Top Gun hat on my head. Because of my soap opera. Because of this whole world I’d created that no one told me was valid.
I was trying to ‘niche’ myself down that day. And I’ve found that when I do niche down, nothing seems to go right. It’s like, I don’t see which Top Gun hat I ought to be wearing.
I’ve been struggling with this little chestnut: all the business advice out there seems to tell you to niche down. And this, of all the business advice out there, perplexes me the most–& causes me to doubt myself the most.
Because as soon as I try to put myself in a box, the box falls apart.
All parts of me want to be seen and breathe and live their truth. Not just the health & wellness me. Not just the injured me. The writer in me is screaming to be seen. The person who can’t color in the lines, who breaks into a cold sweat every time I have to do something arts & crafts-y. The person who wants nothing more than to look at birds and feel the soft sun on my face sometimes.
This digital world was created to please an algorithm. And I have to remind myself that this algorithm was never designed for me. I’m tired of trying to feed bits of my soul to the algorithm. I’m tired of trying to only show one side of myself to you all. Sure, I’m perky some of the time. But sometimes I’m weird and get inspired by unusual things (sometime get me started on how Taco Bell’s brand strategies inspire me LOL).
I wonder if niching down is something we’re doing as a response to an scaffolded environment that shouldn’t exist. I wonder how not being seen is hurting our hearts and minds and wellbeing.
I wonder about this from a personal perspective (I know how it feels) and from a practitioner perspective (it can’t be good for all of us to keep reducing ourselves to an elevator pitch).
Let us all be Top Guns in all the subjects we want. Unlimited hats for us all!
Comment below and let me know some unusual facts about yourself! :)
