Running, learning and children
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It was a fresh and foggy Spring morning in North London. Birds were chirping in the trees; the residents of the borough peacefully rested before they woke from slumber. A young woman was warming up for her morning run in the street.
‘A quick 4 miles to start the day’ she thought to herself. Her feet pounded the pavement and her heart was beating faster. She was about to hit the two-mile mark when suddenly -
Trip
Thud
Ouch
Her knees grazed and hands sore, she lay motionless on the floor for a few seconds, shocked with the impact.
That woman was me. And the morning was last Wednesday. Needless to say I was pretty miffed.
And also felt rather like a 7 year old with the painful knees of an 85 year old.
On the bright side, the next time I see my niece and nephew and they show off their grazed knees for some aunty-sympathy, I can show compassion in their woes by sharing the horror of my scabs.
Hobbling back home, I realised the last time I had falled down must have been at the age of 7 or 8. There were many things I did when I was younger that I simply forgot about.
Why is it that as adults, we can allow life to become so stale by holding ourselves back from new experiences? What good does this do?
Acting like a child – with curiosity
Imagine a 4 year old child at school who has been given her first set of building blocks to play with. What is the first thing she will do? Asking for the user manual, or permission to play with the blocks is not one of them. She just gets stuck in and learns along the way.
Is there something in life that you want to achieve that requires some courage? Some hot-shot exec that you want to reach out to because he works for the company you want to work for? Get in touch and take it from there.
Don’t waste time procrastinating by planning every step of the way. Sometimes just letting go and being open to whatever happens brings the best results.
Life does not flow like it was sold to us
The typical career goes as follows:
You go to school
Graduate from university
Get your first job
Change jobs and businesses a few times in your 20’s
By the time you hit 30, you know yourself well enough to have the perfect job and great career.
This is how it is meant to be. For many of us, it just isn’t.
What if you are in your 30’s and still don’t know what you want? What if you are still exploring your skills and are open to a career change? Is this something worth considering at this age?
Absolutely yes.
Duncan Bannatyne didn’t have his own bank account until he was 30. Harrison Ford was a carpenter until he got his break in the first Star Wars movie at 34. Sylvester Stallone was still waiting tables and wrote Rocky when he was in his 30’s.
Take inspiration in this and know that you don’t have to have it all figured out by the time you hit the 3rd decade of your life. And if all else fails, take comfort in life beginning at 40!
Consider the impact of everyday things
I was with my family last week and my nephew was building a toy aeroplane. He asked me for my help and I said ‘I’ll come give you a hand in a minute’, to which he replied ‘but I already have two hands’.
I hadn’t thought of it like that before.
How much do we simply accept as being true because it has been repeated so many times? How many months have you been waking up to the same job and doing the same thing, just so that you can have 4 years at a job on your CV instead of 3? And what have you learned in that extra year that you didn’t know before?
Longevity in the same job does not make you better – it makes you stale.
Don’t stay in a job you are miserable in because it will look good at your next interview – find something new that you are actually excited about doing.
Do something to challenge yourself
How many children do you know that walk into a playground and sit on the bench? They get stuck in and try all the different activities on offer – until they find a few that they enjoy, right?
When was the last time you went out of your comfort zone and learned something new? Or even tried a different way of achieving the same thing?
Take job hunting, for example. When you are looking for a new job, don’t just sit in the safety of your home and apply for jobs online – talk to people who are doing the job you want to do. Write to 10 people you want to connect with and gauge their thoughts. You will achieve more by doing this than applying for 100 different jobs online.
So here’s to trying new things and giving the finger to social norms.
This does come with a warning, however: the everyday Joe’s out there may become slightly perplexed at your ‘do things differently’ attitude and will tell you to do otherwise. Or, they may fall off their chair from laughing at you – like my brother did when I told him I had taken a fall during my run (cheers bro – no birthday gift for you this year).
Take heart my dear – normality and comfort make you rot – learning makes you flourish.
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We’ve all heard how if the same bunch of people watch an accident on the road happening, when asked to re-call the scene, their perspectives are very different. The same can be applied to any situation in life – two people can experience the same thing and report the experience in different ways (filthy or otherwise, people). Experience combined with perspective does not guarantee the same outcome.
And it’s all about perspective.
Take this recent article I read on the dangers of kettle bell swings. The writer, staying true to his name, is describing his dislike of the exercise in no uncertain terms. Comments about the post are equally as direct, even when they are opposite ends of the spectrum – a clear display of how different people do the same thing and have different experiences of it.
I encourage you to read the hilarious and rather emotional comments made on this article. Who’da thought an innocent kettle bell would create such extremes of opinion?
The kettle-bell- metaphor can also be applied to events and responses in the office. Take two people who are doing a job they don’t necessarily like:
- Person A goes into the office and on a daily basis, experiences the irritating colleagues, mindless politics and lack of career progression, realises it is unacceptable and starts the search for something new.
