One of the greatest ways to tell if you’re aligned with your Professional Destiny is simply to check in and see if your 9-5 day feels like a struggle, or if the time passes by before you know it. When you’re fully engaged in an activity, you enter the flow. You feel strong, alert, effortlessly effective and satisfied. You’re at the peak of your ability and become unaware of time. When you’re not well matched with what you’re doing, it’s the opposite—you’re feeling out of sync, less motivated, less productive, disengaged and more prone to watching the clock. Needless to say, it’s far more satisfying to find a way to be in alignment with your gifts, interests, values and creative abilities in the work environment—especially if you’re like most people and tend to spend so much of your time there.
How to do this? It all starts with awareness. The following is a passage from Professional Destiny that describes in more detail what to look for and what to avoid…
“Notice what you enjoy doing and what you are good at. Make some time to do these things and rekindle your creativity. Concentration, or being in the flow, means total absorption. We can only be masters of something that interests us greatly. Great leaders and great inventors are not bored with their work. If you pay attention, you will notice that you are experiencing moments of joy when you are creating, working and learning. You forget about the world around you and lose track of your surroundings, fully experiencing the joy of what you are doing.
You come into flow in your life when you awaken your sense of destiny. You fall out of flow when you renege on your gifts and potential, or when you ignore your deepest calling and settle for mediocrity. Our tasks cannot be too simple for our abilities or we become bored and less creative. Whether things are “seamlessly clicking” or “rapidly combusting” is a sign of whether you are in or out of step with the flow.”
In other words, when you’re in step—and in your gift—things tend to fall into place. You’re motivated and more effective. What you do is easy for you, although it may be far more difficult for others. When you’re not in your gift things tend to be more of a struggle or even worse, spiral downward.
Simplicity is a sign of being in the flow. Usually if something is simple, elegantly efficient and practically effortless, it is a wonderful indicator that you’re on the right track.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. —Henry David Thoreau
What happens when you reach a point in your career when you’re no longer fulfilled by what you do? The moment might come when you find yourself in a role that once challenged you and stoked your fire—so to speak—but now is no longer interesting. You realize that you’re merely going through the motions to collect a paycheck. Or it could be that you’re suffering from Career Dissonance and you actually still enjoy your craft—you just don’t like the environment you’re practicing it in. For whatever reason, the fulfillment you once felt is gone and instead of a thrill—it’s become a drill.
People who allow themselves to become complacent may enjoy tangible benefits such as bringing home a steady paycheck, saving for the future, possibly having prestige and power (and these are very real, positive, essential things) but they may be lacking a sense of purpose. And this can cause a persistent, nagging feeling of dissatisfaction.
It’s difficult to have a sense of purpose when you sacrifice your deepest yearnings, unexpressed creativity and natural talents because you’re afraid to take a risk or are constantly worried about the future. As Thoreau says, if you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams—and the key word is confidently—you will have success. Don’t expect it to happen overnight, but do expect it to happen. I remember reading the incredible book Three Cups of Tea and marveling that it took Greg Mortenson ten years to start having substantial support for building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1993, Mortenson was a self-described bumbling, failed K2 mountain climber who wanted to build a school for the people who helped him in Pakistan. He started with very humble beginnings by writing mostly unanswered fundraising letters on a typewriter, going on wild goose chases to meet unlikely donors and giving talks to audiences of only 1-2 people in REI. Now his organization has built over 130 schools serving 58,000 students, Three Cups of Tea is a multi-million copy bestseller and his talks attract thousands of people at a time. Most of all, Mortenson is achieving his mission of building schools for children (mostly girls) and helping them to better their lives. He has a satisfying sense of purpose.
Would you and I have that kind of perseverance, stamina, faith and incredible drive to keep going for ten years before we achieved significant signs of momentum? The answer is—No—if we weren’t filled with passion for what we were doing. And—Yes—if our inner sense of purpose energized us and gave us the fortitude to take the next step.
Success is defined in many ways. It can bring a great deal of money as you pursue something you love and you’re good at, but it might also bring other benefits such as more freedom, more time with your family and most of all—a wonderful feeling of fulfillment.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The path might have obstacles, road blocks and dead-ends, but to give up means that you are marching to the drill of life (1-2-3-4!), not experiencing the thrill of life. Everyone wants to feel significant, important and unique. We want to feel like we have accomplished something that matters—even if it’s only to us. We want to feel challenged and to re-ignite our passion and creativity. That is the true difference between a job and our Professional Destiny.
