Think of yourself as on the threshold of
unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies
before you.
Achieve! Achieve!
--Andrew Carnegie
My passion is teaching personal development. I’ve
done it for years, first at the Training and Resource
Center for the Blind at the University of New Orleans,
more recently as an adjunct faculty member at St.
Philip’s College, and in my workshops. When I’m
feeling most energized, I’m working with people to
realize their potential.
This year, I’ll bring you ideas that will help you create
the life you want. Do you know what that life looks
like? I hear from a lot of people, “I know what I’m
doing is not the dream, but I don’t know what I really
want to do.” My first few columns will be devoted
to finding out what that dream is and what your
purpose is.
Resolutions?
Are you making New Year’s Resolutions this week? I
gave up on New Year’s Resolutions years ago. I
realized that every year, I wrote the same list. If
you are like most people, resolutions don’t work. So
I’m going to propose that in the time you would have
spent writing your New Year’s Resolutions, you do
the following exercise instead.
Find an island of quiet for just twenty minutes. You
owe that much to yourself. Fix yourself a cup of tea
or coffee and put on music that you enjoy that calms
you. Get a notepad or use your computer. Now
for the remaining time list
the activities you do or have done that energize you,
the times when you have felt most alive. These are
the times when you are “in the flow,” when you have
been doing something and you look up and realize
that time has passed and it’s as if you had been
somewhere else. Do you know what I mean? These
are golden moments and they may be activities like
reading a good novel, playing a game of tennis,
gardening, or (in my case) doing training, emceeing
an event, or writing.
When your time is up, look back over your list.
Resolve right now to do these things more
frequently this year. Are any of these items
things that people do for a living? If so, you may
have found your dream career.
Rediscovering the Dream
Recently one of my students at St. Philip’s completed
this exercise. One of the activities she listed was
gardening. When we discussed her results, I found
out that she can grow anything. (I’m always
impressed with people like this, since I’ve been
known to kill house plants that gardeners swear are
immune to people like me.) I asked her if she had
ever considered getting a job in a nursery or florist
shop. As soon as I said it, her eyes lit up. It was a
career she had never considered because she had
always viewed gardening as a hobby. When I did this
exercise for the first time (suggested to me by my
coach, Susan
Franzen with Life U - thanks, Susan!), I was
surprised at how
often some sort of training setting was listed. It
became obvious that I needed to focus more time on
that part of my business.
This exercise is the first step in determining your
mission. Too often we take the first job we find,
which may or may not be related to our dreams.
Once we have some skill in that area, we move from
job to job, continuing in that field or type of work.
We convince ourselves that what we have devoted
most of our lives to is what we were “supposed” to
do. Then we wonder why we feel unfulfilled.
Keep Reading
Unless you are one of those exceptional people who
already work at your dream job, you’ll want to stay
tuned to this newsletter this year. And if you are
one of those who have already found your dream, I
hope you’ll continue to read anyway – and send your
advice to me so I can share it with my readers. (I’ll
even give you credit.)
May the New Year’s
promise of potential result in the attainment of your
aspirations! (Don’t you just love alliteration?)
