One thing I've noticed in my 15+ years of helping people figure out what they want to be when they grow up is how uncomfortable we are with questions. Despite the fact that the questions we ask inevitably shape the results and opportunities we find, we are so focused on answers, we don't pay attention to asking the right questions. Nor do we pay attention to how our questions can help us frame new opportunities.  I'm a big believer in managing your career with questions. I think it is by grappling with our questions that we come to true insight and clarity about our journey. But we need to get better at asking powerful questions and make questioning a regular career habit.  What is a Powerful Question? The Art of Powerful Questions says that a powerful question: Generates curiosity in the listener. Stimulates reflective conversation. Is thought-provoking. Surfaces underlying assumptions. Invites creativity and new possibilities. Generates energy and forward movement. Channels attention and focuses inquiry. Touches a deep meaning Evokes more questions.  For me, I know when I've hit on the "right" question when I feel an urgency to explore and answer it OR when I feel huge resistance about dealing with it. Often that resistance is a sign that I REALLY need to deal with that particular question! If the question feels "dead"--if I get a "been there, done that" response to the question, then I know I haven't found a question that's really powerful for me. I need to keep exploring and tinkering until I get it right.  Some Resources for Exploring Questions and Your Career If you're looking for some help in getting started with using questions for career management and exploration, check out some of these resources:  The Art of Powerful Questions--written for the World Cafe community, this is an excellent guide to developing your own powerful questions. Hint: ask more "why," "how" and "what" questions. The Question Log--keep track of your questions and look for trends and themes.  The Power of the Positive Question--use positive questions to create more of what you want.  Working with the Questions--use different types of questions to explore various aspects of your career.  Questions to Compose Your Working Identity--explore your career as a form of identity. 12 Professional Development Questions--although developed for companies, these questions also apply to individuals.  If You Do Not Work on Important Questions, You Will Not Do Important Work--break free from the tyranny of the small question.  The Reflective Practice Series--a whole host of questions and ideas for creatively exploring questions for learning and professional development.  Another techniqe to try is what Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregerson, in their recent Harvard Business Review article Find a Job Using Disruptive Innovation , call "questionstorming":  Take four minutes a day to write down nothing but questions about your job search. Doing this consistently for thirty days will take you down new paths as your questions change and your patterns of action follow. For example, an executive in his mid-thirties and in a career transition began by asking "How can I make a bucket of money?" Over time, that question changed to "What will make me happy for the long term?" Which then changed to "How do I create something for the long term?" As a result, he's moved into different kinds of job interviews, landing one with a big multinational company that otherwise would never have happened had he not changed his question. Questionstorming can be combined with the Question Log to give you some really powerful insights.  Finally, many of the people I work with have had great success in using visuals to explore their career questions. It's the idea behind my Career Clarity Image sessions, where you can work with up 3 big questions--which usually leads to more and deeper questions. And ultimately some clarity.  Questioning is a Fundamental Career Management Skill I'm increasingly finding that developing your skills in the art of the question is one of the best investments in your career you can make. Not only do powerful questions help you gain clarity about your own career, the ability to ask and use powerful questions in other facets of your professional life is a cornerstone for success.  Focusing on answers is easy in the age of Google. It's the questions that really make the difference. 

Earlier this week I referenced an excellent article by Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen, Find a Job Using Disruptive Innovation. Their first piece of advice was to ask more and different questions. Their second suggestion was to start looking at the real jobs that need to be done, not at the jobs you once did:   . . . when people become aware of a "job" that they need to get done, they search for a product or service to "hire" for getting the job done effectively. Disruptive innovators grasp the "jobs-to-be-done" better than anyone else because they spend hours, days, and sometimes months watching people use products and services to fully understand the jobs that people are "hiring" products and services to do. Sometimes the jobs are surprising (like Christensen discovered when watching adults frequently "hire" a milkshake to do the job of not getting bored during a long commute). Often these observations pay off with ideas for new products and services better-suited for the job that needs to be done. The same same approach can benefit you as a "job creator." Ask yourself what jobs-to-be-done do you care most about. Which ones are you most competent at? Or, which ones are the companies your targeting in your job search willing to hire you to do? Set aside time to systematically create richer, deeper insights about jobs-to-be-done. Spend a half day a week just watching, taking notes, and if appropriate, videotaping or photographing people using different products and services that are interesting to you (or with the products of targeted companies in your job search). As you watch, constantly ask, "what's surprising or unexpected?" to help you discover new features, products, or services that might do the jobs even better, distinguishing you from other job candidates. While sometimes it makes sense for you to consider your career moves in the context of what's currently available, increasingly I think that we need to take more of a "job creation" approach--looking for the intersection between problems and needs and our own skills, talents and passions. It may be that we are creating freelance opportunities for ourselves or we may be looking at creating new positions within companies or organizations.  Either way, we are thinking about how we can create our own work, rather than just doing the work that is presented to us.  Here are some resources that can help you get started on being your own job creator: Future-Proofing Your Career Three Ways to Create Your Own Job Can't Find a Dream Job? Create Your Own 5 Steps to Creating Your Own Job When Jobs are Scarce, Create Your Own 8 Steps to Getting What You Want Without Formal Credentials