This post is inspired by Dan Karslake, my friend and documentary filmmaker who I visited during last week’s trip to New York. Dan is following his Professional Destiny. He is making a film called Every Three Secondsabout ending world hunger. And during an interview I had with him he explained:
“There are two kinds of hunger—the hunger for food and the hunger for more. This film is really about us—it’s about me—and our own lack of relationship with enough. I’ve been taught to look past what I have to what I don’t have. I have a car but I’m always noticing the car I’d rather have. I have 12 shirts, but I’m always noticing the 13th shirt that I want to buy. We have no relationship with enough. We are about what we don’t have.”
How does this concept relate to your Professional Destiny?
Having enough financially enables us to be less distracted. If we are constantly struggling to make ends meet, we have less time, money and resources to help others and we might not get the luxury of pursuing our Professional Destiny right away. We often ignore our yearnings and choose practicality instead.
Yet, as I’ve written in my book:
“A trap that we are all susceptible to, especially in the Western world, is that we overlook the concept of having enough. We come to never fully enjoy what we have because we are always thinking about what we don’t yet have (a nicer home or car, more possessions, a bigger company, more money, finer art). This sense of wanting more is an insatiable hunger. It is poison to our soul and kills new, creative possibilities because it locks us into a pattern. It might make our life more comfortable but it doesn’t bring us true fulfillment, which only comes when we feel like we are making a difference in a genuine, meaningful way.
You can be financially successful, a respected leader in your profession, be admired for your status, have beautiful possessions and a lovely family—but still feel a nagging sense of emptiness.
I find that most people who have made it in their career and have achieved success have just about everything they want materially, but do not feel fulfilled. They want to venture out and make a difference, but are immobilized by fear and the need to have a familiar sense of security, stability and enough…
Security often means that they do not take risks or allow themselves to be open to new possibilities. Many have lost the concept of having ‘enough’ and cannot accept the idea of making less money for a while, even if it makes them happier. They cannot escape the money trap and therefore are not free. Because of the overwhelming need for survival, even beyond the point of enough, we ignore our deepest yearnings and continue in a job that is not fulfilling—or even worse, a job that is sapping our lifeblood and essence. We think we are making a living, but in reality our spirit is slowly dying.”
So recognize when enough is enough and get a grip on that insatiable hunger for more—you just may be surprised to discover a whole new richness in your life.
A few weeks ago in my blog post about How It Starts, I promised a summary of the five key steps to following your Professional Destiny. In between then and now, I admit to being diverted by that fantastic Elizabeth Gilbert talk about overcoming fear and the timeliness of the Graduation message. But, here we are… better late than never… with a discussion of the five things you need to do when making a significant change.
Get clear—Go within and remember what your unique talents and interests are. Your Professional Destiny is something that you are good at and love to do. Fill out the three-column exercise included in my book (Love to Do, Naturally Good At, Loathe to Do) and draw the parallels. Then set your vision and develop three to five simple, but powerful commitments.
Do something toward your goal every day, even if you can’t see the whole picture—Write a “to do” list each morning and include a least one thing that will help you move in the direction you want. Even if you can’t make a full transition right away, push yourself to make a little bit of progress toward your interests, even if it’s only for 30 minutes each day. If you don’t see where it all leads right now, that’s okay, just take the first step and new possibilities will open up. The next step will be revealed.
Actively weed out self-doubt—We all have a fear of failure, but refuse to give it power. When you find yourself thinking sabotaging thoughts, notice them and change your thinking—quickly! The journey can be unfamiliar and challenging, so be sure to have a support system in place. Many people will express their fears for you… to you. When they do, shake it off, avoid the naysayers and seek out the support of friends and coaches instead.
Show up and have discipline—Show up at least five days a week and put some time in toward the interests you’ve identified in step one. Having discipline means that if you need to make three calls a day, and don’t really want to, you make the three calls anyway. Discipline also means prioritizing and trimming down to the essentials to fund your dream. For more information on this, see The Freedom Plan.
Enjoy the journey—Go full speed ahead and be sure to notice the progress you’re making. Appreciate the small things along the way because they will lead to the big.
Remember, anyone can make a change at any time. We all have gifts and they are meant to be expressed and shared. It’s immensely fulfilling to put our unique talents into action and feel like we’re making a difference. When we do, we’ll soon notice that we’re on the path to discovering the career we were born for.
