Two of my
close friends are going through a transition, trying to move to the next level.
They are in such different places in their lives, yet, strangely enough, they
are in the same situation. One of them chose work over education due to
circumstances at the time and believes he hasn't been able to be
"successful". The other one went on to complete his masters, land his
dream job, has done really well, but thinks he has "plateaued". I was
kind of surprised to have similar conversations with two people on opposite
ends of the spectrum. Both are looking for ways to be more, do more and grow
and our conversations over the last few months have been quite insightful for
all of us.
Based on our conversations, here is a list of skills, attitudes,
behaviors that we thought would benefit us:
- Gratitude: All three of us agreed that the firstly, we need to be grateful for where we are in life. Each of us made a choice based on certain considerations and we are where we are as a consequence of those choices. Being thankful for the present also entails acceptance about the current situation. It may not be the best, but here we are, it's good and let's see where we need to go from here and what we need to do to make that happen. So we all agreed that showing gratitude was where we start.
- Holistic Outlook: During our conversations, we realized how focused (obsessed?) we were with our professional lives and how much we thought about work & career. Given that we aren't growing any younger and there are so many things & places to experience, so much focus on work-life did not seem healthy. We agreed that we needed to look at our lives holistically and experience more of life, not just stay within the circle of our work-life. While this may seem counter-intuitive to finding ways to grow in your job, it really isn't. The varied experiences are going to enrich us even further, help us gain perspective of things, do things that are outside our comfort zone and that is going to transfer into our work-life too. Being more open to ideas, to people, taking initiative, showing the willingness to take risks are just a few of the attitudes and skills that we stand to gain
- Education/Continuous Learning: While this was directly correlated to professional growth for my friend who had dropped out of college, the remaining two of us agreed that continuous education will help us expand our horizons too. So while friend #1 is out checking out the degrees and diplomas that can benefit his career, friend #2 is exploring his new passion, photography, he is exploring formal and informal learning options in this area. I went ahead and enrolled in a French language classes. Oui!
- Energy management: All of this exploration and taking on new stuff can be tiring and time-consuming as well, so we ended up discussing ways of finding more time to do things. But of course that's not possible because there are only 24 hours in a day! Friend #1 stumbled across this 2007 HBR article on Energy Management. As the article suggests "energy comes from four main wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. In each, energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals—behaviors that are intentionally practiced and precisely scheduled, with the goal of making them unconscious and automatic as quickly as possible". Each of us decided to do practice a different ritual, friend #1 decided to practice awareness throughout the day and keeping a log every day; friend #2 who is in the "exploration" mode and therefore in a zone of uncertainty & transition decided to exercise everyday to calm his nervous and I decided to take up yoga.
We'll see where this journey takes us but we are
certainly supporting each other and positively enabling each other to take a
good look at our lives and make some small but critical changes.
Disclaimer: All images are from google images and
used for educational purposes only.
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