I've noticed that for many of us, careers are binary things--we do this job OR that one. I can work for someone else OR I can work for myself.  Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, this either/or thinking made a lot of sense in a more stable world with relatively limited options. For good or ill, that world has changed though. There is little place for binary thinking. We need to move from careers based on "Or" thinking to careers that embrace "And" thinking.  Try looking at some of the career decisions and issues you have before you. How might they be transformed by removing the word "or" and replacing it with "and"? 

This morning I'm re-reading Steven Pressfield's Do the Work. It's become a go-to-book when I need to remind myself how to start creative projects and move through the massive resistance I face whenever I want to bring something to life.  Lately, I've been sifting through various options for where I want to go next, noticing that I've lost some of the passion that had fed what felt like awesome ideas only a few months ago. And then I read this:  You may think that you've lost your passion, or that you can't identify it, or that you have so much of it, it threatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true.  Fear saps passion. (my emphasis) When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustable well of passion.  This is true. This is what happens. I will feel inside me a great excitement about a potential path and then, just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, the fear will rise inside of me. If my creative project is a potential money-making venture, then most certainly the fear that it will NOT make money comes up first. This is followed by a whole host of other fears--that I will fail or look stupid, that others will react poorly or that it's not really a great idea after all. Also endless permutations of these basic fears. You know the drill.  It is the work of my "rational" mind (which I think is really just my nay-sayer mind) that can quickly overwhelm the initial thrill of knowing that I've hit on something important.  Pressfield reminds me, though, that this fear is just part of Resistance (with a capital "R"). And that Resistance is an inevitable part of the creative process, an external force that rises up to meet us when we try to bring something great into the world. He says: We can navigate Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or purpose that we must follow before all others.  Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. (my emphasis)  The passion-sapping fear I feel is just a tool from the Resistance toolbox, a trick of the mind meant to dissaude me from pursuing those things that are most important for me to go after.  Increasingly I realize that we all know in our hearts what we really want to do. But then Resistance sets in and saps the passion that would helps us move through to what we want. It uses its Jedi mind tricks of fear and distraction to keep us from creating what we know we want to create.  This morning I'm working with my fears, using the List of 100 technique. Just recogizing the impact of fear on passion and getting those fears down on paper is doing wonders to restore me.  How do your fears sap your passion? What happens if you work with your fears? That may be the best way to get the passion to return. 