I was told three times last week that I really should watch the Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk about nurturing creativity and overcoming the fear of failure. Being told once is always interesting, twice gets my attention, but three times… hits the blog! Since failure is a favorite topic among us authors (see Failing Your Way to Success, inspired by JK Rowling), I read the signs of this consistent prompting to mean that the subject is quite worthy of more discussion. It’s important because the fear of failure goes hand-in-hand with pursuing anything new and different. And unless we overcome it—we may stop ourselves from doing what we were born to do.
Here’s a liberating perspective of how to deal with fear that Gilbert introduces in her talk:
“I recently wrote this book, this memoir called Eat, Pray, Love which, decidedly unlike any of my previous books, went out in the world and for some reason, became this big, mega-sensation, international bestseller thing. The result of which is that everywhere I go now, people treat me like I’m doomed. Seriously—doomed! Like, they come up to me now, all worried, and they say, ‘Aren’t you afraid—aren’t you afraid you’re never going to be able to top that? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to keep writing for your whole life and you’re never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about at all, ever again?’ So that’s reassuring, you know. But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people—when I was a teenager—that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same kind of, sort of fear-based reaction. And people would say, ‘Aren’t you afraid you’re never going to have any success? Aren’t you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it and you’re going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?’ The answer—the short answer to all those questions is, ‘Yes.’ … But, is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do?”
Gilbert goes on to share the idea (dating back to ancient Rome and Greece) that, instead of the rare person being a genius, all of us have a genius. It is our job to show up and do the work and invite the genius, the divine inspiration, to flow through us. This way if our work is brilliant, we stay humble because we know we had help. But if our work bombs, it’s not entirely our fault—we just know that our genius was temporarily out to lunch.
In my book Professional Destiny, I cover the topic of fear in two chapters. It’s worth such emphasis because nothing stands between us and our greatest work as much as doubt and fear. Fear of failure, fear of humiliation, fear of not being enough, or fear of not having enough. And unless we find a way to tame our fear, it can stop us from moving forward.
Gilbert gives us a great perspective on how to overcome it: “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment, then ‘Ole!’ And if not, do your dance anyhow. ‘Ole!’ to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.”
A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to take part in the inaugural TEDx Austin event. I’ll freely admit that if I hadn’t been sitting down, I just might have been knocked off my feet by Steven Tomlinson’s talk. It was about how to play big—authentically. As with Daniel Pink’s discussion about the Surprising Science of Motivation, the insightful concepts of how to play big were, again, absolute music to my Professional Destiny ears!
Tomlinson is a business educator, performer and playwright—a unique and interesting combination. He began his talk with a story about how he sought advice at age 28 from a wise professor at a local seminary who was known for giving insight and tough love. Tomlinson loved three things: business education, theology and theatre, and was seeking a concrete, specific answer about which one to pursue in order to make a living. The “answer” he got was not what he expected—it was “don’t discard—pursue all three.”
As Tomlinson experimented with this advice, he began to see connections and perspectives he hadn’t noticed before. Then, after years of first-hand experience, he condensed the concept of playing BIG to be about five things:
Practice—spend some time (two hours per week) wholeheartedly engaged in each of the things you love
Paying attention—let the things you love talk to each other and observe what begins to happen in your life that is unique and powerful
Not discarding—be determined to keep all your gifts in play and trust that there is some wisdom that will start to bubble to the surface
Leading with what you love—find your calling where your gifts meet the world’s deep need
Making degrees of freedom—simplify in order to free yourself to do the work the world wants you to do. For more ideas on this see, The Freedom Plan.
As I wrote in Professional Destiny, “A job is something we do to earn a living. Oftentimes it is too small for our spirit. Our life’s work is a mighty undertaking that challenges us, taps into our creative energy and reawakens our spirit. It is our work with a capital W. Once we start on the path, the urgency of this work is bigger than us. Our passion and creativity are ignited.”
Finding your own Professional Destiny takes commitment and a deep yearning to express your unique gifts in a way that matters. It’s an exciting journey. Playing big requires creating small ways of demonstrating what you can do well—and letting them prosper and grow. When Tomlinson delivered this presentation to the TEDx crowd, he received a standing ovation. The message resonates at some level with all of us. Watch the video clip and see if you’re inspired—you may just be prompted to give a standing ovation of your own.
In the past week, I must have talked to a hundred people (well maybe that’s a teeny bit inflated) about a term I concocted a few years ago called the “freedom plan.” Quite simply, the freedom plan is a plan you adopt to fund your freedom. In other words, you invest in yourself to pursue your passion.
