WORK MATTERS: WHAT I DO MAKES A DIFFERENCE

When was the last time you ask yourself: Am I doing what I really love to do?

Or are you simply working hard just to pay bills and once a year, perhaps, go for a holiday with your family to “de-stress” (and come back feeling distressed that you have overspent!)?

Well, if the answer is “yes”, you are not so different from 80 percent of the population.

Sad, but true. Many people living in developed and developing countries do not like their jobs and what they do in their careers. Most are what I call just “occupying space”. They wake up in the morning, travel in the traffic jams to work, push paper and pen around or stare at the computer for the next eight to twelve hours, then go home to their real “life” – their family and home, spend some not-so-quality time there and it’s off to bed until the next day’s routine starts again. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. Decade after decade.

That was the startling conclusion I came to after nine years of working with people as an editor of a business magazine. That is no way to live (more like exist, than live), I protest! So that sparked off my passion to educate and coach people who want more out of their lives. People who want to make a difference. People who want to be sure that what they do for a living matters.

The good news is: It’s not difficult to transform from a mere employee who’s just working for a salary into a passionate, self-motivated HAPPY individual. In fact, it’s as simple as A-B-C-D. Please note that I say it’s simple, but that does not mean it’s an easy route. It takes effort and commitment, but I assure you, it’s well worth your while as this is your LIFE we’re talking about!

A. Start by ASKing yourself: What do I really want?
If you don’t know what you want out of life, whatever you’ve got has to be good enough. Like the Cat said to Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which road you take.”

So, go and sit in a quiet spot and ask yourself these questions:

1. What are you really passionate about?
2. What’s your dream job/occupation? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
3. What is missing from your current life that you must have to go forward?
4. What could you do tomorrow to get started?

As someone once said, “Passion is rhythm to the heart and music to the soul. Live your life with passion. Anything else is a compromise.”

B. Look for the BIG picture.
Now some of you, after deep reflection may decide that your current job does not give you what you want. That’s fine; at least now you know what alternative career you may want to move into.

But for most of you, changing jobs or career may not necessarily be the answer.

All you may need to do is just to change yourself and the way you think. I had one person who came to me for coaching and even after going through all the questions above, she said she didn’t know what her passion was.

She is a financial planner who liked what she was doing, but it was just okay. Now “just okay” is not passion. But at the same time, she didn’t want to do anything else – it made good income for her and she enjoys it. I told her that discovering her “passion” does not necessarily mean embarking on a new business or career. All she needed to do was to understand what in her day-to-day activities made her feel really good.

Upon reflection, she realized she felt good knowing she had made a real difference when her clients’ needs were met in times of crises. Once she started seeing the big picture in how her everyday activities can make such an important impact on other peoples’ lives, she began to feel great enthusiasm for her work.

You may be just a small cog in the wheel in the company you work for, but when you realize that the wheel will not function well without this cog, you will be able to feel real passion and see meaning in what you do.

C. COMMIT yourself to the most important project – the Reinvention of You.

How does one define commitment? To me, real commitment means you are willing to give up everything in order to achieve what you set out to do. It offers no loopholes, no “but’s and if’s”, no parachute clauses.

So, how important is living the life you really want? If you answer “yes, irrevocably so!” then no excuses only results count.

D. Just DO it!

If that’s the case, then as Nike says, just do it! Just decide what you want, determine what will get you what you want, then act! As my coach always says, “Success is not what you know; it’s what you do with you know.”

And if you still don’t know how to get started, find yourself a coach or a mentor who can be your “conscience”, your success guide and encourager.

So, go on, life’s for living. You’ve got nothing to lose – except a limited life, where nothing awesome ever happens; and everything to gain – a fulfilled life with no regrets!

Article by Jessica See, Certified Professional Trainer, NLP coach and founder of Image Coach International. For those interested in coaching, write to Jessica@imagecoach.com.sg or visit www.imagecoach.com.sg

Design Your Life

There’s an old German saying that goes, “You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.” Are you planning to just let life “happen” to you or do you plan to play an active part in designing the life you want?

Some of you may say, yes, I would like to do that, but trouble is, I don’t know how to get started. So you just go with the crowd, or take the path that’s most hassle-free. Unfortunately, more often than not, the crowd may not know where it is going, and if so, then everyone ends up like everyone else, wondering what has happened to their life many years down the road!