One of the hardest questions for me to answer is "what do you do for a living?" Unlike most people I know, I don't have one, simple bite-sized nugget to describe what I do.  Depending on who you are, I might tell you that I do one or more of the following:  Help people work through career transitions and develop their career/professional development plans.  Work with government agencies and nonprofit organizations to help them develop programs and services that support unemployed and disadvantaged workers, such as people with disabilities.  Provide training and technical assistance on how to use social media for job search and to support workforce development programs.  Develop and facilitate leadership academies and training sessions. Facilitate communities of practice. Educate on reflective practices.  You can see the connections between some of these "jobs", but some you can't see. As a self-employed professional, the work I do is largely based on the skills I've developed and places in the market where I've seen a need. At any given time, I'm doing work in several of these areas.  Marci Alboher wrote a few years ago about One Person/Multiple Careers, referring to a phenomenon she called the "slash career"--people pursuing multiple careers simultaneously. Marci was a woman ahead of her time, as I believe increasingly many of us will be pursuing this kind of career path. While some of us may become hyper-specialists, others (like me) are building a multi-pronged career where we pursue multiple opportunities at the same time.  For the most part, I think this is a positive. I diversify my funding streams this way and a "slash career"  keeps me fresh and exposes me to different people and different ways of viewing the world. This career path also keeps me from getting bored.  But there are downsides too, like what to put on business cards and my LinkedIn profile?  How to build an "online brand" that doesn't confuse people? How to divide up my time and ongoing professional development so that I'm building skills that will help me in all these different areas?  What is most challenging is helping other people to understand what I do when so many of us still have fixed in our heads the idea of a single career path or "job." People want to hear one single thing, like "I'm a nurse" or "I'm a career coach" or "I build bridges." It's hard for them to accept that you can be doing several different things at once.  Many of us are going to have to figure this out though, because in a world of diminishing full-time "jobs," more of us are going to be pursuing the "slash career." It's going to be the key to our career growth and survival.  And honestly, it's a return to how things used to be--think Benjamin Franklin as your career role model.  One book that helped me think through this a few years ago was The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One. Another was Refuse to Choose: Use All of Your Interests, Passions and Hobbies to to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams. (A side note--why do all non-fiction book titles seem to require a colon? It's a trend that disturbs me.)  At any rate, I'd love to hear from those of you who may be pursuing the Renaissance Man/Woman approach. How do you manage your different paths? How do you continue to grow and learn professionally, especially if your skill sets aren't particularly related? What do you love about your path? What do you struggle with? What do you think of the slash career as a professional strategy? 

In our ongoing career and professional development, there are times when it's helpful to look at our past. It may be that we're bored and contemplating a change. We may have been laid off and had change thrust upon us. Even as part of our ongoing reflective practice, mining our past experiences can give us great fodder for the future.  One way to look at your past is to use a technique pioneered by Ira Progoff as part of his Intensive Journaling process called "Stepping Stones." This process allows you to create a sort of career timeline that can give you greater insight into current career dilemmas and possibilities for new directions.  What Are Stepping Stones? Stepping stones are "the significant points of movement along the road of an individual's life." A stepping stone is  an event, image, sensation, a thought, or milestone of your life that comes to mind when you review your life from the beginning to the present. Stepping stones aren't tied to fixed periods of time. One stepping stone may last a few months and the next may last several years.  To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are my career stepping stones.  What Will I Be When I Grow Up? I'm going to be a lawyer College teaches me that I'd HATE being a lawyer. HR Manager  Kids make careers complicated Government work Turning my job into self-employment My Slash Career What's Next?  Stepping Stone 4 lasted a couple of years, but Stepping Stone 7 was about 7 years; you can see that time isn't really how you define a stepping stone. It's more about a phase of life that hangs together naturally.  Finding Your Stepping Stones To find your Stepping Stones, follow this procedure: Find a quiet space where you'll have between 10-15 minutes to yourself. Sit back and breathe deeply for a few minutes, letting your mind play over your life and various career experiences. Keep in mind that sometimes your career isn't about working. Notice that in my example, there was that period of exploration that covered childhood and college, times before I was working but when I was still thinking about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I also had a period when I was home with my children, but I still consider it part of my overall career trajectory.  In a few words or phrases, capture the essence of a particular stepping stone by writing it down in a journal or career notebook. You may find these in chronological order or they may show up in chunks. When I did this, I actually started with my last stepping stone and then went back to the beginning to trace to the present.  Don't spend a lot of time evaluating and thinking about this. Usually your stepping stones will appear relatively easily and should fall into place without a lot of critical analysis.  Working with Your Stepping Stones Once you have a list of your stepping stones, it's time to work with them. You can do this  in a few sessions or in one marathon session where you go through all of them. I've found that it's better to take them in chunks--maybe 2-3 at a time.  To start the work, first read through your entire list, trying to keep a neutral frame of mind. Suspend judgment if you can help it. Look for patterns or themes. Is there something that ties together two or more of your stepping stones? How do you feel looking at your list? Do some of the items evoke particularly positive or negative reactions? I've found that it's helpful to write down these general observations and reactions before I move into working with individual stepping stones.   Once you've looked at your overall list, you then want to turn your attention to individual stepping stones, describing them in greater detail. Some questions to consider:  What was happening in your career at that point? How were you feeling about your career? What else was going on in your life?  How did your career and life fit together during that time? What kinds of questions and issues were you dealing with then?  Were there any roads not traveled?  What relationships were important during this time? Were there bosses, colleagues and/or mentors who were particularly important? How did those relationships impact your career?  What lessons did you learn during this period? What did this time of life teach you about yourself and what you did/didn't want in your career?  A good way to begin your description is with the phrase "It was a time when. . . " This can be an excellent springboard into the memories and feelings of that period of your career.  Using Your Stepping Stones Once you've described your stepping stones in greater detail, there are many ways you can use the information.  Usually particular patterns or themes will emerge that you can use in decision-making and growth. For example, you may notice that the more postiive, growth-filled points in your career coincided with the times when you had a mentor to guide you. Or you may notice that you tend to get bored and need a change after somewhat predictable periods of time.  Something I noticed in my stepping stones is that every 3-4 years I need to find a new challenge--some new skill to master or some new area of research to immerse myself in. Recognizing this helped me to better understand that this is a theme for me, something I can anticipate and actively nurture. Some people have seen a pattern of foregoing career dreams in favor of the "practical" approach, while others have found that they repeatedly sacrificed their own career goals to help someone else.  The process of detailing your stepping stones can remind you of long-buried bits of yourself--interests you used to have or skills you haven't used in years. Once revealed to you, these can become nuggets to build on for the future.  Looking at your career life as a series of stepping stones can be a powerful way to mine your past for insight that you can use for your future. It can help you uncover long-lost career dreams as well as patterns of self-sabotage or "playing it small."  The point of the stepping stone exercise is to help you place your current circumstances and career issues in a longer timeframe. You are where you are in part because of decisions and experiences from your past. Exploring your stepping stones can help you put your present into context and give you new ideas for moving forward.  