When I was in career transition from president of an advertising agency to budding author and professional coach, I knew my income was going to take a serious dive during the first year while my new business ramped up. In the old days, I would have found the idea of making less money to be an insurmountable hurdle. And I would have run right back to the profession I knew (and didn’t love) to find another position that was at near or equal pay. In this frame of mind, I was stuck.
If you think about it, anytime a new business or major endeavor is starting up, you can expect to make some sort of investment. This applies to changing careers from one field to another in existing organizations as well. Some people pay for advanced education or training to make a change. That can be expensive. Some entrepreneurs look for outside investors and/or invest in their business themselves. That’s not cheap either. Another way is to accept the idea of temporarily making less income while you get started.
If you view this transition period as a time to invest in yourself, you will get unstuck. You can decide to cut back to the bare essentials for a period of time (six months, one year or whatever you can tolerate) in order to fund your freedom and pursue what you love. Instead of thinking of this time as a period of lack, think of it as liberation.
Here’s an example of how this concept worked for me. In order to fund my transition, I reduced costs by cutting everything that wasn’t essential. Things like: expensive dinners out, pedicures, a new car after mine reached 100,000 miles, cable TV (yes, I cut down to the basic five channels) and extra clothes. If someone invited me to dinner at an expensive restaurant, I’d suggest a more casual (and affordable) place. Occasionally I’d get teased about this, and I’d smile and explain that I was on my freedom plan and would rather pursue my dream than drink expensive wine. I called my savings my “freedom money” and guarded it fiercely. Instead of thinking about it as not having enough money to buy extra things, I thought of it as having a choice. The money I saved was money I could invest in myself… and you can do the same.
The formula is simple:
Reduce your expenses
Cut out everything you don’t need
Change your mindset from lack to liberation
Pursue what you love
The freedom plan allows you to reevaluate priorities. You can change your focus from having things to having opportunities. Yes it’s a sacrifice, but when in doubt, ask yourself…
A ship in harbour is safe,
but that is not
what ships are built for. —William Shed
Following your Professional Destiny is like a ship setting sail on an open sea. It’s a great adventure. To reach your destination requires preparation, guts and a strong commitment. You must be willing to journey into the open sea, beyond the safe harbor of your current surroundings. This requires moving past comfort and complacency. Confident that you are the captain of your ship, you can determine and adjust your course even when outside forces affect your journey. You have a compass, your inner guidance, to direct you. If there’s a storm raging and drama all around you, it may be momentarily drowned out and you’ll likely be tossed around—but that is temporary. With your ship in good working order and your crew (or people who support you) in place you’ll weather the storm and arrive at an exciting new destination. Here are six tips to help you on your way to finding your Professional Destiny:
Prepare yourself for the journey. Like a true professional, you need to practice your gift every day. To do this you must be fit, rested and have your physical and mental capacities about you.
Trim down to the essentials. Make sure your mind and body are fit for the task in front of you. You must have the stamina, strength and essentials that you need—but only the things you need. Leave all the extra weight behind.
Get focused and determined. Growth is a journey, and on any journey you will encounter unforeseen obstacles. Your ability to overcome these barriers will determine whether you succeed. It takes complete dedication, a whatever-it-takes mindset.
Overcome the fear of moving into unknown territory. You might have to struggle when you venture into something new. Worst of all, you don’t know what’s out there. Your mind tells you maybe it’s better to stay right where you are in the known and comfortable. Abandoning your vision seems like the safer, more logical choice, but it comes at a tremendous and incalculable price.
Be responsible. Realize that you are the driver of your life and you have the ability to respond to each situation. Take ownership. Steer the ship. You cannot take a hands-off approach and expect to become a master of your gift.
Dare to be remarkable. If you pattern yourself after others, you will be like others and consequently will be… ordinary. The people who show an absolute conviction to make it, who pick themselves up when they fall, who fully invest their effort, time and energy, are the ones who accomplish extraordinary results.
Do not expect the journey to be short. It never is. You can have the destination in mind, but the journey will take you in directions you never imagined going. Looking back you will see that these were places you needed to go. They were experiences you needed to have, or lessons you needed to master, to prepare you for your destiny—the career you were born for. When considering whether to set sail into new waters, remember a ship isn’t built to stay in the harbor—and neither are we.
People with high levels of mastery…
cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition,
or head and heart, any more than they would choose
to walk on one leg or see with one eye.
