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You are here: Home / Archives for happy

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December 7, 2014 by Christine

How To Be Real

Copyright: whitetag / 123RF Stock PhotoTwo weeks ago I was at the memorial service for Ben, a friend of mine who’d died of cancer, aged 46.

I’d loved him and it was harrowing to be there.

Still, I was heartened by the sheer number of friends, colleagues and clients who’d turned up to see him off.

At the get together afterwards, we all spoke of what he’d meant to us. I’m sure if he’d been there to hear our words, he’d have cried too.

Ben knew his stuff. He worked hard. He was courageous. He was naughty. He was funny. He was caring. He was loving.

But beyond all else, in a world where so many people hide behind an invented version of themselves, he was real.

Real.

And that stayed with me beyond Ben’s Do and into the past days.

Legacy: what do you want to leave behind when you die?

You’ve probably read the same stuff I have about legacy. Maybe it’s something that’s come up for you in some of the courses, or weekend workshops you’ve attended.

What do you want your life to have been about? What is it you want to leave behind when you die?

Often the emphasis is on tangible things. Money, a business, a novel, a work of art, a movement. I must admit that’s how I used to see it.

But I’ve begun to reframe it since Ben died.

I’ve begun to feel that, like Ben, the biggest thing I could leave to others is the sense that I’d been real. That, for good or bad, I’d lived a life, true to myself and my values. And that, in the process, I’d given others implicit permission to do the same.

The big job opportunity and the myths of self-employment

Maybe I already had a sense of that emerging earlier this year when I said no to an opportunity to take my work in a different direction.

A group of friends and former colleagues are setting up a new consulting company, and I was involved in some exploratory conversations. They are great guys, and from time to time we hook up to do some great facilitation and coaching work. I got really excited about the opportunity that emerged for me, which was to lead part of the business.

If you’re a regular reader here, it might surprise you to know I’d been tempted by what was, after all, a job.

But, you know, there’s a whole lot of mythology out there about how easy it is to work for yourself. How it’s an escape from the drudgery of corporate life. How you can make up your own rules and create your own game and it’s light and happiness all the way.

You absolutely can create your own life.

But that has its own set of challenges. You have to turn up for yourself every day. You have to be very disciplined about what you will and won’t give focus to in order that you stay viable, profitable, and not working all the hours God sends.

You have to decide for yourself the bigger sense of purpose and direction you’ll follow – there’s no big organization, or brand, other than the one you create.

Sometimes that requires you to dig into yourself and to confront and challenge yourself in ways you’d really rather not.

Even if you are successful today, there’s a whole stream of tomorrow’s success you have to enable. After all, there’s no-one other than you putting a salary in your bank account every month, or whenever you decide to pay yourself.

It’s also tough sometimes to stand outside the norm and to be the person who is playing a different game.

To be the one who challenges the status quo, says things that no-one else will and trust you’ll still be profitable.

Sometimes I just ache to fit in. To be part of something bigger.

I think that consulting group caught me at a moment of questioning all that. Of believing that maybe I’d got it wrong.

I was ready to buy some new power suits, get behind a brand that was bigger than mine, and go sell it.

But I began to have doubts.

I began to look past my self-criticism and see what I’d actually created.

The truth? I’ve created a life on my terms. I do wonderful work – a mixture of corporate and individual coaching. I tend to do no more than three paid days a week. Last year I had twelve weeks holiday, traveled to six different long haul destinations, and still earned well.

Last summer I moved house and love where I’ve ended up. A city style house in a friendly village, and within easy reach of a few nice towns.

Perhaps most important of all, I have a fabulous relationship with a man I love and whose company I adore.

And I began to see the value in having created all of that.

For me. For my clients. For the world.

Yes, this takes work. Yes, I want to achieve even more and different. Yes, this takes me back to myself time and time again.

But, for me, it’s real.

Because, being real is about being who you are.

Sure, a former me could do power suits and all that stuff. And part of me still does. But she’s not all of me. And so I really saw that I couldn’t shut the creative, maverick, different kind of me out.

I took courage in both hands and spoke to my friends. I had some concern that, in deciding to be real, I’d lose their love and friendship. I’m sure that fear’s not uncommon. In fact I know it’s what often keeps people trapped.

