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Fulfilling Achievements are Good, Experiences are Even Better
I often ask this question to my clients and class participants: Describe some occasions from the recent past when you felt excited and fulfilled. The common responses I get are, “when I graduated college”, “got my dream job”, “had my last promotion”, “had my baby”…. Interesting to note, the “recent past” part gets ignored easily. Another observation, all those listed are mostly focused on achievements and not on the activity or the experience of doing something. You can ask me why this is a problem. The problem is when we are only focusing on achievements, we need to wait (sometimes long) for those to happen again for us to be…
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Align with Passion – What, Why and How
“I don’t get it, how do people mix passion with their career? I do love to paint but I can’t even think of taking it as a career and doing it all the time. That would be too much for me” – Katherine snapped at me and dismissed my own motto – Align with Passion! This is not the first time I got such a comment, and Katherine is a good friend, so I could see where she was coming from. She was referring to a commonly known definition of passion – mapping it to some particular hobby or an established career/profession. Metaphorically it is like buying off the shelf solution for…
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Don’t Focus on the Problem – Focus on your Ultimate Vision
Last year, an engineer, let me call him Tom, came to me. He looked very tired and unhappy. “Sharmin, I am working long days, late nights, still my manager wants me to do more, have more impact, show more leadership…where is the time…why can’t he see my contribution already! With changes going around all the time it is so hard to get anything done on time. I even wanted to change this job, but in this economy, it is so hard to get an interview even!” – Tom gave me quite a vivid picture of his life. I felt compassion for him. Not too long ago I experienced this first…
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Why Do You Do It? 3 Steps to Clarify Your Commitments
Common wisdom goes as we do paid work for money and volunteer work to fulfill other needs. Whatever we do, paid or volunteer work requires some commitment from our part. Sometimes we get so much fun that it doesn’t feel that way, but there are times we need to renew our vows – why am I doing it again? It is more productive and rewarding when we have some clarity for it. Here are three ways to get there. 1. What does it give me – Alignment with my longer-term goal How does this particular involvement align with your bigger purpose? For example, your three-year goal is to become an event organizer.…
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Alignment with Passion-Why it is important
A client of mine is in the job market for a while. A bit frustrated by the lack of success, he called me this morning wanting to find more ideas. To get a grasp of where he is, I asked him a typical interview question, “Why do you want this job”? Quite prepared, he replied in an upbeat manner showing his credentials and skills relevant for the position. So, what is missing from his response? You may have guessed it right; “passion” was the element I was after. When done with passion it makes a job or a task more exciting and meaningful. With learned skills, most of us can…
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Career Change – 4 Things Helped Me Make the Move
Last week I saw two relevant posts on this topic, one in the Forbes magazine and the other in the TEDx talk. I have been wondering where these article/talks were a few years back when I was in this dilemma! I am sure there were many, only that those somehow didn’t come into my radar. I had to do it the harder way. What helped me to make the decision were these few basic points. 1. When I was convinced, I deserve to have more fulfillment It took me a while to realize, I am not here to “do” a lot of things, and I am not here to be a “superwoman” either.…
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Live a Creative Life
[I have recently read this book, The Power of TED* The Empowerment Dynamic. I am writing a synopsis to share the concepts with my readers. This is the second and last part of my write up. I address the “Creator Orientation and The Empowerment Dynamic (TED).” Part 1-Victim Orientation and Dreaded Drama Triangle(DDT) is here. ] My friend once wrote in her Facebook status, “I know what I don’t want, but I don’t know what I DO want.” She spoke for many. Most of the time, we know what we don’t want, what we want to avoid, and what problems are causing us troubles. How about having a shift from this and…
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Where IS my passion?
Too often I hear, “I know I hate my job, but I don’t know either what else I would do- I don’t know where my passion is”. I don’t find it surprising at all! As a matter of fact, I have had the same question a while ago; it took me months and years to find out where my passion is. According to Wikipedia, Passion can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea, person, or object. A person is said to have a passion for something when they have a strong positive affinity for it. In my personal definition passion is…
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How I Decided On Career Change- Software Engineer to a Coach
In 2009 I made this big leap. I left a high paying software job to find what really brings the best in people – started pursuing coaching as a career. My family, friends, and ex-coworkers were surprised if not shocked. They asked me so many questions – “How did you decide that you wanted to be a coach?” Someone even asked, “So how did it happen, one fine morning, you just decided on this?” Some commented, “I wish I knew what my passion is”. My short answer, “it took me a few years of dissatisfaction and trying out different activities, and finally one year of rigorous thinking to find out…
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Are you living from outside-in?
“In all of my experience, I’ve never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success that came from the outside in.” —Stephen Covey, Author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“ Attempting to live from the outside is similar to following the wish of others instead of trusting the answers from within you. If you are consistently accommodating yourself to do what others want or expect, you are living from the outside in. Living life from the outside-in takes more effort and energy because it calls for being someone you’re not. Change from the inside-out is more energizing and fun. You begin to experience more ease. As you…