—Peter Senge
When it comes to pursuing our Professional Destiny, many of us learn at a young age to tune out our intuition and choose the safe and secure route. In other words, we make a decision from the head, not the heart. But, does this path ultimately bring us success and fulfillment? Chances are—an overwhelming “no!” A choice made purely from the head is a choice that saps our creativity and motivation. We operate on autopilot and are simply not our best. On the other hand, a choice made from both the head AND heart is a choice that inspires and energizes us—and leads us to great breakthroughs. The following is an excerpt from Professional Destiny about the struggle between head vs. heart and the ultimate power of combining the two:
“The duel between reason and intuition, or head and heart, is a constant and powerful force in our lives.
Head—also known as our mind. It is the home of our rational thought and logic. Our drive for survival.
Heart—also known as the soul, spirit or essence. It is the home of our intuition (some also call it our “gut”). It is the home of our higher self and represents who we really are at the core.
HEAD VS. HEART
Head
Heart
Voice of reason
Rationality
Logic
Survival
Experience
Persona/Personality
Achieving stature and safety in life serves to satisfy and comfort the mind. At some point, if we are committed to a path of purpose, we will experience an insurgency of the soul—an insistent demand that we live more consciously and meaningfully. Our job is to stay focused on this deeper message, so that we can call it forth reliably and use its guidance to steer ourselves in a more satisfying direction.
The moment we stop learning is the moment we begin to stagnate. We go to sleep and our life becomes empty with an unsettling combination of anxiety and boredom.
Once you start on your journey and follow your deepest yearning, you won’t be able to turn back and keep it quiet. Human beings are born learning and growing. Even if you keep yourself so busy and pretend not to hear it, you will feel a deep sense of dissatisfaction and experience disenchantment with your life. Your inner voice will always be there, even if buried, waiting for you to listen.”
We are given the gifts of rationality (head) and intuition (heart). The former helps us with survival in the physical world we live in, the latter allows us to have breakthroughs that are genuine, unique and fresh. In terms of discovering your Professional Destiny, finding harmony in the combination of head and heart is the most powerful mix.
When we make a decision to take a risk and venture out on the journey toward our Professional Destiny, we are often confronted with deep-seated, irrational fears of survival. It is then that our “little voice” (a.k.a inner critic) takes over and tells us all the reasons we are guaranteed to fail. Next, after it scares the daylights out of us, it tells us to be cautious, go the safe route and be secure.
My little voice told me all the reasons I should stay in a job that was making my stomach hurt and my mind numb. It told me I couldn’t survive without the security it provided, and I had no experience doing something new. It told me that most people fail. Many do. But, failure comes in all shapes and sizes… and, painful as it is, can also be a great blessing.
The other night, I watched the video of JK Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard. I don’t know why I never watched it before, but it was fantastic and struck a chord. She spoke with deep wisdom and humanity about the benefits of failure and how it changed the course of her life.
When Rowling was in college, she was convinced that the only thing she wanted to do was write novels. Her parents, however, coming from impoverished backgrounds thought that her “overactive” imagination would never pay a mortgage or land her a successful job. They wanted her to take a vocational degree, and she wanted to study English Literature. They reached a compromise that, in the end, satisfied no one and Rowling agreed to study Modern Languages.
It was failure that set her free. She tells the crowd…
“A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
It’s not possible to live without failing. To avoid failure would mean that you are compromising your deepest desires and being so cautious that you are simply existing, not living. Ultimately, the knowledge that we can survive our deep fear of failure—and come away breathing—can liberate us to achieve our greatest success.
Professional Destiny® is about finding the career you were born for. I've created this site to help you in your pursuit. Here, you'll find excerpts from my book, as well as new ideas and stories to help you make the most of your natural gifts. We're a community, so please join the conversation!
Professional Destiny is ranked in the TOP 10 bestselling business and self-improvement books at BookPeople - the largest independent bookstore in Texas!
One of the greatest ways to tell if you’re aligned with your Professional Destiny is simply to check in and see if your 9-5 day feels like a struggle, or if the time passes by before you know it. When you’re fully engaged in an activity, you enter the flow. You feel strong, alert, effortlessly effective and satisfied. You’re at the peak of your ability and become unaware of time. When you’re not well matched with what you’re doing, it’s the opposite—you’re feeling out of sync, less motivated, less productive, disengaged and more prone to watching the clock. Needless to say, it’s far more satisfying to find a way to be in alignment with your gifts, interests, values and creative abilities in the work environment—especially if you’re like most people and tend to spend so much of your time there.
A ship in harbour is safe,
People with high levels of mastery…
edition