- Person B experiences the same thing, but decides it’s ok since ‘I’ll never find another job in this economy’ and lives to feel miserable another day.
The difference between the two perspectives, and the attitudes they represent is important.
Person A has the attitude of taking action. This person realises something is wrong and makes the decision to change it. Person B, on the other hand, has the ‘everything but me’ attitude – the one that blames everything else, and not himself, for the position he is in. This person accepts the status quo as being out of their control and thus does nothing about it. Wow. Shoot me.
We see people like this all the time in our daily lives. Remember the first few weeks of a new job and there was one guy who talked constantly about finding something new because ‘this place is so miserable’? And remember the day you left that job for a different one – and he was still there; still complaining?
If you’re in a place where your job is not giving you what you want, what are you going to do about it? Or to use the metaphor, what kind of kettle-bell-swing attitude do you have? Are you going to blame the kettle bell for being a terrible piece of kit, or will you acknowledge that it’s the technique that is wrong and do something to fix it?
Falling into the latter category is a great place to be, and if this is you, then you have come to the right place my friend. This week sees the release of my new e-book Don’t Find a Job: Find People and is for you if you:
- Think finding a job in this economy is tough
- Have been thinking of a job move for a while but don’t know what you want
- Are curious about what the title of the e-book actually means
And to top it off, the book will not cost you a penny, dime, rupee or peseta.
Click here, input your name and email address, and the book is all yours – for free!
You won’t regret it.
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Think back to the morning of Tuesday January 3rd 2012. How many of you were sat in the office and heard one of these phrases:
- What I would do to be at home right now
- Cannot believe how sick I felt at the thought of coming into the office
- I hit the snooze button far too many times this morning
(the last one is a colleague saying nothing because they called in sick)
Having post holiday blues is pretty much a given – who would choose deadlines and stress over relaxation and freedom, right?
Wrong.
A person that is engaged enough to want to be present at their job will acknowledge the ‘blues’ feeling when it hits, but the second it’s time to work, they will find the energy to deliver, and the blue-y feeling will have been forgotten.
A person who lacks enthusiasm for their job and dreams of ‘elsewhere’ constantly (even if elsewhere is the excitement of being on the sofa watching daytime TV), will feel the blues and then allow that feeling to simmer and seep into everything they do – including their attitude and the words they speak.
If you fall into the former category – congrats my friend – we will explore your secret in a later post. If you fall into the latter, read on….
How long have you felt like this?
Think about the last time you had time off and returned to the office. Did you feel miserable at the thought of being there? How did you react to this feeling? Did you acknowledge it and move on, or did you discuss it with a friend or colleague who also happens to be feeling the same way? And what did you do after that? Anything?
Are you just lazy?
Often, a break brings lots of rest and eases off the pressure, which in turn means getting back into the routine of a job is all the more difficult. Think about it – on holiday, you can wake up when you want, eat when you want, plan your day how you would like and do all the things that make you happy.
And then the party is over. You have to go back into work, which means you want to hit the ‘off’ button on the alarm instead of ‘snooze’, you have to sit in pointless meetings and delete emails you have been cc’d on.
Post-holiday blues could be just that though – adjusting to the routine. The things you don’t enjoy about your job feel more intense, but after a couple of days, you find your rhythm and the blues have lifted. Happy.
Hmm, not quite…..
What if the blues have not lifted and you still feel deflated after a week, 2 weeks, a month, or more? This could mean a number of things:
- There are some parts of the job you don’t enjoy, but mostly it’s ok
- You know something is wrong but don’t quite know what
- The job makes you want to shoot yourself in the head every day – time to look for another one
If you fall into the last category, great! You are starting the process of looking for something new, right? Right? Hello?
Ok, so perhaps not. Most people acknowledge that it’s time for something different, but what do they do? ‘I’ll work it out’, they say, ‘I just need to plan what I’m going to do’.
Really? Do you really need to do that, or are you just procrastinating? Look at it like this:
Getting a new job is hard work. You first have to know what you want, then you apply for jobs, talk to recruitment consultants, prepare for interviews, find the time to attend the interviews, potentially lie about where you are to get the time off from your current job, feel guilty for lying, feel the nerves of whether the interview was successful, apply for more jobs ……
All of this can be overwhelming. So what do most people do? They decide to stay put – this find a new job malarkey is just too much and is this job I am in so bad anyway? We ARE in a recession, so simply having a job is enough for me. Then, of course, those ‘I really hate this place’ feelings emerge, you’re back at feeling miserable again, and so the spiral continues.
Sometimes it is not a matter of having feelings of complete loathing – sometimes you just think ‘I’m done here – it’s time for something new’. This can also add to the blues-y feeling because you then waste days, weeks or months in a job that doesn’t challenge you, rather than in one that excites you.
