my career my choice

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards, they try to have more things or more money in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are then do what you need to do in order to have what you want. ”
― Margaret Young

Career choices …

People are desiring to look for a new job.  A recent survey by Right Management indicates that many people are dissatisfied with the work they are doing right now.   This means there is the potential for a substantial shift in what and where people work.   While the sample size is relatively small it indicates that the work and amount of work that people have to do are not matching up with what employers want their employees to do.

People who desire to look for new work in 2013

	2012	2011	2010	2009
Yes, I intend to actively seek a new position.	86%	84%	84%	60%
Maybe, so I’m networking.	8%	9%	8%	21%
Not likely, but I’ve updated my resume.	1%	2%	3%	6%
No, I intend to stay in current position.	5%	5%	5%	13%

Source Right Management

Are you one of the many who are polishing up their resume and checking out the want ads for a new position?

If you are you might want to look all around you for ways to make that career transition work for you.

1. Search for your name on Google.   What shows up?  What is your on-line reputation?  Will those who are looking for you find the “right” you on-line.   What does your Facebook account contain?  What do you tweet?   What does your linkedIn profile say about you?   Know what your on-line presence is and know how others see you.

2. Understand “who” you are.   If the job you are in right now isn’t working for your skills and needs aren’t being satisfied by the work you are doing.   Know who you are before you start your job search.   This is a dig deep process into who you are.   Take the time to know your strengths, talents and abilities before you touch up your resume and look for work that you are doing today.   Doing the same work in a different location may not be the best thing for you.

3. Create a strategy.    Have a plan.   Know what you want before you start looking for a new job.   Once you have a clear idea of what you want to do, research job positions that align with your purpose.   What skills are required?  What training is needed?    If you need to develop skills make that part of your plan to get the skills needed to transfer to a new role or career.

4. Tune your resume to match the job  you are looking for.   Often people take adjust their work to match who they are.   That is even given a role with a certain set of expectations they will slowly change the job to match who they are, and do what they like rather than do what is expected.   If you find yourself changing what your role is in your job then you might be in the wrong job.    Do what you like doing and find the job that allows you to do that.   Fighting your way through each day is an indication that you may not fit the job you were hired to do.

5. Adjust.   Looking for a new job is one of adjustments and tuning.  Be willing to make small changes in your resume to match job descriptions and needs.   Be willing to adjust where you are looking and how you are looking.   Find out what is getting you results and what isn’t.

Prepare – Plan – Succeed.

Listen to a TED talk about Careers and jobs.

live out your dream

“Some ideas are not born of logic and good sense. They are made of clouds and cobwebs. They sprout from nowhere and feed on excitement, sprinkled with adventure juice and the sweet flavor of the forbidden. The psyche moves from the realms of the ordinary and takes a delicate step towards the unknown. We know we shouldn’t and that is exactly why we do.”
― Brigid Lowry

What are your dreams?   No, not the things you dream at night, but your dreams, desires and longings?   What do you really want to accomplish in your life?

What actions have you taken to get your dream off of the ground?

If you’re like most people you haven’t taken your dreams seriously.   You might be thinking dreams are for those other people, those people who have the time, the money, the …., the something you don’t have.

Your life has the greatest meaning, the greatest potential when you put into energy and heart into living out one of your dreams.   Think about it, what makes you come alive most?   Is it the work you are doing now?  Is it?

Take a step towards living that dream.  Maybe it’s making a small change in your life.  Maybe it’s taking a vacation that you’ve been thinking about for years.   Maybe it’s time right now to start doing rather than dreaming about your dream.

Explore the dream … see what a dream can look like for you.

Look at Josh’s idea of a dream.

Be creative …

“It’s not about breaking the rules. It is about abandoning the concept of rules altogether” - Paul Lemberg

What does it take to be creative?   Normally it takes  a big leap from where you are right now so that you would create a sense of personal risk.   It is a step into the unknown, it is a new experience, and it would be foreign to your way of thinking.   Certainly there is incremental creativity which is based on taking what you know now and extending it in a new direction.   What I am thinking about takes a bigger leap, it means leaving behind the set of assumptions you use to bound your creativity.

How do you get outside of your own way of thinking?   What causes you to stretch?

Some people use tools like mind mapping to extend their scope of thinking.    A new resource called Murally looks interesting and may open doors to collaborate in new ways.

Stanford is offering a class in creativity and there is approximately 35000 students participating.   How do you manage a class of 35000?    How do you review the work of 35000 people who are turning in work?   No matter what the assignment is the idea of reviewing that volume of work is prohibitive.  35000 students is probably more students than most professors teach in a lifetime of teaching.