A lot of people tend to take life for granted. They think that by the time they are in their 40s or 50s everything will fall into place by itself.

Are you willing to take that chance? Remember, you only have one life, and you can’t turn back the clock. Life is not a full dress rehearsal; it’s only going to happen once. You can’t say, “Cut, let’s start it all over again.”

The truth is, for most people, after 20 or 30 years of working, they only discover what they do not want, without a clue as to what they really want in life.

We all know we want something. Words like financial freedom, wealth, lifestyle, are catch words everyone is using. But do they know what it actually means? Do they know what it takes to achieve that? Do they know how or where to get it?

So my advice is: take the time right now to work out a design for your life. If life was a movie, and you are the producer and actor, what role would you want to play and how would the plot unfold? Designing your life is like making a movie. You have to be able to see the end at the beginning. It may start off a little hazy, but as you continue working on it, it would become clearer and clearer. You’ve got to write the script, put in the characters. Use your imagination, let your creative juices flow.

Does it mean that what you have designed is going to be set in concrete? Certainly not. You are the producer of your life. You can change, delete, or add in anything you want in your project. But at least by doing this exercise of designing your life, you are in control of your circumstances, rather than become a victim of them.

Here are some simple steps to help you get started!

1. Find a nice quiet spot where you will be undisturbed for at least 20 minutes.
2. Equip yourself with a pencil and a new note pad that will become your “Life Book”.
3. Draw a time line across a page, from now to say five years on.
4. At the left end of the time line, write “Present State”; at the right end, write “Desired State”.
5. On the left end, describe as accurately as you can your Present State. Ask questions like:
a. What am I doing now?
b. What is my income, if any?
c. Do I like what I do?
6. On the right side, under Desired State, describe as clearly as you can what you would like to see five years from now. Ask yourself, if I can’t fail…
a. What do I really want to be?
b. What do I want to have?
c. What will my life be like?
7. Between the Present State and Desired State mark on the time line
a. What must I do to get what I want?
b. Who can help me?
c. What skills do I need?
d. What resources do I need?

The first time you may not get all the answers you want. If you do this exercise daily for some time, I can guarantee you that you will end up with a pretty good design for your life. You will know where to get what you want, what to do, who can help you and so on.

You don’t stop working on your project to design your life. I recommend you to keep going back to the “Life Book” you have created; it’s a “project in progress”.

Take charge of your life now. If not now, when?
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Article is contributed by Patrick Lim, a Certified Professional Trainer, and Certified Professional Coach (IPMA UK) and COO of Institute of Business Coaches To attend a free consultation on how you can impact many lives as a professional coach or for life coaching, write to patricklim@masteryasia.com or visit www.institutebusinesscoaches.com

Dare to Dream

If you have a dream, give it a chance to happen. - Richard de Vos

Dreams do come true… for a few “lucky” people, perhaps one in a hundred or a thousand. For the rest of the population, not only do they not achieve their dreams, many do not even dare to dream! So why are some people able to achieve their dreams while the majority fail to do so? Is it really a matter of luck? Of course not! And neither is it simply a matter of IQ, what family we were born into, what colour or race we are, or even what circumstances or opportunities life deals us.

The good news is: dreams do come true – and not by accident or by pure luck. We can all make our dreams come true by applying a set of strategies that can be easily learned and put into practice by anyone, regardless of background, education level or circumstances. Now if you have gotten even this far in picking up this book, your chances of making your dream come true are indeed very high.

Most of us started off in life with dreams, some with huge dreams. At ten or fifteen, some of us are declaring to all who care to listen, “When I grow up, I’m going to be the best dancer in the world,” or “I’m going to marry a Prince Charming and live in the most beautiful castle,” or for the guys, “I’m going to be the richest man in the world!” But unfortunately as the years catch up with us, many of those dreams get shrouded by doubts of our own ability, disillusion with the world, people around us telling us, “Hey, be realistic! Just get yourself a good job, work hard and you’ll be OK.” For many, the dream simply dissipates, and with it, the will to shape our destinies.

The other day, I heard a pastor say, “All of us are born with great potential. It’s up to us whether that potential reaches fulfillment or disintegration.” How very true.

What you need to do right now is to unshackle your mind and set it free from the chains you have put upon it. We want you to dare to dream again. And not only to dream, but to make those dreams come true!