So tell me this – if you are feeling somewhat dejected, what are you doing about it? I will be releasing a free e-book soon that covers this very topic – watch this space!
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Fear is a state of mind. Simple. Get over the fear of doing something, and you’re on your way to accomplishment. Simple? Sometimes what stops us from breaking out of the rut we are in is the fear of something – failure, embarrassment, losing what we have, not being able to go back …. the list goes on. But what if we didn’t fear a thing? What would we accomplish if we knew for certain we had nothing to fear?
The vast majority of us have been socialised into thinking that going to school/university, getting a degree, then a job, a partner, a house and a car are the steps we must follow in order to obtain happiness and fulfilment. There is a formula to follow – and we don’t even have to do much thinking – the rest of society has thought of it for us! Then you go and decide that you don’t want that. You want to do something else – the job you are in doesn’t make you happy any more. You want something different. You want something more.
OK, so now you have decided you want something different and have a vague idea of what it looks like – what now?
Paralysis.
‘What if it doesn’t work out the way I planned?’
‘What if I’m not happy in my next job either?’
‘Everyone will laugh at me or constantly challenge what I’m doing’
‘Life is pretty ok right now. I’m coping. Why change?’
Any of the above sound familiar? It is the years and years of socialisation telling you to stay on that path that has been created for and by everyone else. Don’t even try and attempt something different, old chum – you won’t know what you are doing and you certainly don’t know how it will all turn out. Stay in this little cocoon with us – it’s safe with the tinned food and long-life milk. Lord knows what will happen if we make a change so let’s just stay right here, ok? Now grab the remote and let’s watch another Friends rerun.
This is what fear is – being afraid of what you don’t know. What will happen when you take that first step to deciding what it is you really want out of your job? If you have a crystal ball handy, awesome! Have a sneaky peek and give yourself some reassurance. But if you don’t have one, how are you going to know what comes next? How will you know that it won’t all go horribly wrong?
The answer to this question is simple – you don’t.
You don’t know what will happen.
Imagine we are standing 10 meters away from a wall and I ask you to run and then jump off it. Would you do it? Probably not, right? Because you don’t know how high it is, or what’s on the other side? Now what if I said you could move a little closer to the wall and get a better view of how far the drop down is? You’d take a few steps. What then? Take a few more steps. Before you know it, you’ll get so close to the edge, look down the other side and realise it’s just a meter high drop onto some soft grass at the bottom. Is the decision to jump now any easier?
The difference between the first decision and the second is that the second gives you information that makes you feel comfortable in saying yes. This is exactly what you need to do with the fears and doubts in your mind – systematically assess all the information you have to make you feel comfortable. Take a calculated risk. That’s it.
Be calculating
Everyone has doubts about the decisions they make. It is natural to question what you are doing, but endless questioning and zero action means you will remain in a static state. How do we move from a place of fear and doubt to a place of confidence and action? Try this exercise …..
Grab a pen and paper and draw 2 lines through it so it is split into 3 columns.
- In the left column, list all the fears you have. List all of them until you cannot think of any more.
- In the middle column, write what the consequences of the fears.
- Then finally in the right column, list the actions you can take to minimise the consequences.
Here is an example:
| Fear | Consequence | Action |
| The job I want doesn’t exist | I feel defeatedMy critics were rightI’m still stuck with being unhappy | Define exactly the job I want.Speak to as many people as I can to explore my ideas.Remain open to opportunities, even if they are not perfect to begin with. |
| My friends/family are unhappy with my decision | Allow their fears to rule me.I do not make any changes. | Involve friends/family in the decision making process.Communicate my frustrations with them so they understand why I must make the change. |
| I’m unhappy in my new job/I made the wrong decision | My time has been wasted. I have to start again. Embarrassment. |
Take the time to identify exactly what I want.Research the market before making any decisions.Involve the experts so I am advised every step of the way. |
What this exercise does it outlines all the fears you have, explores what could happen that is the root of your fear, and identifies the actions you can take to minimise the impact of the fear becoming real. It takes all the thoughts inside your head and puts them down on paper so the thoughts are no longer on repeat and are instead in black and white, open for you to question them.
Taking a systematic approach by writing down your fears and addressing each one takes the edge off making the first move towards your goal. It means you assess the worst case scenario and decide if you can live with it. I think you’ll find the worst thing that could happen probably isn’t so bad.
One final note
The basis of all our fear is not just the unknown, but our pride. We love celebrating success, but have we ever celebrated what we have learned when things have not gone to plan? OK so perhaps celebrate is not the correct word, but most of us are so hung up on ‘perfect’ that we lose sight of the lessons we have been taught along the way.
I shall leave you with one of my favourite quotes. It’s by Elbert Hubbard:
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one.
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