Fearless Fabulous Project

I love beautiful pictures of nature. Video has become so ubiquitous of late what with YouTube and the promos pushed via email and other Internet access, but this short The Nature of Success film combines stunning images with inspirational messages.

Think about how these ideas apply to your life, and the steps you could take today to move yourself forward with grace and strength and wisdom. The natural order of things.

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nature of success, inspirational messages

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

This oddly riveting documentary, “Rivers & Tides”, features the work?of Scottish sculptor Andy Wordsworthy. He works exclusively?outdoors in open fields, along rivers and creeks, at the shore,?and in the forest using all natural materials.

Claiming that “the work makes itself,” Goldsworthy manipulates?ice, driftwood, bracken, leaves, stone, dirt and snow to create?highly unusual and compelling works. He moves forward bit by bit?with his sculptures, almost without pause. Some of his work is?produced at the convergence of river and sea, so it is?inevitable that the rising tide will alter and ultimately?destroy his work within a short period of time.

“Rivers & Tides” won the Golden Gate Award Grand Prize – Best?Documentary at the 2003 San Francisco International Film?Festival. Watch a video clip on You-Tube.

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sculpture, Andy Goldsworthy, natural materials

Each of us determines the quality of each day of our lives. We get up and to a large degree choose how we will spend our time. Most of us must work, but we generally have choices about the kind of work. Many of us have family obligations, but we can decide how to fulfill them. We all have an amount of empty time each day, but how we fill it varies tremendously.

I believe it is in our power to fill each day with creative expression. I don’t mean that it’s necessary to physically “make” something, a tangible object to look at and say “I did that.” It’s possible, but I’m actually challenging you to live all of your life creatively, looking for opportunities to infuse your tasks, chores, and free time with imagination and enthusiasm.

Commit to Begin

A good place to start living creatively is to ask “How could I make my life more enjoyable?” You don’t always have to put fun at the end of the day or the project. Is there a way to infuse your day with better activities? Would it be more productive to do things in a different order? Would the very act of “mixing it up” contribute to new insights and perspective?

Decide that whatever is left of today will be more creative. Express yourself. Take a few minutes from your work to write in your journal or draft a haiku poem that reflects something that happened earlier today. Sing along with the radio, or turn it off and make up your own song as you drive home from work. Arrange some freshly cut flowers or add a new spice as you prepare dinner.

Trusting Imagination & Intuition

Life can be messy, complicated, and disappointing. And sometimes we have no control over what happens. But your instincts and your gut can guide you to the better choices, to more satisfaction, to greater success.

Too often we shut down the very clues that we receive naturally, because we don’t trust our innate sources of imagination or deep knowledge of what would improve our lives from moment to moment. We make things so much more difficult than they need to be.

Your already know what to do. When new ideas or images flash in your mind or you have an inkling about how to do something, trust those messages. To fully revel in what we imagine and allow ourselves to feel everything, is to live creatively.

No Need for Approval

Approval is subjective and a made up concept, just like rules. Others only have the power we give them to interpret or evaluate what we make, what we say, and what we do.

You get to decide if anyone is qualified to evaluate your desires, projects, and progress. If you don’t seek approval, you don’t have to concern yourself with letting others down or not meeting their expectations.

Taking Chances

Life builds on itself one layer at a time, just like words in a story, paint on a canvas, or experiences shared in a relationship. Standing still and never trying new things is to remain stagnant. And once you stop taking chances, you begin to die a little bit each day.

Add orange to the sweater you are knitting. Leave out the meat and add a new vegetable to your favorite casserole recipe. Sign up for a volunteer vacation in South America. Make up a game to occupy the downtime during a traffic jam. You can’t know if something will work out until you try it.

Let Go of the Outcome

Seeking perfection causes stress and tension. That isn’t to say that improving a skill or method is unfulfilling or unimportant. However, not everything you do or create has to be top notch. Seeking perfection can get in the way of enjoying an activity. That’s why so may people give up on learning how to play a musical instrument or a foreign language. There is no test when you enjoy learning for its own sake.

