The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Stop Waiting To Be Chosen | The Psychology of Taking Control - Inner Work

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

Are you waiting to be chosen… or are you choosing yourself?How often do we wait for permission before pursuing the life we really want? Whether it's applying for a new job, reaching out to someone we admire, asking for help or taking the first step towards a goal, it can feel safer to wait for someone else to notice us.In this episode of Inner Work, I reflect on one of the biggest ideas to emerge from my conversation with Clinical Psychologist Cliff Hawkins: the importance of agency, self-belief and learning to raise your hand rather than waiting to be picked.Together, we explore why confidence often follows action, how small acts of courage can change the direction of our lives, and why nobody is coming to rescue us—but that might actually be empowering rather than frightening.If you've ever wondered whether you're holding yourself back, this gentle reflection is for you.💡 Want to support the channel? Like, comment, and share this episode!#psychologypodcast #chooseyourself 📩 Business & Collaboration Enquiries✉️ Email: [e-mail]🎧 Stay Connected With Me🌍 Aspiring Psychologists Website: www.aspiring-psychologist.co.uk🌍 Good Thinking Psychology Website: www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk💼 LinkedIn: Dr Marianne Trent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices🐦 Twitter/X: @DrMarianneTrent📸 Instagram: @DrMarianneTrent🎵 TikTok: @DrMarianneTrent.📚 My Books on Amazon📖 The Grief Collective → https://amzn.to/4hNHru5📖 The Clinical Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/3ErIEJs📖 The Aspiring Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/4jSxc9N📖 Talking Heads: Stories of Psychology & Mental Health → https://amzn.to/3EvbKaN📖 An Autistic Anthology: Neuro-Narratives of Mental Health Professionals → https://amzn.to/3WXBpz9⚠️ DisclaimerThis content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. Any actions taken based on this content are at your own risk.© Dr Marianne Trent

Hello, my name is Veronica Kassova. I live in Edinburgh and I just graduated with a master's in psychology of mental health. Marion recommended me the clinical psychologist collective when I was networking on LinkedIn and I must say I love it. It is one of a kind. It's like a window into the lives of people on the path of becoming a psychologist. The stories are unique, honest and filled with. a kind of intangible wisdom only personal storytelling can uncover.

A common thread in the stories I valued most was to be compassionate not only with others, but with myself too. Also not fixating on becoming a psychologist, but enjoying life, grow, and the final results will come as a by-product. Marianne, thank you for taking the time to collate all the stories. The book is a true gem and I think every aspire to. psychology should have a copy on their shelf. Thank you. Hi, welcome along to Inner Work. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent. Thank you so much for being here. Let's think then about, you know, whether we are

going to start taking control, whether we're going to continue to wait to be chosen. This can crop up in so many areas of our lives and this was evoked for me in the conversation I had with Hawkins, I think it can be really important to think about coming up with a bit of a goals list, really. What are your goals? You know, we can't have probably 10 or 15 goals. We were allowed to have kind of one personal goal, one professional goal and one, you know, work-life balance goal. If you were supposed to, if you were going to think about those three goals, what would they look like for you? And yeah, how can you start to be able to begin to take a little bit of more control, a little bit more intention towards having that goal happen?

And, you know, Cliff's idea was actually reaching out to people, you know, asking people for meetings, asking for people's time. And then, of course, they can only say no. all it makes you look is conscientious and people do reach out to me all the time to ask me things sometimes I'm in a position where I'm able to help drop them a little bit of advice other times they might be looking for work and I'm not recruiting but you know how can you kind of empower yourself to start moving your life forward in the direction that would make you happy I would love to know your thoughts and I think that can be really difficult sometimes

having that self-belief, having what kind of Maslow's hierarchy would think about as self-actualization. So at the top of Maslow's hierarchy would be the self-actualizing phase. And I think it often is linked to what we've had before as to whether we think of ourselves as the kind of person who can go out there and be a go-getter, get what you want. Would you feel like you deserved that? Would you feel like others might come along and take that? way. And it's being able to work through some of that distress, but to know that if you don't try and create some of that agency for yourself, the others who maybe not even be as strong a

candidate as you or strong at whatever it is you're trying to pursue may get there because they are better at raising their hand and asking for help. It's that idea of nobody is coming to save you, which is really hard because can't they just come and save us? Wouldn't that be easier? Yeah, you've got to be able to empower yourself to do that. And I have to do that with myself reaching out to people to kind of think about partnership working and kind of sponsorship. So, yeah, it isn't easy, but we have to, you have to sometimes have the difficult conversations to be able to get ourselves where we want to go. I would love your thoughts on this. How can you be bold? How can you be brave? How can you move yourself closer to your goals? I would love to know.

Thank you for being here. I'll be back along with the next episode of Inner Work next week. Take care. Hi, my name is Emily. I am a master's student studying clinical psychology at Southampton. I bought the book The Clinical Psychologist Collective to help myself prepare for my first round of doctorate applications and I'm so glad I did. Seeing how others have reflected on their journeys has been so insightful and it's given me a lot to reflect about with my own journey and skills. It's also helped to put things into perspective and reminded me that if I don't get onto the doctorate this year, that's okay. I think the most unexpected pleasure of this book, however, was just how inspirational each and every person's journey was and using these stories as my morning motivation

each day has been such a pleasure. I'm almost reluctant to come to the end.