Still, I told them that as much as I’d love to work with them, a “job” wasn’t me.

To my surprise, if anything, I think they’ve ended up respecting me even more.

What’s really worth it in the end?

I don’t know about you, but when I die, I won’t be thinking about power suits or corporate identity or whether I was an ace at this job or that. I’ll be asking myself whether the people I love knew it beyond any doubt. Beyond that, was I happy? Had I lived well? Was I true to myself? Did I do the things I wanted in life? Go to the places I wanted. Spend time with the people I wanted to spend time with?

These are the things that to me are worth living and working for.

These are the things that are real.

What about you? Where do you allow yourself to be real? Where is it more difficult? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s talk about it some more there.

 

Filed Under: Reinventing work, Self Development Tagged With: doing what you love, happy, real

November 12, 2013 by Christine

5 Warning Signs Your Self-Employed Dream Will Never See The Light Of Day

2119487_mlLook, I know.

I’ve been there.

Telling myself that I want to quit. Do my own thing. Get more balance.

While still sitting in a job that feels like family, no matter how dysfunctional, and that puts money in my bank account every month.

It can be tough to believe that not only does the grass look greener on the other side, but also that you can create it that way.

The number of people going self-employed is rising, both in the US and in the UK.

Here are 5 signs that you’re not going to be one of them any time soon:

1. You’re all talk, no action

Go on holiday, have a night out with mates, drink yourself to the bottom of another bottle of wine and you’ll tell anyone away from the office who will listen how you really want to pack in your job and do something else.

You may well have an idea.

Maybe some fabulous new product offering. Or a way to sell your services on a more freelance basis. Or to work in more of a helping space.

You talk of how you’d love it if only you could do something with your life that was more satisfying and fulfilling. And you mean it. It lights you up. Sets you aflame.

But you never do anything about it. You just talk.

And, since at the end of the day, it’s only ever action that gets results, chances are, if this is you, you’re not going to be realizing your dream any time soon.

2. Action equals moving jobs

Okay, so maybe you are doing something, imagining it’s furthering your self-employed dream, but that “something” means doing another job.

Either within your firm, or beyond it.

How you’re justifying it to yourself is to say that THIS one will give you the skills or resources or contacts that are going to be critical for when you make the leap.

Things that may indeed be long term beneficial.

The real warning sign is when you allow yourself to get just as embroiled in a different kind of overwhelm as you were in your old gig, and are pretty much back to square one.

3. Your key motivation is escape

Another danger sign is that, when anyone asks you about your business dream and what it entails, it doesn’t take you too long before you come back to bitching about what it is you’re doing just now. Why it’s so awful. Why all you want to do is escape it.

Your dream is just that. A dream.

It’s the white to your current black. But it’s undefined and very idealized.

And so long as you keep thinking only of escaping, and rarely in a concrete way of the challenge of creating your own thing, your dream will never be firmed up enough, or grounded in enough reality, for you to bring it ever to life.

4. You’re doing nothing to free yourself up

There are two ways I see this playing out, and both are big warning signs.

First, there’s the overwhelm monster.

Most of the people I work with these days have full schedules. And that’s a polite way of describing it. Many talk of being completely overworked.

So much so that burn out is never very far away.

Meaning that, if you ever want to line up some kind of self-employment while you’re still working, you’ve first of all got to get to grips, not just with the amount of work coming in your direction, but the time and headspace you give to it.

If it’s always easier to roll with what comes, you’ll never be free enough, or clear enough to hatch plans your alternative ideas.

Then, of course, there’s money.

If you really want to do your own thing, you have to have thought through what that means financially. How you’re going to fund your new venture. Where the money is going to come from in self-employed land.

It’s also critical that you have a grip on your personal finances. That you’re paying down any debt that you have and spending within your means.

Keeping your finances in a state of disorder is one of the surest ways to never allow your self-employed dream to come true.

5. You’re still caring too much about what other people think

People will have their opinions about you.

One of the things that’s holding you back is always needing to be seen to be perfect in the eyes of the people you’re around. That’s one of the biggest challenges as you actively disengage in order to create your own thing.

If it’s still important to you to get the top performance rating in your existing firm, and for everyone to rave about you, you’re focus is off, and you’ll find it very tough to have the kind of discernment you need to go solo.

