Looking to have greater impact, bring more value, or reach more people? It doesn’t have to be hard, and it’s probably easier than you imagined.
Take a peek and see what you might want to try out this year:
This Will Be the Year I Enjoy the Holidays
Every year, I set out in mid-November to “enjoy the holiday season.” To me, that means not rushing, stressing, and feeling pulled to complete so many obligations. Instead, I imagine watching as many corny Christmas movies as I want, wrapping gifts with time to spare, being done with shopping before the stores swell with holiday shoppers, and really relishing the time with friends and family. Well, hahahaha (or should I say Ho Ho Ho?) It never happens.
BUT…
This year, I’m on track to really do this.
Running for office left me with a very open calendar in November and December because I didn’t know if I’d be training for taking office, finding staff for a January inauguration, and setting up my life for this new honored position. With the results not being what I’d hoped, I had November and December available to me like never before.
It seems so obvious, but what was wrong all those other times, (and even what was wrong with my coaching advice for years) was that being concrete about where one could say “no” is just not enough. It’s enough to help enjoy the holi-DAY, a special event here or there, but not enough to create a season that is really fun and joyful.
Shopping early enough to avoid crowds, taking my time with all the things that used to be last minute, really indulging in connecting with people who want to get together before the year is out, and having the time to plan and strategize the new year has been like pressing “pause” on the usual holiday chaos. It’s truly a pleasure.
This year’s schedule was an unintended bonus, and I now know what it feels like to have the holiday season I’ve always intended. Once we feel it, we have sense memory. Our body remembers, and so will our cognitive memory. We can’t unknow what we now know!
So, if I were to make this repeatable and shareable so you can do it too, I’d say:
- Move a lot of your business planning to early fall.
- Keep your days light in November and December (allows for spontaneity).
- Take advantage of stores being open very early (before work or right after school drop off!)
- Bake your goodies early and freeze them.
- On any night that you cook, make double so you’ve saved yourself time another night.
- Decorate early too. It feels like holiday longer!
- Chill. Just ratchet down the holiday hysteria and give up perfection … it ain’t happening!
I hope there’s still time to put this in place for the last two weeks of the year, but if not, start planning for the next. It takes that much intentionality. I promise it’s worth it.
And while you’re at it, planning your new year should include our Now What? Home Study Kit if you are up for a career shift.
Brutal Truths You May Want to Consider
As you are facing your “Now what?”
Here are some really great reality checks that might help you decide where you want to focus your time and energy.
Time – it’s precious.
Life – it’s short.
If you accept that, how might your choices look different?
Strip Away Your Past – Reinvent Your Future
Pun intended!
Here’s how one woman changed everything to follow a new career path that better suited her.
How to Reinvent Yourself at Any Age
Allow Your Intuition to Lead
When contemplating a career change, sometimes the mind is only part of the decision-making team.
Here are some ways to tap your intuition about when it’s time to leave your current situation, and what might be next.
Allow your intuition to connect you to the “who” you are becoming.
Shifting Gears to Fulfill a Childhood Dream
No role models.
No expectation to even go to college.
A dream beaten out of him.
And yet, this dream did not entirely disappear, and now this man is able to say, “Finally, I am free of this, and I can go after something I’ve always wanted.”
Car mechanic shifts gears, becomes a doctor at age 47 and helps address shortage of black doctors
Dare to Dream!
Bottom line: “Life is short. Our days are numbered, so why spend them doing something we don’t love? It’s time to make a decision to go for it.”
If you don’t try, you’ll never find out what might be possible. You have one life. Don’t miss it!
Fumbling at Forty?
It happens . . . things go along well for a couple of decades, and suddenly you find life has happened in unexpected ways, and you’re not sure how to enter a new career path.
Be gentle with yourself as you begin moving forward. Here are some things to consider to support you along the way.
I’m Ashamed of My Work History and Want to Make a Career Change at 40
Might it be Time for a Change?
Sometimes we have an inkling that it’s time to look for a new career, but we don’t quite trust it.
Here are some clues that it might be time to pay attention and take some steps toward exploring “now what?”
Trapped With No Way Out
When all you can see is what’s right in front of you, it’s very hard to be creative. You may be painfully aware that you can’t stand what you are doing for work right now and still be utterly unable to see any other options. It’s a phenomenon that I see over and over again as I talk to people who can’t find the incentive to stay where they are but have no idea what else they could do.
Sometimes it seems that a career is on a trajectory similar to a laboratory mouse which has to travel straight in a narrow lane from one end of the box to the other. There’s no way to see over the walls of the lane to other possible paths, and all you can see is what is right in front of you. There is no way out and only one way to go – straight forward – on the same path you’ve been traveling.
Of course, this is an incorrect assumption, but it is also a very hard trap to get out of on your own. The key is to understand what choices got you in the box. How did you end up with only one pathway?
It may have been the motivation to please your family or the intent to see a strong suit through. It could have been that you had to prove something to yourself or to others or that you didn’t think you could attain what you truly wanted. There are so many reason we find ourselves cornered by our resume and can’t see any other feasible way to go.
Josh was out of work when he hired me to help him figure out what was next. He detested his old job and knew he didn’t want to go back to the same type of work, but he could not get out of the one-way lane. The salary of his old kind of work was very alluring, but he would admit that the thought of doing the same thing again was mind numbing.
It took a lot of chiseling away at the barrier he had put around the truth of what he wanted. He wanted to tap into his roots as a musician. He knew that becoming a middle-aged rock star held no promise. However, we did eventually uncover many ways to combine his musical interests and business acumen to invent a totally new direction for him that had merit and were worth pursuing. He was able to get some traction exploring different possibilities.
A complete letting go is necessary. I imagine someone holding on to a ledge “white-knuckling” it. They are holding on for dear life and won’t let go. In my fictitious scenario, it’s not holding on in order to avoid falling to great injury or death, but it is with the same tenacity that people will cling to a path even while they admit they can’t stand the thought of continuing on.
Let go. Admit you don’t know what’s next AND stop running in one singular direction. Just stop and wait. Stop ignoring what is nudging you. Listen and trust it even if you’re scared. Stop and wait. You’ll know. And then, you’ll act.
I don’t believe it when people tell me they don’t know what they want to do. I think they do know but they are just too afraid to admit it.
Can we help? Let us know! We have a team of facilitators who’d love to help you find your next direction.
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