When you are pressed with a challenge you’ve never experienced before, what do you do?    Do you think in a new way or do you follow the patterns that you habitually use?
What about a different approach?

What if you were asked to meet people from some place in the world you’ve never been what would you do?   What would you have in common with others?  Well that was the first assignment in the class on creativity.   Here’s a sample.

 

 

10X

If It’s Not a 10x Improvement, Is It Really Worth Doing?  Marc Andreessen

10X … something to consider.   What are you doing that is 10X better at?   Are you 10X better in your job?   Are you 10X better in  your relationships?  Are you 10X better of a person?   What in your life is 10X better than it was before?

 Why 10X?

10X is ten times better.   Take a goal that you have and make it bigger and better.   Most people think if they just double their performance it will be good enough.   Not any more.   Doubling your effort or even your results won’t lead to a breakthrough in thinking and doing.   It takes a 10X improvement to make the breakthroughs to get out of the box.

If you set a goal that is 10X bigger than your original goal you’ll have a better chance of achieving a real result.   Losing weight, go bigger than your goal.  Your goal to lose a couple of pounds a month might be good but it will also be easy to revert back to the old ways.    If you had to go 10X what would you really need to change?

Think about your job or your career.   What would make it 10X better than it is today?   It would take something pretty radical and it wouldn’t just be something small, it would have to be a big change.   Are you in the right career?   Are you doing what you are really passionate about?

Your finances, where are they today?   Where do you want them to be?   Go for a 10X goal.   What would have to change or be different to reach that goal.

In the world of personal development and personal improvement on person is doing just that, turning his world into 10X.   Brendon Bruchard is leading a charge to change the way people think about doing things.   10X, think about it.  Where could you change something by creating a goal that is 10X what you originally thought of?   What can you do 10X better?

Take a look at Brendon’s passion. 10X is what he is giving.

What are you giving 10X to?

No matter where you are today, think about something you will make 10X better this year. Set a goal and make it 10X bigger. Push the limits of your imagination, your skills and your results. Go beyond what you think possible.

Now take it 10X.

Here’s another perspective. 10X it.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing, there is a seismic shift in thinking that is happening all around you and there is going to be a seismic shift in how the world will operate. Are you going to be ready?

inspired

“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”  Leon J. Suenes

Inspire, “to be the cause of, to bring about”,  to be inspired, to bring about something new, a new idea, a new thought, a new action or a new self.    Napolean Hill wrote, “whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Inspire, “to breathe in, to take in a new air”.    When we draw in a deep breath of air we become filled with something new and fresh.   For many people the idea of taking in a deep breathe of clean fresh air only happens if they have to move more quickly than normal.   To breathe in means to take action, to take responsibility and to live fully.   It means feeling the air rush through the body with some mad purity.   The air we breathe in wants to inspire not only the blood cells but our very thoughts.

Perhaps if we were inspired we would move out of a job that no longer satisfies.   With a bit of inspiration we could create something new, something wonderful, or something majestic.   With a powerful inspirational moment we might make a change in our life that would produce meaning and significance.

What does it take to inspire you?   A bolt of lightning?

“It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ” K.T. Jong

Could we be inspired by a  colorful landscape where the wind makes the leaves dance? 

Maybe it is a quiet shore, where the waves gently tap out a magic code.  

Or could it be the  rhythmic sounds of a waterfall cascading through your thoughts.

 What inspires you?

Take time out right now, take in a deep breath and slowly exhale.   Breathe in again and this time close your eyes and let your mind just go quiet, what do you see, what do you hear, what inspirational thought did you hold in  your hand?

Maybe it takes a different perspective … take a look.  Inspired?

Take a moment and see what your mind can conceive and believe.

be

“We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have—for their usefulness.”  Thomas Merton

Much of what we are is a reflection of what we do.   Doing doesn’t leave much time for creating something new.     For so much of our lives we are focused on generating what we believe to be an image of success.  Our identity is wrapped up in what we do not in who we are.    It is easy to hide in your identity of the past or your  identity of the future.    Our identify becomes a habit, a habit we support with the accolades of those we impress.

