Fearless Fabulous Project

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 week marks the one-year anniversary of my leaving a corporate communications job where I’d spent more than six years building an internal team of talented professionals, creating standards and protocols, and managing the creation and production of all kinds of publications and products.

That time in my life was rewarding and I’ll never regret my investment of time to learn, grow, and master new skills. Sometimes it was hard and I didn’t know if I would succeed or not. Sometimes I felt like quitting, but I persevered and experienced great satisfaction in eventually making things work smoothly and producing things on schedule.

I also don’t regret my choice to leave when I did. I spent a significant amount of time soul searching during the months leading up to my departure, and I knew when the time had come to move on to the next “right” thing for me.

My life has changed so much in one year, and I am glad I had the courage to make changes, try new things, and jump back into “beginner’s mind.” By putting myself on the line again, I’ve set things in motion that will produce big results—and satisfaction—in the near future. More importantly, I trusted my instincts and acted on my vision of the quality of life I wanted. Now I’m turning my dreams into reality.

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follow your bliss, self-employment

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

I want me one of those!

Seriously, Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek, is based on the premise that our larger lives shouldn’t or needn’t be subservient to our work… or more specifically our jobs.

The book is divided into four sections: Definition (determining the dreams of having, being and doing, and calculating the resulting Target Monthly Income and timelines for accomplishment), Elimination (getting rid of all the extraneous and unimportant), Automation (subtracting you from the need to do everything), and Liberation (how to spend all of your freed up time).

You could read this simply as a hypothetical game plan for work avoidance. However, Ferris is more serious than wanting a bestseller with a catchy name. He really believes that our lives have so much more possibility for fulfillment and adventure, and that learning and experiencing new things is necessary expression of what makes us tick.??So, if the idea of outsourcing big chunks of your routine life, enjoying mini-retirements (instead of waiting for the end), and escaping paralysis appeals to you, get The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

If nothing else, this book will give you specific steps to reclaim pockets of time. With it as a guide, you can think about why you are holding back from living the life that you want.

I’m going to try the ideas in the book this summer, and I’ll report out after Labor Day.

Technorati Tags:
freedom from schedules, independence, outsourcing work, automating tasks, defining your ideal life, Tim Ferris, Target Monthly Income