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.
When you’re in the midst of change, or venturing into unknown territory, it can be a fragile time—you’re in transition. I call this the incubational stage and it can take a little time to build yourself up. At this stage, you’re at a crucial, sometimes vulnerable, point and it’s important to surround yourself with people who support your vision. Think of yourself as a little seedling that has just sprouted—you’re full of potential, but still fragile, so you need to protect yourself from being trampled before you’re fully established. The best way to do this is to surround yourself with support and avoid the naysayers!
Naysayers can be people close to you. As I write in Professional Destiny, “There are people who support you and help you to feel empowered, positive and on the right track. When you are with them you feel supported and energized. Then there are people who operate from a negative space, the naysayers, the ones who bring you down. You’ll know them by the feeling you have when you are with them—you feel deflated, like the wind was just taken out of your sails. You feel drained when you are around them. Try to clearly identify the people who have your highest good in mind and surround yourself with them.”
Naysayers can also be business contacts. A friend of mine told me, “I was disheartened when I first moved to Austin. Everyone said Austin was harder to make it as an independent contractor than Dallas. I was more expensive. For almost a year I had to say ‘no, no and no’ to lowball compensations offers. It was almost a year, before I said yes. People didn’t value my service and didn’t want to pay me what I’m worth. An advisor asked me ‘why do you even stay when this happens? Get up and leave. I wouldn’t have the success I have today, if I stuck around with the naysayers.’ So, I chose to love myself and value my work, and leave. Now it has paid off.”
It’s hard enough staying on top of the fear, uncertainty and doubt that takes root in our own minds, so we certainly don’t need anyone else feeding it. When you’re fostering an idea, it’s such an incubational time that it’s critically important to block out the naysayers. If you allow the naysayers in, every time you listen to what they’re saying, you hand your power over and dishonor your gift. And, if you’re going to dishonor your gift, the question is do you really want to do what you love? To do what you love, you have to put your big girl (or big boy) pants on and honor your potential. This also means clearing the negative voices in your head, listening to your heart and marrying the two. In my book, I call this the “Killer Combo.” When you’re listening to your head AND your heart, you’re functioning as a more powerful force – you become so strong you deflect the naysayers and the negativity. Then you’re freed up to accomplish great things. Your heart gives your head the signal and you’re clear enough to do what you really love.
There’s a belief that artists have to starve, that suffering is the price for following your passion. But, who says it has to be this way? Who says you can’t thrive? There’s plenty of evidence all around that you can. Sure, you might face hardship when you do what you love. But everywhere you look there are stories of those who pursue their dreams and make it—some make it big.
In this blog, there are stories (and trust me, they were not hard to find) of people who achieve great success in this pursuit. Scroll down and see for yourself… Julia Child became a world-renowned chef after deciding to follow her passion of eating great French food and teaching others how to cook it. Julie Powell combined her passions of writing and cooking, and now has a book and a major motion picture out that tells her story. And two examples closer to home, Shelley Seale and Marcie Finney, transitioned into writing and jewelry design respectively—both tapping into the joy of creating from their gifts. Success stories such as these are everywhere we turn.
It’s time to debunk the myth and realize it is possible to thrive doing what you love. As I mention in Professional Destiny, believing is key. Start with a clear vision of what you want to do, set commitments and then get serious about the discipline it takes to get there. And you’ll need discipline, because although the journey may be joyful, you are almost guaranteed to face some obstacles.
It may take a little time to build yourself and your business. Expect an incubation period. During this time, you’re at a crucial (sometimes fragile) point and it’s important to surround yourself with people who support your vision. Believe in yourself enough and believe in the possibilities. Don’t fixate only on what is right now, but envision what might be.
Next, be willing to invest in yourself. Maybe you’ll need to keep a side job to pay the bills while you transition. Maybe you’ll need to cut costs to fund your new venture. For example, when I transitioned from advertising exec. to author and coach, I called this period of cutting costs to invest in the future, my “freedom plan.” I was willing to cut back to fund the freedom to do what I love. Instead of viewing it as a step backward, view it as a step toward forward.
If you face hardship, keenly notice the difference between a constant, unrelenting struggle vs. hitting a few roadblocks, while still experiencing joy along the way. If it’s the former, you may need to morph your strategy (we don’t always get it right the first time out of the chute). If it’s the latter, persevere. Obstacles are to be expected. Stay determined to overcome them and look for people who can help you.
If you have the inclination to pursue your passion, do what you believe you can do, even if people say you can’t. Be the rogue, the artist, the entrepreneur. Follow the recipe of vision, commitment, faith, perseverance and discipline—and then put your starving artist sign away.
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!
A ship in harbour is safe,
People with high levels of mastery…
There’s a belief that artists have to starve, that suffering is the price for following your passion. But, who says it has to be this way? Who says you can’t thrive? There’s plenty of evidence all around that you can. Sure, you might face hardship when you do what you love. But everywhere you look there are stories of those who pursue their dreams and make it—some make it big.