Jessica Hagy of Indexed fame has an excellent illustrated post on Forbes--20 Ways to Find Your Calling.  Number one on the list is Ignore the future, deal with the present:  The question, "What should I be when I grow up?" is wrong. Ask instead, "What is next today?" People become fat one bite at a time, and we become adults one hour at a time, so what we do today matters. One of the things I observe with career clients is how potential futures can pull people away from what they are doing in the present. They spend a lot of time crafting a vision, but much less time paying attention to what's happening in front of them. While it's important to have a vision for the future--and this is something I notice many people lack--at the same time, we have to pay attention to what we are doing right now, today. What choices are we making about where we spend our time and put our priorities? What unconscious habits have we adopted that may actually be moving us further from our future dreams? How are we putting one foot in front of the other and how is this carrying us toward what we want, rather than further into what we don't want?  Like overeaters, we may find that one bite at a time, we are headed down a road that is unsustainable. Suddenly, we look up, after years of thinking about a future we do nothing to enact, and realize that this future is actually our past. Then we scramble to fix what we subconsciously created.  I'm a big fan of mindfulness--although not always so great at walking the talk. I think Jessica's reminder that we need to pay attention to what we are doing in the present is a good one. So how do we use our present to create our future? Ask Yourself Some Questions Start by asking some hard questions.  What is going on around me that I need to pay attention to? What trends are happening in my job, my company/organization and in the larger world that will impact my future?  How am I making choices today that take me closer to what I want in the future? How are my choices taking me further away?  How am I prioritizing my time and my resources? If I keep doing what I'm doing, where is this going to lead?  What is the elephant in the room? What is right in front of me that I don't want to acknowledge? How is this influencing my choices?  Try journaling about these questions and using them to change what you're doing in the present.  Build 1-Minute Reflections Into Your Day It helps to build more reflection into your day. I tell people to pay attention to how energy is flowing for them. Set your watch to do a 1-minute check-in every hour or two. Is your energy up or down? What have you been doing and how does this seem to impact your energy level? Keep a log and start looking for trends. As much as possible, focus on those activities and people that bring you energy, not those that drain it. If your entire day is an energy drain, start taking steps to make bigger changes.  Use Your First Hour to Set the Stage How are you spending your first hour? This sets the stage for the rest of the day. Create the right intentions at the beginning of your day and you are more likely to take present actions that support your future.  Change Your Habits The chart above is from Charles Duhigg's  The Power of Habit in which he argues that much of what we do in any given day is driven more by habit than by any thoughtful or intentional process. To live in the present means to recognize the extent to which our lives are merely a series of habits strung together by cues and rewards. To change the habit, we must become aware of what triggers us, what reward we get and then find ways to insert new, more positive routines between our cue and reward.  Use Your Present to Shape Your Future Ultimately, doing the right things today that are in alignment with what we want in our careers is the most potent tool we have for shaping the future we want. Being clear about where we want to go can be helpful, but if we don't take actions today that are in alignment with that future, we will never get where we want to go. 