The Real Issue?

The obvious advice for me to give you is to beef up your confidence, make a plan, get into action, sort your money, kill the overwhelm and give less of a shit.

All of these will go a long way to help.

But, I also want to leave you with an off-the-wall question, and a thought:

What if these things weren’t the real issue? And…

If they weren’t the real issue, what would be?

What if they were symptoms masquerading as the real problem? The real one being of your inner happiness?

How happy do you think you deserve to be?

Where do you think happiness comes from?

What would you do; what would you choose if your happiness was never in any doubt?

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship Tagged With: happy, self employment, work life balance

May 29, 2013 by Christine

5 Things You Should Know In Navigating Your Own Path

compass

So you’re ready to turn away, if even a little, from who society wants you to be and to find your own path in life?

Good for you. I salute you.

But how?

Here are 5 things you should know:

There IS no formula

There’s no proscribed process.

Sure, the world is hungry for guidance and direction right now, and there’s a sea of gurus and experts with their own formulas on how to stand aside from the crowd.

And, while a lot of that advice might be useful, it can never give you the step-by-step to living your own life. Only you can discover that for yourself. And that’s an emergent, creative process.

But here’s a thing to consider:

You are already you. 

There’s no becoming you at some point in the future once you’ve done whatever work on yourself.

You are already you.

So, listen to that inner wisdom and act on it. Don’t discount it, or screen it out. It knows. Put it out there through your behaviour and decisions, and let the process of life advise you along the way what’s working and what’s not.

It’s not logical

If you’re harnessing your own consciousness, you can’t use your albeit very good mind to figure out which actions or paths to take in life. There’s no strengths and weaknesses analysis required of this versus that. There are no weighted decisions to be made of one smart option versus another.

There’s no win-lose; succeed-fail. No if-then.

You are already loveable, secure, resourceful.

Trust that. Then watch to see what routes open up for themselves in you from that place. And take them.

It’s not about being attached to goals

Part of it not being logical, means it’s not goal oriented. It’s not planning out in advance everything you’ll ever do.

As it’s an emergent process, one of the things that loses its power, and indeed its strangle-hold over us is control.

Does that mean you should forget goals?

No.

Go ahead and express whatever vision you have and outcomes you’d like to see. But then let them go.

If you attach too much to goals, you’re in danger of behaving too much from a “head” place. Of trying too hard. Or forcing things.

Which in turn can drown out the wise voice in you.

Totally counter-productive.

So, have your big sense of purpose and direction by all means. But engage it in whatever emerges naturally for you. And let magic weave its own wand from there.

It’s not about “out-there”

There’s a lot of noise in our collective machinery at the moment. Email, Twitter, Facebook, TV, adverts… Lots of people and institutions vying for your attention and followership.

Navigating your own path means having a healthy skepticism towards all of it. Get selective about what you need to attend to and what you don’t.

Allow yourself periods of time when you’re just with yourself and able to hear your own inner signal.

By the way, that doesn’t require you to do formal meditation or anything structured. (My own favourite version of this is hanging out for an hour each morning in my favourite coffee shop.)

With space to think you might come up with things that are totally left-field for you. But let them marinate. If you listen, they may begin to feel not so far-fetched.

It’s not about trusting

Don’t make navigating your own path a heavy affair by loading yourself with the requirement that you trust this or that.

There’s no requirement that you trust anything.

Test things. Stay in action. Experiment.

Play.

If you’ve removed the need for things to succeed or fail, you’ve removed any requirement for you to judge yourself.

So, it all becomes factual. Information. This works, this doesn’t.

Which in the moment informs what to do next and where to next to turn. Navigating your own path is an active pursuit. You’re in the driving seat. Or on the footpath. Or whatever journeying metaphor you want to use.

 

A lot of people say that living your own life isn’t easy. That it’s hard. I don’t know that I buy that. Maybe at one time, but not now.

It’s different for sure. It requires a different attitude and a different take on things.

But in my own experience, the more you allow yourself to hear your own wisdom and let that guide you, the easier life feels. No matter the consequences.

But what about you?

What can you share about what you’ve discovered as you’ve begun to navigate your own life path?

 

 

Filed Under: Inner work, Self Development Tagged With: authenticity, experimenting, happy

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