An Exercise in Patience
By: Marina Kay Mcbride
Tags: Pmp Training, Pmp Certification, Project Management, Pandemic, Pmp

An Exercise in Patience

Clipboard and computer

I was blissfully employed prior to the 2020 pandemic. I had worked my way up in my organization, which specialized in large company events — primarily for Microsoft — and was starting to win some serious awards and dig into amazing opportunities. I had traveled to Europe to manage an international event in 2019 and felt like my career was taking off! And then, overnight, no one wanted to attend massive international conferences. My job quickly went from a fast rise to superstardom to dud in mere days.

Needless to say — I moped a bit. Who wouldn’t? I had been self supporting since college. Even when I worked as a receptionist, I paid my own bills, put food on the table, and even gave a bit back to a local women’s shelter. I had been raised to “be part of the solution, not part of the problem” (which is a problematic statement because I had some clear privilege, but we won’t get into that here). I had paid into unemployment my entire working life but still felt like a mooch.

This is a well known story by now. I certainly wasn’t alone in my situation and, after a period of mourning, I started to think about what I could do with my new-found hours, days, and weeks of empty time. The decision to look at this time in my life as a gift, rather than a burden, was instrumental in my decision to start working towards my Project Management Professional certification.

The decision to look at this time in my life as a gift, rather than a burden, was instrumental in my decision to start working towards my Project Management Professional certification.

I will tell you this…the PMP is hard. I don’t mean just challenging, like a college course or training for a race. The PMP made me think and rethink my decision making processes and how I approached every professional bump in the road or conflict up till now. Developing new terminology was one thing but applying it to new knowledge areas was extremely difficult because I had been working in the field for some time. I had to put everything I had learned previously about professional problem solving aside and learn everything afresh with an intensity that I had never experienced before. This was done remotely and with the additional stress of a raging pandemic, making my usual outlets for stress relief unavailable or unwise (goodbye neighborhood pub and yoga class).

I am nearing the end of this educational journey and have just taken my PMP test — unfortunately the remote testing company had technical difficulties so I have to take it again. This experience feels like a marathon where the finish line keeps moving further away. I was reminded recently, however, that I have already gotten so much from this process. The aha moments and new knowledge is mine, whether or not I pass the test and get that certification. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll pass it or die trying. I haven’t spent months studying to settle for anything less, but the certification isn’t the point. The certification is only confirmation of a point of time. A mile marker on a much longer journey of assessment and reassessment — learning and relearning as I work towards my future.

It is an exercise in patience.

For more information about PMP certification, I highly recommend the Project Management Institute.

If you have a subscription to LinkedIn Learning, you can take the class “Project Management and Project Leadership Training.”