I've found that figuring out what you want to do in life is both a science and an art.  The "science" part is the practical stuff, the step-by-step, "research this, try out that, reflect on what you discover" approach. And there's something to be said for researching occupational and work trends to get an idea of where the demand for your skills may be and what kind of education and experience you need. This is information you need to sell yourself and to get on the road toward that new career.  But before that is the decision to DO something to change. And that's where the "art" piece of it comes in. Because art, at it's heart, is about following some voice inside of you to create what it is you want, whether it's a painting or a career. Art is fueled by intuition--we might call it "the muse"-- and it is the muse that breathes life into every act of creation we take. But we have to listen to it first.  One thing I've found in myself and through working with others is that in our quietest moments, we KNOW the right next step. Our intution has been whispering to us about this for awhile. And when we don't listen to the whispers, it starts screaming.  "TIME TO QUIT," it will say. Or "YOU SHOULD BE USING YOUR TALENTS THIS WAY!" Or "IF I HAVE TO DO THIS ONE MORE DAY I WILL LOSE IT!" But we repress that voice, tell it to shut up, to be more "practical."  We argue with it and tell it all the ways that it's foolish, irresponsible and a "dreamer." We push it down and keep plowing ahead on this other course we're on, until we simply can't take it anymore. Or sometimes the decision is made for us, when we are laid off or fired or a big contract comes to an end.  Sometimes the best place to start in our career explorations is with the things we DON'T want to hear or acknowledge, the elephant in the room we keep trying to ignore.  What keeps going through our minds on a repetitive loop that we've managed to tone down to a dull roar? That's our intuitive voice, telling us what we need to hear, but that we don't want to listen to. Intuition can be our best teacher, when we stop repressing it.   What wisdom is your intuition trying to share with you?  Maybe it's time to start acting on that. . . 

Allison Jones has a great blog post today on places where she finds career inspiration. She says: When it comes to career advice, it is very easy to focus on tactics: how to write a resume; how to use social media to find a job; how to network. However, in the time that I have been blogging about nonprofit careers, I have realized that while tactics are important, they make it too easy for us to ignore bigger questions about our careers: what are we good at? What are we willing to commit to? What do we value most in our work and our lives? To that end, many of my favorite places for career advice, aren’t entirely career-tactic focused. Instead they focus on sharing powerful stories, asking compelling questions, and encouraging me to slow down. Then she lists some of her favorite sources, including friends, children's books (love that one!) and going inward.  Allison's post got me thinking about some of my own sources of inspiration that I wanted to share.  Social media connections Through social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.) I'm connected to a lot of different people from all over the world working in a lot of different career areas.  In fact, Allison's blog post came to me via Facebook: I find that on any given day, someone, somewhere offers me a little nugget of gold that can spur my thinking. It might be an inspirational quote or a link to something interesting they're working on or even a complaint they have about their jobs. In some form or fashion, though, I get a little jolt that can keep me going--or at least gets me thinking.  TEDTalks One of the things that I can count on my social networks bringing to me are great TEDTalks. Some are oldies but goodies, while others are newly posted. Often the right talk comes to my attention at the right time--a little piece of serendipity that I try to notice and that boosts my day. My Journals  I keep two types of journals. Actually, three. The first is a diary-type arrangement where I write about what's on my mind, from the personal to the professional. It's an emotional and mental dumping ground that helps me clear my thoughts. It's also a place where I take notes on books I'm reading, including recording key quotes that "speak" to me. I also keep an art journal where I draw, paint, collage, make lists and generally express myself visually. This is can also a dumping ground of sorts, but it is more often a source of inspiration. And the process of art-making can get me in a good head space for dealing with a problem or seeing something in my life differently. The image below is from one of my visual journals.  The third type of journal I keep are idea books. These tend to be more professionally focused and will contain all of my notes, thoughts, articles, etc. related to different project ideas I have. I'm very interested in the power of conversation right now, so I have one devoted to that. I also want to do more face-to-face retreats, so I have a book on that. Some of these idea journals are a mish mash of different smaller ideas, but others--like the Conversation project and the retreat stuff--merit their own book.  Reflection Key to my journal-keeping is a regular practice of reflection on my journals. I will set aside time to go back through what I've written, which often leads me to see themes that have been happening for awhile across my personal and professional spheres that I've done nothing (or very little) to address. Although I find it relaxing and helpful to dump things in my journal, what is even more helpful is having a regular practice of reviewing and reflecting. At a minimum, it shows me where my blind spots and ongoing dreams are. When the process works really well, it will spur me to action.  Conversations  While I love time to think and reflect, I find that talking to other people can be a powerful source of inspiration too. Sometimes narrating what's going on with me gives me a way to hear myself say things that I didn't realize I was thinking. I also enjoy hearing what's happening with other people. I like asking them what they want MORE of in their work, which often helps me further refine what I like and don't like. I also like finding out what problems and issues people grapple with, as this sometimes gives me ideas for things I might be able to do to help fill in the gaps. For example, last year's end-of-year women's retreat was partially the result of conversations I was having with different women in my life who expressed a need for reflection and connection time. This spurred me to put together a weekend retreat that gave all of us space to do that together.  Reading I am a voracious and eclectic reader. I have business books, novels, psychology texts,  New Age chakra books and art collections littering my bedside. My Kindle is an equally weird conglomeration of whatever captures my interest at the moment. What I love is that eventually (always!), there will be some strange coming-together of ideas from two disparate sources that somehow spark my thinking. Plus I'm usually able to pull something from my reading that I can use in conversations (see above) to further inspire discussion. Retreats In the past few years, I've gotten in the more regular habit of going away on weekend retreats to give myself time and space for reflection and conversation, often for a particular reason.  I already mentioned the end-of-year women's retreat I did last December, which I plan to do again this year. That retreat was all about transitioning from 2011 to 2012. This past weekend my husband and I went away to a little cabin in the Poconos where we both worked on some of our creative projects. We returned home, thinking of some projects we want to work on together, as well as feeling renewed in our relationship and in our sense of what we want to be working towards in our lives.  For me, retreats are a critical inspirational experience. I try to enter into them with intention (What aspects of my life do I want to work on? What do I want and need to experience to feel renewed?). I give myself time for both quiet reflection and writing time as well as for conversations and connection because I find that both are needed for me to feel truly inspired and clear about where to go next. I've never been disappointed and I'm now becoming more purposeful in planning them. (BTW--West Coast friends--check out Christine Martell's upcoming Women Unplugged Retreat if you're feeling the need to go away!)  So these are my major sources of inspiration. . . let's keep the ball rolling. What are your sources of inspiration?   

