Meet Tanya Caines

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tanya Caines. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tanya, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.

This is a such a good question. Do you ever truly overcome imposter syndrome? I think it is a thing that can keep creeping up on you as different twists and turns come your way. One thing I’ve realized is that you have to affirm and speak to yourself. Whenever you catch yourself in that negative mindset, you have to speak words of encouragement and directly speak to those negative words.

I cannot say that I have truly overcome it, but I am now able to access many different strategies to help me in this area. I listen to affirmations, visualize myself overcoming whatever challenge I am facing, engage in self care practices like self-care and meditation have really started to help me in this area. Also, I surround myself with a good group of friends who can speak life and positivity over me! It helps!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Hey friends! I’m Tanya Caines of Kit Language and Literacy. I created my business during the pandemic when I realized that people (former students, seasoned speech pathologists and parents) kept coming to me for speech advice. I am a licensed speech pathologist and have been for 18 years. My business surrounds helping new and transitioning speech pathologists with finding creative ways to make their paperwork more organized and their lessons more exciting but specific.

I created two planners (The Busy SLP planner, The Effective SLP planner) to assist busy professionals (especially speech pathologists) with their organizational strategies and work balance. The planners includes motivational quotes, self care goal planning pages, places to store important information and even a place for you to write a letter to yourself and motivate yourself!

Speech language pathology is really a field that is amazing. I love the feeling of impacting a person’s life by assisting them with producing their voice. Your voice is so unique and amazing and I am always curious in learning more about issues that occur with speech, communication and language. I also love being a proud representative of the 3% represented within our field. As a Black woman within speech pathology, I love that students can see that we are here ready to serve and we are from the same neighborhoods. It is an amazing feeling!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Perseverance definitely helped me within my journey. I always had an attitude that I can accomplish school if I worked really hard and my perseverance paid off!

Surrounding yourself with people who speak life into you and will give you a good push if you start to veer off path is essential! I had/have a good support system of family and friends who really are there and speak words of encouragement in my life!

Make sure you still carve out time for fun! I like to work hard and play equally as hard. I’ve always maintained going to concerts, eating out with friends and going to a good fete every now and then. Life is meant to be lived and to be enjoyed!

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

I’m an avid reader so I have many books that have helped me. The books that have played important roles in my life are The Alchemist by Paulo Cuelho, The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, Hungry by Robin Smith, Checking In by Michelle Williams and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adayemi just to name a few.

They all spoke to me in different ways. The Alchemist taught me that the journey can lead you to your greatness, The Four Agreements reminds me that we all communicate in different ways, Hungry spoke to the desires of your heart, Checking In merged spirituality and mental health and the Children of Blood and Bone spoke to a greatness and magic within Africa.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/kitlanguageandliteracy
• Instagram: KitLanguageAndLiteracy