Last night I had the great pleasure of listening to an interview with John O’Donohue, author of the book Anam Cara (and a great inspiration for the ideas in Professional Destiny). The interview was recorded with Krista Tippett of NPR shortly before he died in 2008 at the age of 52. O’Donohue talks about how each of us has a destiny—something to do here that can’t be done by anyone else. He says when you discover the necessity that brought you here, your gift and giftedness come alive. This newfound urgency of living and purpose rekindles your creativity and quickens your heart. Here is an excerpt from one of his final interviews:
“Since we spend over one third of our lives in the workplace, one of the loneliest things we can find is someone who is in the wrong kind of work, who shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. They should be doing something else, yet haven’t the courage to get up and leave and make a new possibility for themselves.
But it is lovely when you find someone who is doing exactly what should be doing and whose work is an expression of their inner gift. By allowing us to witness that gift and by bringing it out, they are actually providing an incredible service to us all.
The gifts that are given to us are not for us alone, but they are also for the community and they are to be offered and shared.”
When you find your purpose, express your giftedness and practice it every day in your profession, you are doing your life’s work. You’ll feel a deep-seated sense of satisfaction and will positively impact others in a most meaningful way.
So perhaps it’s time to ask yourself… what is keeping you from your Professional Destiny?
Following your Professional Destiny doesn’t require a cold-turkey switch from less satisfying work to your dream job—especially when you’re starting out. Many people struggle with the idea that they can’t quit the work they’re doing to follow their passion. They have bills to pay. Or if they’re out of a job, they can’t rely solely on the income generated from the first years of doing something new and different. All of these concerns are real and valid. Although I wholeheartedly encourage people to go for it, there’s no need to be a Professional Destiny purist—especially if it’s painful!
If you’re living at a survival level and spending most of your time worrying about paying your bills and meeting basic needs, it’s quite hard to focus on finding your life’s work. If you’re anxious on a daily basis, you may want to consider taking a temporary job to pay the bills while you focus on finding your ideal career. In other words, it’s important to find a way to generate enough income so that you’re not in turmoil over a lack of it.
Even if an opportunity isn’t your idea of the perfect career, it can help you build a foundation while you focus on other things. You’ll be more effective and creative, if you’re not anxiety-ridden and struggling to survive.
Taking a role that’s in your comfort zone may even have hidden benefits—you might meet an important new person that will help you later. Or you may have multiple interests, as I do, and they can be surprisingly synergistic to bring about a great outcome. For example, after completing the manuscript for Professional Destiny, I went back into advertising for a year and met our then Chief Creative Officer and now famous blogger—Ken Segall—who was instrumental with the design and editing of my book. Going back to a position where you’re capable and comfortable can also provide you with additional skills, funding and opportunities that are a step in the right direction. I also greatly enjoyed the benefit of a steady paycheck and it helped me fund the launch of Professional Destiny and re-establish my consulting and coaching business. Plus while I was in advertising, I met many other people I enjoyed and now work with and had several opportunities to expand my skills and experience. The challenges and trials of the particular role I had turned out to be well worth it.
Easing your stress level with compensation that you can count on, helps you to feel good about yourself and radiate enthusiasm for looking for a new position that’s a better match for you. When you exude confidence, enthusiasm and prosperity into your new endeavor, you’ll be far more effective than trying to get started while you’re feeling poor, unsuccessful and fearful.
The trick is to make sure that an interim position doesn’t take all your time and energy so that you don’t have any left to focus on work that truly energizes you.
Of course, you certainly can choose to go cold-turkey into your Professional Destiny too, but that’s another blog post…
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.
What would you do if
you weren’t afraid? —Spencer Johnson,
Who Moved My Cheese?
In any undertaking of substance, you can’t expect yourself to be fearless—we all have fear. The secret is to be courageous and not let your fear win over. Having courage is not the absence of fear but the drive and the strength to keep going in spite of it. Ultimately, your desire and belief in your vision must be stronger. That’s what you lean on.
The following is an excerpt from Professional Destiny about the difference between faith and fear:
“Fear shows itself all along our journey. The more important our purpose is and the more remarkable we are called to be, the more we can expect to encounter fear. Anyone who is remarkable has overcome great difficulty and fear. If this weren’t the case there would be more remarkable people—those who stand out as truly extraordinary. Most people choose to be ordinary. They play it safe and do just enough to get by.
What separates the extraordinary from the ordinary are those people who choose faith over fear and practice discipline every day in achieving their purpose. Faith, in this sense, means a passionate, unbending belief in your vision. Here are some things to know about faith:
Faith is believing in success. It’s believing in a friendly creative force bigger than yourself, a force that will help you. Fear is inverted faith—it’s believing in failure.
Faith looks forward. It’s believing in your vision even when there’s no proof. You may not know all the answers, but you know you will take the next step.
Faith is the tool to overcome fear. Truly remarkable people call on it every day and guide their lives with it.
With faith, you don’t get to know how it gets done. You don’t get to know what is going to happen either. “How” or “what” are not the questions—you just need to know that you are going to do it.
Faith and commitment get you there. If you falter on either, the journey will take longer.
Expect that the process of moving along your path will throw challenges at you. It’s part of the package. It’s the hand you are dealt. When you think of it this way, you won’t get mired in pessimism or misery. Or if you feel it, which is natural, you won’t stay there for long. You know it’s just something you need to get through. And you will.”
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.
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!
A ship in harbour is safe,
People with high levels of mastery…
edition
