Response Ability

My undergraduate flute teacher did not like me one bit. And she let me know often.

To be fair, she was not my first choice, and she knew it. However, two lessons into my junior year, I found myself standing in her studio hearing her speak the words that were revealing the truth I already knew. 

According to her, I was “deeply unteachable” due to my “inherent lack of musicality.” Because of this, she was, and would continue to, stop me from being able to participate in vital performance opportunities such as playing in orchestra, as well as other competitions and experiences that required her explicit consent.

There I was, junior year tuition just paid, feeling trapped. Thoughts like “I should have just transferred after freshman year” and “maybe she’s right and this IS for my own good” swirled around in my mind. And then, in what was a bizarre jolt of clarity for me at the young age of 19, I realized two things. 

1) I did not agree with her assessment of or behavior towards me. 

2) I could take responsibility for creating my own experience.

My junior year, I transformed as a flutist and a person. I started seeking out the performance experiences that, quite frankly, nobody was interested in pursuing. That semester, I was the flutist for eight guitarists chamber music requirements. I ended up visiting the study abroad office (and office that I was told was off limits to music students) which landed me in Amsterdam during second semester. My Dutch teacher showed me an entirely different way to be taught and his style still influences my coaching today. I made friends with the composers and musical theatre people and started performing more on composition recitals and in musical theatre pits. I sought out fellow students to give me feedback on my playing - and developed a remarkable social support system in the process. 

I want to be clear - taking responsibility for my own experience could have meant leaving the school entirely. It could have meant pushing to switch studios. It could have meant lodging a complaint to school administration or even expressing extreme verbal discontent with my teacher. But, for a variety of reasons, I either didn’t see or choose any of those routes. 

However, by the end of my degree, I was no longer bitter about my circumstances. In fact, I felt I had received an education I didn’t even realize was possibly for me. It was one specifically crafted by me and for me, with the resources available to me. It was my experience, and nobody could take it away from me. 

Bonus - I got into my dream graduate school! A feat that I am rather positive wouldn’t have occurred if the circumstances had not unfolded the way they did.

Taking Responsibility For Your Own Experience

In the coaching world, we often hear this phrase thrown around - “You are responsible for getting the experience you want.” And I acknowledge, it’s a tricky, sticky phrase.

It’s important to acknowledge that we do see this phrase used by coaches and service providers with low ethical standards and manipulative tactics to excuse poor delivery of service, break agreements, and gaslight customers.

And.

The phrase itself is actually very important. 

While many of you reading this may not have gone to music school, or may not share my personal story - the premise of my story is not uncommon. Many of us, at some point in our lives, were shown an authority figure and a path. And we were told that if we listened to the authority figure and followed the path, we would be held and supported and successful.

Most of us were not taught how to interact healthfully with that authority figure or that path. We were not taught how to question and explore our own needs. We were taught that confrontation was either entirely off the table or always resulted in extreme combativeness. 

And so as a result, most of us learned that the process of improvement includes seeking out an all-knowing authority figure, a proven path, and totally handing ourselves over - to emerge on the other side “better” and “fixed”.

I’m so sorry to tell you - this isn’t how it works. At least, not if you want results.

Yes, sure, I too have bought into the fairytale idea that if I just do enough research and pick the program or person with the right credentials and the right results for other people that I can avoid any and all discomfort or displeasure. My inner conflict avoider really loves the idea that this is possible.

But in reality, you are a complex, multi-faceted human just as every human or human-made program you come across will be. There will be glitches. There will be upsets. There will be misunderstandings.

But when we stop here, at the point of friction, and totally resign ourselves to situation we are in, we lose all power. And we lose the ability to create a better situation for ourselves - in the short term and in the long term.

When we take responsibility for our experience, we put ourselves back in charge. We are able to speak up for our needs, express our displeasures, and seek opportunities where we previously didn’t see any. Taking responsibility for our experience isn’t about blaming or not blaming ourselves or someone else - it’s about fortifying our integrity and making sure that our thoughts, words, and actions are totally aligned. 

In that, we find our strength.

If I had to do it all again….

Knowing what I know now, the only thing I’m certain that I would have done differently with my flute teacher is that I would have been more vocal about my displeasure with the $100k+ education that was, or was not, being provided to me. I don’t know if I would have left. It would have depended on how that conversation went.

So many of us struggle with taking full responsibility for our experience because we believe that the purpose of vocalizing our needs, desires, or displeasures is to get the person or situation in front of us to change. 

It’s not. 

Many of us show up to our interactions with others in avoidant, people-pleaser mode, and then don’t know what to do when their actions upset us. We make a ton of assumptions about how the person will react if we tell them how we feel. And so we don’t even give them a chance to respond. We simply retreat, get defensive, and perpetuate the pattern.

The purpose of vocalizing our needs, desires, or displeasures is to show up in the world as a more authentic version of ourselves - and give the world a chance to respond to THAT person. The real person. 

If you start to stand in your true needs - sure - maybe the world will respond as it always has. And yes, I can appreciate how that would feel very disappointing.

But, maybe - just maybe - you’ll be pleasantly surprised and get more than you ever thought was possible.