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The career journey below was taught through the life experiences
of coolest gardeners of our time. My favorite gardeners are
Albert Einstein, Joseph Campbell, Buckminster Fuller, Nicholas Lore,
and of course, Chancey Gardener himself (Peter Sellers in the
film "Being There").
As they sometimes say on TV, "just do it." Well,
most of us who have tried this have learned through experience
that doing something and sticking to it requires a promise. The
first step to getting anything you want is to look at where you
are, decide if it's what you still want, and commit to making
a well-thought-out choice.
The Careerfinder Program . . . can help you choose the perfect career path
What's important to me? What do I value most? What comes naturally
to me? What do I love about the world around me? What would I
die for?
If you asked these questions in preparation for a career choice,
you're probably in a career you love. If not, then huddle up.
The most common career-from-hell story has a giant sucking sound,
which is the life energy being sucked out of you for a JOB that just pays
the bills. Is your career something you do to make more money
for what you really want on weekends? If you are not satisfied
with your career, it's probably time to decide if you need to
change careers or change what "career" means to you.
Many people are in unsatisfying careers because they unintentionally set
out to have it that way. If you've set up your life where
"work" is separated from what you most want to do,
then no matter how hard you try, satisfaction will be always
be somewhere over the rainbow.
Answering "yes" to any one of the following checks
is a sign that you may be ready for a change:
- Getting up in the morning to go work is a drag, so I stay
in bed and play with the snooze alarm as long as possible.
- I've become 100% fully committed to going somewhere I don't
fully enjoy to pay my bills.
- While I'm at work, I worry a great deal about other people
finding out that I don't want to be there, and pretend to be
enjoying what I do.
- I sit in my cube trying to look busy. The highlight of my
day is to cynically complain that the company doesn't lay out
a career path for me.
- I do a good job when I have to, sometimes I'll go the extra
mile, but only because it's my duty.
- I live for the weekend and get upset if it rains on "my"
precious time.
- The Bill Murray character in the movie "Groundhog Day"
reminds me of my own life, for real.
The next step is to ask yourself why you may be compromising
what's important to you. What's stopping you from being, doing,
and having what you want? What do you really want out of a career?
Can you be alive and energized from when you get up in the morning
until you go to bed at night?
The Career Change Program . . . can help you custom design
and choose the perfect career path
Understand your past, leave it there, and get clear on who
you are now. I laugh out loud when I see people battling each other on the beltway here in Washington, DC,
"you idiot, you cut me off!" Traffic is a fact of life
in the big city, and people will probably always do stupid things
to get home five seconds faster. But what's important here is how
we react to this scenario. Human beings have a special gift,
we love to replay our past and then react as if it's actually
happening again. We do this so well that we don't even know we're
doing it. It amazes me at how many people interpret beltway madness
as a personal offense. If we're really seeing what is happening
in the present situation, we would probably still get angry,
but we would also realize the inevitability of most events and
not be personally attacked by them. Getting clear on what you
want now is possible if you are living in the "present"
more often. Doing this requires a different twist on understanding
your mind. Our mind loves to wonder around wildly between past
memories and future fantasies all day long. When something happens
on the beltway we don't like, we download our favorite old "self-protect"
programming (we interpret what happened as a personal offense)
and react as if the past event is happening again. The key to
making choices that satisfy you now is to notice this old, stale
programming and actively use your brain to make internal changes
in how you relate to yourself and the world around you.
Your perfect career is in part, a reflection what's already
there. What are you? Put the classifieds on the back shelf for awhile; you'll drive
yourself nuts trying to find a career that fits you in the newspaper.
By looking outward first, you put the possibility of finding what
you want in someone else's hands. Even if you land an interview,
if your underlying attitude is, "what can you do for me,"
you'll probably get booted out on the door step. Take a moment
to watch people who know what they really want, their enthusiasm
communicates more than their credentials. At some point you will
have to reach out and explore the job market, but you'll be much
more potent if you go with someone you really know, and that's
you. So before you go looking, start a research project to see
what's already there. Watch, listen, and notice your
daily actions, especially where you are enjoying yourself. Somewhere in your
life, you're probably already doing what comes naturally. Why
not get paid to do what you do best?
