Chris Brogan sent the above tweet out several weeks back and it struck me as a question that every working professional would benefit from considering. Many of us enter the working world with very distinct ideas about where we want to go but quickly get bogged down with the day-to-day. Then maybe you get married and have kids and get into a routine…and before you know it it’s 10 years later and the you’re not anywhere closer to that original goal than you were at the beginning of your career. And maybe things are fine – good job, good salary. But do you really want “fine” for the whole of your 40+ years in the professional world?
Step out of your forced reality for a moment and ask yourself this: If you could spend your time doing anything, what would it be? Go ahead – do it. I’ll wait.
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Got it?
Ok. Now look at where you currently are and start to think about the steps you would need to take to get where you want to be. What will it take to make that professional leap?
I’ll ask a better question: What do you need to do you need to do to generate an income around doing things you genuinely enjoy? Look beyond the obvious of getting that promotion the next level in your current company. Think outside of the box. Maybe it’s hunting, or skiing, or knitting, or baking. Some of us are blessed to be able to be in a position to do the things we love. Most of us are not. So ask yourself – What do I love to do? What is that activity that I can do all day and have hours pass by as if they are minutes? Don’t swipe it aside by saying that it’s “just” a hobby. You can make money doing almost anything. Look at the people who make money doing the things you love to do and see how they do it. What’s stopping you from doing the same thing?
I’m not suggesting you have to jump to to quitting your job, moving to the Caribbean, and start a business renting bikes on the beach. Changing your reality doesn’t always require drastic action (at least, not at the beginning). Look at the small changes you can make that are reasonable given everything you have going on in your life. It could be as simple as getting up an hour earlier to have some focused work time in the morning, or sacrificing a few hours on the weekend to work on your side project. Or it could be even more basic: Create a roadmap that illustrates where you currently are, where you want to go and the steps you will need to take to get there.
Rather shockingly, research shows that those professional coaches who co-create a plan with enumerated goals and steps to achieving those goals with their clients are more likely to have a successful coaching engagement with those clients (yes, they actually study these things!). But although working with a coach is great if you have the resources to do it, you don’t need a coach to start creating your own plan to set yourself up for success. Start by filling in the following blanks:
- If I could do anything, I would do {blank}
- People make a livable income doing {above blank} by doing {blank}
- The steps I need to take to set myself up to make that livable income are {blank1}, {blank2}, {blank3}, etc.
Before you know it, you’ve started to create a plan with workable steps to go there.
So, what’s holding you back? Stop making excuses, stop standing in your own way and start building the reality you want rather than accepting the reality you’ve ended up in.
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