Sometimes I find that when I'm stuck or I'm working with people who are stuck, what keeps us in the same place is that we're asking ourselves the wrong question. We don't realize we are asking this question, but we are. This is the question we're stuck in: What's wrong with me?  This post by Andrea Sher about her struggle with infertility reminded me of how often we can get stuck in this question for any part of our life that doesn't seem to be moving the way we want it to. This can keep us in a victim place that prevents us from really finding a way out. This is how Andrea describes the experience:  I had a session with my life coach. And she said, "Okay. So there’s a lot of self-pity here. What about the anger? Where’s that? Aren’t you pissed off and frustrated? Where’s the ‘why-the-f***-hasn’t-it-happened-by-now?’ Aren’t you mad at God or your body or somebody?!" And that’s when I got it. As I stepped into the anger (okay, rage) I felt my strength, my fierceness, my aliveness in addition to my longing. I also saw how little power there was in the self-pity. The victim place is just that- totally helpless and impotent. And I had been there a long time. As we explored the anger, I found my feet firmly planted on the ground. I practiced role playing with her. We pretended people were asking me how it was going, and instead of my usual "It’s so hard…" and crying almost immediately, I practiced saying, "It f***ing sucks!!! We’re f***ing frustrated!!!" Andrea is talking about infertility, but honestly, this conversation with ourselves can happen for any part of our lives, including our work. We have to stop asking "what's wrong with me?" and start asking some different questions.  Andrea suggests two that I think can be helpful: How can I help myself?  Where can I get support? Questions that have helped me in this situation are: What can I learn from where I am now?  Where's the energy in my life right now and how can I follow that? What do I want more of and how can I get it?  It changes your sense of the issues when you recognize that underneath all the "stuckness" is the question "What's wrong with me?" Seeing that question and how it disempowers you, then finding new questions that give you strength and courage can make a huge difference.  Try it. I promise that it works. 