Build your future career one piece at a time, and commit to
each piece as you go. Most of us try to take one big leap from high school into a career.
This is hard to do, and for many people, very short-sighted.
Trying to decide on what to do with your life in one big step
is what freezes people from making positive changes; we're really
afraid of jumping into the wrong place. It's easier to learn
about yourself and the world a little at a time and begin choosing
smaller pieces of your career and lifestyle. You would be surprised
if you knew that Albert Einstein spent a lifetime defining his
career path. He worked as a patent clerk for much of his earlier
career while he developed the theories that lead to his full-time
passion. Living a lifetime like this is usually outside of what
we see as possible for ourselves. We spend a lot of time and
energy trying to find an "instant" career rather than
making meaningful commitments as we grow. From the outside Einstein
may look like a career physicist, but inwardly he was driven
by his commitment to explore the nature of reality for the
benefit of mankind. Little by little, we can commit to what we
love as we learn about ourselves and what is important to us.
Make smaller commitments, "I'm going to work at home and
wear nothing but my underwear!" that will lead you on a
path that is uniquely yours. Finding a fulfilling career, or
finding yourself, is tough work. Start by making small commitments
to what you must have as part of your career and lifestyle.
Use your imagination to integrate your definite commitments,
values, dreams, desires, and natural abilities into the perfect
day.
An interesting thing happens to people when they clean out the
cob webs and allow themselves to dream a little. Dreams are often
thought of as far-reaching fantasies that should be dismissed
as impractical. However, our imagination can be actively used
as a tool to create a detailed blueprint of a future possibility.
The clearer we can see this blueprint in our minds eye, what
it looks like, sounds like, and feels like, the easier it is
to make it happen. Most of our inventions were born this way,
and if you think back, most of what you've achieved in your life
was probably born from a detailed image in your mind. People
who become brain surgeons once imagined themselves in long white
coats playing with drill bits. People who become urologists image
themselves . . . well, you get the point! The key thing about
a future vision is "what it does" to you now, it gives
you meaning and puts you in motion. The vision by itself is just
a possibility. An exciting possibility is what stirs us to act
and make our vision real. Our vision works for us by creating
positive tension, a "gap" between "what is"
and "what's possible." Long-term fulfillment is possible
by keeping the gap open, that is, always stretching what's possible.
Your career can be as exciting and fulfilling as you dare to
imagine it. As Einstein said, "Our imagination is a preview
for what's to come."
Experiment with your career vision, try it on, research it,
talk to people doing it, and be it. With definite commitments, you can effectively begin reaching
out to the world to see what's on your path. You are now ready
to do some solid research to get more clarity. The reality check
is your "experiment," go check out your new career
choice to see if it fits as well as you hoped. A short cut to
learning more about your career vision is to find the people
already doing it and go talk to them. You might even find a mentor
who is anxious to coach you along. When I first started out in
the career coaching business, I began taking classes in a human
behavior and development program, not for the degree, but to
be around people who care about human excellence. After a few
graduate courses, my contribution to the career counseling world
had grown considerably more clear, and I loved every minute of
my research.
Repeat the career path adventure process, knowing that clarity
comes when it does. Nature teaches us a wonderful lesson, life moves in cycles. The
seasons are nature's most convincing demonstration of the birth,
growth, blossoming, and renewal process. Our world can be seen
as a living system that is on a never ending self renewal cycle,
and we (as members of the planet) are also living systems striving
to grow, learn, and renew. Knowing this is how nature works,
we can joyfully go after what we want and be "OK" with
our natural growth rate. Our careers grow as fast as we do, the
more we know about who we are and how to put this in action,
the more we can ask the people around us to help out.
Make a career choice and commit to making it happen. Don't wait for the future to happen to you.
The day comes when you are ready to make your choice. This is
a magnificent day because it celebrates your creation. The career
choice you make comes easy after thoroughly getting to know yourself.
There comes a point when you realize your commitments and abilities
so clearly that you have nothing left to do except BE yourself.
Pathfinders can help you decide on your career path . . .
contact Anthony Spadafore . . .
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