Og Mandino writes, “the point is to learn to find  those things that let your feel exhilarated and alive”.    The point is at some place in our life we stopped taking risks, stopped putting in that extra effort and stopped living.    Stepping outside of habit requires us to:

1. Be creative

2. Be concerned

3. Be courageous

4. Be caring

5. Be alive

6. Be passionate

7. Be enthusiastic

Define your identity in terms of your “being”.   What would your identity be?   Choose the words that state boldly who you are.   Leave the words “hope” and “if” by the wayside and choose powerful words that describe who you will be and who you are.

Don’t ask permission to “be”, just start being.

“I believe life is to be lived, not worked, enjoyed, not agonized, loved, not hated.” Leland Bartlett

what is your personal mission?

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” – Viktor E. Frankl

What is your purpose?   For  many people having a purpose other than getting through the day is a thought that they have never entertained.   What is  your purpose?

Purpose is a driving force, a reason, a passionate desire, a legacy, a story and an internal motivation to do something that matters.    It is amazing that most people haven’t taken the time to discover their purpose.   Without a purpose life loses some of its meaning.   Work becomes a way to pass time, to collect some money and to continue to exist.   Life becomes a series of routine activities that has no meaning.   Eventually those without a purpose wake up one morning and wonder what life is all about.   What is my purpose?

There is an intrinsic purpose to life of course but there is also something deeper and more meaningful to purpose other than to exist.    People without purpose feel like they are lost.   They feel like they are just going through the motions of life and feeling less and less engaged in life as each day passes by.      That often means that whatever they are doing they are doing because they feel like they “have to”.

Where do you start?   If you have no idea of how to identify what your purpose is then it’s time to take out a piece of paper.   Divide the paper in half along the vertical axis.    On the left hand side of the paper list your strengths, the things you are naturally good at.  Identify the things that come easily to you.    Those will be things that just are easy for you to do or to learn.

On the right hand side of the paper list the things that you like to do.  These will be interesting things, perhaps reading, exercising,  or whatever those things are that you like to do.

Now you have a list of things that come naturally to you, or strengths, and a list of things that you like to do.

From those lists circle the things that are the most interesting, most energizing and most consistent in  your life.   What do you find yourself naturally doing?  What things do you do that makes time just fly by?

For those things that didn’t get circled put a box around the things that you would do if money or time were no object.   Maybe these things are things you are curious about that you want to know more about but just haven’t found time to do.

Using your core strengths which ones speak to “who” you are the most strongly.  These could be things that go to the core of your being.   They might be, your “to be” statements.    My purpose is to be ” _____________________ ” something.  What is that something?

Next, define what it is you want “to do”.   What is the activity that you will undertake.    ”To do work that makes a difference in the world”  or “to work with people ” or ___________________.

And then we take the to be and to do and culminate with a “so that”.  Why do you want to do that.   ” … so that I can positively influence those closest to me”  or “so that I can make a difference in ____________”.   The “so that” summarizes your ” to do” and “to be” statements into a result.    That result is your “why”, your purpose and that will be your unique contribution.   Your purpose lived out will be your legacy.

“My life is my message.”  Gandhi

story

“Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.”
Salman Rushdie

What is the truth about that quote you just read?

What is your story?   What from your past great, exciting, memorable, fun or filled with happiness?   Find two or three things from your past that you found some real enjoyment in and write those things down.  To help fill out these sentence stems:

1. In the past I have really enjoyed _______________________________.

2. One of my most memorable events was __________________________.

3. My best day ever was ______________________________________.

4. My best day will be _______________________________________.

What is your story?   What do you want your story to be?

If you story is currently not filling you with joy and happiness then maybe it is time to rewrite the upcoming pages in your journal of life.

Here are some ways to get back into your story.  If you are feeling depressed, anxious, uncertain, worried, or  you just don’t feel like you have much energy then take a moment and (turn off the TV, listen to the silence):

1. Stand up, yes stand up right now.

2.  Take in a deep breath, in through the nose, make it deep, make it full, make it filling.

3. Let that breath out through the mouth and feel the air pass by your lips.   Let it whoooooosh out of you.

2. OK, take another deep cleansing breath.   Breath in deep, breath in long, fill up those lungs with air… all the way now.   Fill and hold for a few seconds.

3. Let the air whoooooooosh out … feel it go, and push out the air that is at the bottom of the lungs, just let it all go out.

4.  And one more time, let that living giving air in, in all the way.

5. Pause, and let it rush past your lips, feel that air move by and feel what it did for all the cells in your body.   You cells were asking for oxygen, and you gave them something that they really needed.