Doing can be its own reward with the end product, if there is one, wonderful enough. Most everyone deeply appreciates hand-made gifts. Think fresh baked biscuits for strawberry shortcake instead of those squishy sponge patties. I’d take home-baked every time.

Your Own Pleasure

We have the power to creatively infuse our lives with pleasure at almost every turn. You don’t need money to have rich and interesting friendships. You don’t need special equipment and supplies to make a delicious and even exotic meal for your family. You don’t need permission to wear a colorful scarf to work.

Seek out fancy as you move through your life. Enjoy the way things look and taste. Tell people how you feel. Do make things with your hands. Notice how your body feels as you move it different ways. Love that everything is simply a work in progress, that you can change your mind, and that you can make each day more beautiful.

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express your creativity,,,, creative expression, Instinct, imagination

As I think about our Memorial Day holiday weekend and what we’ve got planned, it occurred to me that it’s a pretty good mix. It’s also a metaphor or model for moving effectively forward in life. It works whether you’re aiming for a good time or just trying to get things done. I’ll use the screen of this weekend and an upcoming vacation to show what I mean.

Clean Out Clutter

The need to do this is so obvious with the yard sale preparations. We are clearing out the old stuff, so that we can breathe! The belongings we’ve got stashed down the hill in the garage represent past lives and earlier preferences, and provide plenty of evidence of long-abandoned projects. In order for us to get clear to embrace our ”now” and future plans, we’ve got to ditch the dead weight.

It’s equally valid when planning for a vacation. You select the very few things you’ll need to provide comfort and to suit your immediate, short-term needs. You don’t pack things you won’t have time for or that have to do with the very things you left behind in order to relax and explore new territory.

Just thinking about all the stuff takes up space in our minds, and makes it difficult to have new ides and the freedom to be creative and expansive.

Is your current life an extended vacation, or have you moved on to a new phase. Do you really need the albatross of the past dogging your new plans and intentions? Think about how you could lighten your load before you begin your next adventure.

Build Future Memories

On Sunday, we’re going to plant seeds and seedlings in our vegetable gardens and place annuals in the whiskey barrels out by the wood shed. If I can get away with it, I may sneak in a flowering bush or two.

We’re doing this with faith in and anticipation for what we are building: a steady stream of salad and stew parts, pie ingredients, and herbs to flavor our home-cooked meals and to scent our living space.

As we plan our Dominican Republic vacation for mid-June, we’re similarly collecting the good reads, sunny clothes, and warm weather toys (snorkeling, yeah!) to create an experience that matches our vision for relaxation and fun.

I’m a strong believer in always having something dangling out in the future as reward for good work and behavior. That’s why I like tasks like gardening and planning vacations; they are shared and about full-throttle enjoyment.

Learn from the Previous Show

On Monday, we’re spending the “holiday” day learning from what we’ve been doing lately, so that we can improve our productivity and satisfaction from work. We’ve actively been pursuing a lifestyle where we get to work half-time at our passions and half-time in our shared work in marketing and small business development.

Doing and doing with no time for reflection, pretty much assures that we’’ll charge ahead with so-so results and fulfillment from our efforts. We’ll get things done, but may miss the opportunity to fine-tune to do better work and have more fun.

Photographs and other souvenirs collected from trips are useful tools in a similar process. They serve as reminders and evidence of what worked and what falls into the “let’s never do that again!” category.

By considering the full value of past experience, we can plan for more successful projects and trips in the future. We can clear out what failed to work, build in what we think has a better chance the next time around, and then we can carefully observe what happens the next time.

Clean, Build, Learn… and repeat. Works for me.

Think about what it would be like to start a project or plan with this framework in mind. Do you think you’d have a better outcome? Does it sound like more work? How do you go about your work and life?

Let me know what you think or share a story from your experience.