Professional Procrastinator

I've just recently earned the professional designation of certified counsellor.  But not for lack of procrastinating.  The professional association that I belong to as a psychotherapist has a program of continuing education, tracking client hours, and recording supervision time that would eventually have earned me the status of certified counsellor.  

I've been pretty sure for quite a while that, in my more than ten years working full time in the profession, I had amassed enough credits on all fronts to qualify.  But, oh my goodness, what a lot of paperwork, formulaic calculations, and soliciting of references was required to complete the process.  And so, being a procrastinator by nature, I did what I do best.  I kept going to workshops and supervisor meetings and continued working many hours each week and ...  putting off completing those steps to claim my certification status.

I would probably have played the avoidance game for years yet but suddenly the playing field changed.  Licensing of psychotherapists and related professionals is making its way into Canada and that means those of us who wish to keep practicing have to make sure that we'll be accepted when the time comes.  That time is coming closer but I was still hoping not to have to "jump through those hoops" if I could avoid them.

Perhaps the licensing won't be in place before I want to retire, I kept thinking hopefully.  Then I decided that if licensing becomes mandatory, I would retire.  Of course, I knew that to consider giving up a career that I love and seems perfectly suited to my talents just because I don't like paperwork and administrative tasks seemed ... well, immature.

And then, out of the blue, my professional association, recognizing that many of us were qualified but hadn't chosen to go through the red tape (at least I wasn't the only one), offered us an opportunity to put the whole package together in a way that seemed to take much less time and effort and looked much less complicated than the regular process.  I may be a procrastinator but I'm a smart one and I knew a good thing when it appeared.

Of course, it turned out to be a little more effort than it looked on paper but overall, it was relatively quick and painless.  In only three weeks I had the required references, organized the numbers, wrote the reflective career assessment paper required and mailed the whole thing away.  It was about ten days later that I received confirmation that I had been accepted, having more than the number of hours required in all areas of assessment and some very generous references from colleagues and my supervisor.

And so, I've learned a dubious lesson; procrastination sometimes pays off!