With new air in your body see if you can create some new positive thoughts.   Think about a favorite sunset, or a favorite bunch of flowers, or a favorite sceene.  Imagine being there right now and watching that sceene unfold before your ideas.  Feel the warm embrace of the wind and let the moment settle in around you like a light coat.  Smell the fragrance of the flowers, let that smell linger right on the edge of your mind.   Listen to the beating wings of a butterfly, hear the sounds, hear that gentle whisper.

Now lift your self up, push up yourself with your feet, push upward, push, push and raise your height.   Look, you can see just bit farther.   What do you see in your mind.   What scenes are you sensing?

Take in another deep breath, let the air flow in, let it flow in and then let out the air with a whoosh …. let it all go.

Now take a moment and smile, think about those times you have smiled before.  What are the stories behind those smiles, those times of intense laughter.   Live in those thoughts right now.

If you are creative take those thoughts and use them to make something new.  Carve new words in a journal.   Splash some color on a canvas or create something using your hands.   Create something with your mind.   Read something new.   Try something new and start writing your story today.

Sunset Thinking by Marilyn Lott

Do you ever watch the sunset
And just sit and think about things
Just you and the sky and darkness
Giving your thoughts some wings

Perhaps you’ve got some troubles
And don’t know what to do
Or you just plain need to get away
To spend a little time with you

Sunset beauty makes you feel as though
Your life has meaning after all
To see a sight so extraordinary
Makes you feel capable, strong and tall

It’s funny how flashes of color
Like a sunset or sunrise can inspire
It can calm your inner self a bit
It’s a scene you can never tire

The serenity gives you a chance
To put things in perspective
Life can be overwhelming at times
And a sunrise can be reflective

So when the sky lights up next time
Let your gaze do some drinking
Soak up all the amazing sights
And do some sunset thinking!

to live means to ….

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Harold Whitman

One of the phrases I hear quite often is “If I”.   If I had more money my life would be better.  If I had a better job my life would be better.  ”If I”.   It’s a slow death sentence to an unlived life.

What would happen if you replaced “If I” with “When I”.   Not “if I” could do this or that, but rather “When I”.   Take control of your life.  Instead of living life as if each moment were a mystery start creating a vision statement.    Take that vision statement and translate that into a set of goals that extent out 5 to 10 years.   Write down the goals in “BIG”  letters, yes big letters.   Make it visible to you and to others.  Let them know you are going to go “BIG” and start living your life as you really want to.

Living BIG doesn’t mean living foolishly it means creating a set of plans that are achievable, doable and lead towards your vision.   It means living with constancy of purpose and having the ability to work through the hard times.  It means celebrating success along the way even if it is only a small, small step.   Moving forward is not always easy so be patient and keep pushing forward.    It is those who break through those barriers and hurdle the trials that reach their vision.

When a vision, a compelling vision is reached it doesn’t mean that it is the end.  It really is just a new beginning.  When the vision is realized a new vision, a new mission is created that will raise you to a new level of living.

How do you start living?  (If you need a clue watch the video)

1. Make a commitment to yourself that you will define your purpose.

2. Create that purpose for your life.
- Take a walk and bring with you a pad of paper.  Find a place where you can be alone and in the quiet, in the serenity of the moment think about what you really want to do and be.   Write down your thoughts and observe trends, patterns and ideas.   What is the same about them and what is unique?   Star the ones that make your heart beat a bit faster.
- Refine the list, get the key things from your list.  Put the  ”doables” in one column and put the “reach for the stars” in another and put the routine items in a third column.
- What made it into the “reach for the stars column”.?
- Choose the most compelling, most awesome, most powerful ideas and write a goal statement.

-   I am going to ________________________ in 5 years.
- Write a story that describes this ultimate dream of yours.   What does it really look like to you.   What will it take to make it real?   What new skills will you need?  What risks will you take?   What will require change?
-  Be clear about what you want.   Be crystal clear.

3. Tell others what you are going to do or change.  Make it BIG.

4. Make it real  (start doing)

5.  Give of yourself to others.

When you create your “Start Living Plan” you may notice that you pull back from it believing it isn’t possible or it is foolish to believe in such great things.   Work towards the goal, even if it is only for 15 minutes a day.  Take a few minutes each day and work on the goal.   Turn off the distractions, the TV or whatever pushes you away from the pursuit of the dream.   If you want the dream to be realized sooner put more effort into it.

If you aren’t sure which way to go, enlist a coach to work with you.   A coach can hold you accountable and keep those commitments in the forefront of your mind.  Fighting the battle alone is one of the reasons so many people give up on their dreams before they start.   Be one of the ones that makes your dream come real.

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”  Brian Tracy