Fearless Fabulous Project

The Dip: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) is a great book, simple yet complicated and deep at the same time. Whether you’ve felt stagnant in a job or a relationship, you’ll recognize the tell-tale signs Godin discusses in this short, insightful book.Godin provides a lens for stepping back to assess whether it’s better to hunker down and work through the challenging times (your success may be just around the bend) or to cut losses and redirect energies and time to more productive endeavors.

The Dip, as Godin puts it, is “the long slog between starting and mastery.” Learning how to decipher when to stick it out and when to move on may be one of the most important life skills.

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quitting

It’s Monday and you want to jump out of your skin. By the time Friday rolls around, you tender murderous thoughts toward your colleagues or boss. The wear and strain of dragging yourself to your current workplace each day is akin to the dread of a dentist drill.

Aside from the ever-present need to earn sufficient money to support your commitments and lifestyle, often our professional identity and presence in the world is tied up in our definition of “work” as well as where and for whom we do it.
The bottom line can be assessed with two questions. Will the path you are on eventually lead to personal satisfaction and pride in your efforts? Are you good enough–or could you apply yourself more seriously and consistently to become good enough–to meet your definition of contribution and reward?

Tearing You Down Instead of Building You Up

Instead of growing professionally and finding opportunity in the projects and responsibilities presented to you, are you feeling like your skills are getting stale or that you may be falling behind technology and current business thinking?

Assess what is available to you and whether with a bit of effort you could make more of the time you invest in your job. Are there additional resources you could tap? Can you meet with your boss to consider a redefinition of your role and daily tasks? Does your employer have other positions you could move to laterally if not up the ladder?

You are responsible for how you feel. You also bear the weight of responsibility or your own behavior. Are you guilty of self-sabotaging chances for recognition, more challenging assignments, and even advancement? When we fail to deal with minor issues, they can blossom into bad habits, feeing sorry for ourselves, and sloppy work that only serves to undermine our ability to to feel good about our work and contribution.

Putting Off the Vision that Calls to You

Do you see yourself in a different environment, accomplishing something personally important and fulfilling? Is there a completely different way of “being” that requires changing several aspects of your life, not just those related to work?

Waiting to fulfill a personal mission or ambition can make us feel small and less powerful. It’s not so much a matter of striking while the iron is hot, but rather acting in our own best interest to achieve what will make our spirits sour. When we deprive ourselves of that experience, our internal fire to be uniquely exceptional gets snuffed out over time.

It’s critical that you separate your self-worth from the very different consideration of whether a particular job or even profession is worth your time and effort. Satisfaction in life is more complex than simply “right” work, but finding the work that sustains and fuels personal passions can be the road to self-actualization. Knowing your true talents and unique contribution, is a gift to yourself and everyone around you.

Doing “It” for Someone Else Instead of Yourself

Do you secretly resent that all of your hard work supports the reputation or image of another? Do you fantasize about how you could do the very same work — or a slightly upgraded version of it — to support yourself and your family, leaving the emotional overhead of “boss” out of the picture.

In this case, you may consider self-employment. There are numerous other considerations if you are tempted in this direction. Working for oneself is not a bed of roses; ultimately you become responsible for every failure and success from timely delivery of paper and coffee supplies to satisfied clients or customers.

However, with complete and proper preparation and a solid team of support, there is no reason anyone why anyone can’t create a satisfying and profitable business.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

If you are honest with yourself and you have considered the questions above, you may know immediately or at least feel deep down what you need to do.

You may discover or realize that it is actually you that needs a bit of alignment or total attitude readjustment. Take full advantage of professional development or enrichment opportunities, use career counseling… and actually use up all of your vacation days! Rather than stagnating in place, seek out information, challenge yourself to consider what else there is, and take very good care of yourself so that you’ll have the energy to either improve things where you are or prep the path to a new venue.

You may decide that a new job or self-employment is the path for you, though the timing may be a completely different matter. No matter how intense your current frustration, this is not the time for rash action. It sometimes feels like a great relief to abandon what drives us crazy, but the failure to prepare sufficiently for the change you dream about could have you on your knees begging for your old job back.

Enlisting the help of a coach can challenge you to navigate a course of self-discovery and determine your best options and next steps. Making any kind of change takes great effort and is stressful. You want to be at the top of your game, if or when you take the leap to something new.

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coaching, big fish, coach craft, quitting time, personal mission, right work

I received a link to this photo via Michael Bungay Stanier’s monthly newsletter. He’s the 2006 Canadian Coach of the year, and creator of the Eight Principles of Fun min-movie I shared the link to a few weeks ago.

Take a few minutes to write down all of your fears. Think about how you could virtually erase them at the end of each day. Here are some ideas:

• Take the paper they are written on and light it with a match.
• Call a friend or tell your spouse what fears you wish to let go of at the end of the day.
• Post your list to a blog or online community, and invite feedback from readers.

The process of acknowledging and owning fear is the first step to dismantling and vaporizing it. Liberate yourself from fear and lighten your load.

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Michael Bungay Stanier, lighten your load, lighten your load

To write a book is the fantasy of so many! To write the Great American Novel or to simply appreciate the heft of the “finished product,” dreamed of for so long.

Andy Wibbels, of “Blog Wild: A Guide for Small Business Blogging” and general small business development fame, is hosting an eight-week class that will meet “virtually” four times to get the dang thing done.
Write a Book in 45 Days Book-Writing Workgroup

Write a Book in 45 Days Book-Writing Workgroup

I’m using the opportunity to write the book I thought I might write in a few years to support my recently piloted—and in July to be launched—12-week Fearless, Fabulous Project coaching program. Before the end of June I need to flesh out the content from my extensive outline form, and thought the first “real”round would provide that opportunity. But then I slapped myself upside the head, and realized, “Gee, I can chase down the final outcome now, and then have more than what I need to run the groups!”

What’s even better, is I’ll be able to pull out the prose in chunks to offer up on this blog, in my ezine and in autoresponders. It will all be at my fingertips, if I kick it in the workgroup.

There are some heavy hitters of the coaching and Internet Marketing worlds have signed up: Molly Gordon and Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro to name just two. I know and have benefited from their work, and they are both gifted writers. So, I know I will be kept to the straight and narrow on fulfilling my commitments. Don’t tell anybody… but I think I’m gonna benefit from their expertise.

?I’ll need to fully develop two chapters each week to keep my schedule and reach the goal: a finished book by mid-June. It’s more than a little scary to put myself on the line this way. What if I freak out? What if I overcome my fear and fulfill this long-imagined goal?

?Can she do it? I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Fear? No kidding!

This week I’m inviting a select group of friends and colleagues to participate in my Fearless, Fabulous Project’s Research and Development Group. For 12 weeks, I will work closely with participants on ending mental constipation and taking action on long-held dreams.

This brings out into the open and makes official my own long-held desire to provide coaching as part of my work. I coached several clients years ago for a brief period, before I accepted a corporate communications position in health care. The job effectively ended my foray into coaching as my responsibilities blossomed and other interests held my attention.

But opportunities we’re naturally drawn to reappear sometimes in a better format and when we’re better prepared to explore and master them.

So, almost seven years later, I return to what I had planned way back then as a freelance writer and editor. To transition to coaching and to continue to write…but only about what interests me. [I also share a marketing and business strategy business with my husband.]

I’m braver than I used to be. Before I thought I’d need to be perfect before I could put out my shingle. Now I’m smart enough to know I need feedback and help from others. The only way I’ll get it is to put myself out there, and deal with possible criticism. Older and wiser, I “get” that suggestions for changes and improvement can only make me and my products and services stronger.

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dreams, coaching