The most common career advice around is to "follow your passion." But for some people, this is easier said than done. They may have lost sight of their passions or they may have a bunch of them. Sometimes it's a matter of re-framing things. So here are a few other strategies for re-defining your career that may work better than "follow your bliss." Focus on a Problem Maybe instead of following your passion, you need to find a big juicy problem to work with. Look around. Is there something in the world that you'd love to fix? Often this can be the best guide to our sense of purpose.  And working on important problems can lead you to doing your most important work.  Find Your Positive Core Where do your deepest talents lie? What is it that people come to you for again and again? Often who you are will provide the best clues to new career ideas. If career satisfaction comes from being authentic, then a career based on your unique gifts makes sense. That's where it becomes important to define your positive core.  One great way to explore your positive core is through Marcus Buckingham's latest strengths book and assessment, Standout. It helps you identify your two core strengths and gives detailed information on how you can use these to get yourself to the next level. I took it and found that I'm a "Stimulator/Provider." It gave me some great new insights into my strengths and how I could use them more effectively. Definitely worth a look.  And for the more visually inclined, one of the best tools I've used is the VisualsSpeak Image Center Career Clarity process. It gives you deep insights into your greatest strengths. Plus you can print it out and hang it over your desk for daily inspiration! Don't Choose One Passion Sometimes what keeps people from following their bliss is not that they can't find it, but that they have what they perceive to be, too many passions. They want to find that ONE thing, but can't seem to settle because several passions draw them in.  In today's economy, I think it's smart NOT to choose just one passion. If you have the energy and commitment to pursue career opportunities in several different areas, I say do it. This is how I've built my career and it's worked well for many people.  Career clarity can come in many different forms. If the "follow your bliss" frame isnt' working for you, try another route. 

One of the ways that I think we learn best is when we hear the stories of other people's career experiences. When we're in the middle of figuring out our own next moves, it can be helpful to see that someone has made a successful transition and how they did it.  With that in mind, I'd like to start a periodic series here at The Bamboo Project on successful career transitions featuring . . . YOU. If you--or someone you know--has made a successful career transition and you'd be willing to do a blog interview with me about it, send me an email at michelemmartin(at)gmail.com. I'll send you some questions and we can take it from there.  Let's learn from each other and the experiences we've had!

  I know a lot of you out there have big dreams--creative ideas for how you want to move ahead in your career or as an entrepreneur. Many of you have projects that have been kicking around in the back of your brain, waiting for you to give them some air and space to emerge. I want to help.  Last year I went away to  Pendle Hill, a  beautiful Quaker retreat space just outside of Philadelphia, in Wallingford, PA. With 10 of my friends, I looked at my life and the projects I wanted to work on this year and got great clarity and insight into where to go next.  That experience was so powerful for me and for the women I went away with, that I wanted to recreate it again, this time with some more structure and intentional activities to help others bring their creative dreams to fruition.  So I'm excited to announce that I'll be running the Dream It/Do It Weekend Retreat on November 9-11, 2012. It's for anyone who has a career or business dream they want to work on. You'll have dedicated alone time to plan for your dream, as well as group activities and supports that can help you build and refine your plans. All in a beautiful, peaceful setting that includes home-cooked meals made from locally grown ingredients, a fully-stocked art studio (seriously--it's amazing), and 23-acre grounds with walking trails for when you just need to move.  Running this retreat is one of MY dreams. I want to help you benefit from the same alone time for reflection and opportunities for community support that have helped me make my own dreams a reality.  There's much more on the retreat, as well as information on how to sign up here. I think it's going to be an amazing experience! I hope you'll join us. . . 

Jay Cross, one of my favorite learning experts, announced on his blog last week that he has a "new muse":  For the better part of forty years, my work has focused on adult learning. I’ve strived to make learning at work more effective, relevant, enjoyable, and cost-effective. Today I am shifting direction. My new muse is well-being. I'm intrigued by how and why people make the career transitions that they do, so I asked Jay to do a blog interview with me about his new direction. Here it is. Can you give us some background on your career to date? Upon graduating from college with a degree in sociology, I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. I became a mainframe computer salesman. After a couple of years, I became an Army officer and managed computer operating in Germany. Returned to the U.S. and earned an MBA. Had a miserable time as a market researcher. Developed curriculum for an educational start-up that eventually became the University of Phoenix; refused to move to Phoenix. Joined a start-up that trained bankers how to make decisions; spent fifteen years selling, managing sales, and directing marketing to very large banks. Tried my hand in a medical software start-up, a wholesale financial service start-up, and a tracking software start-up. A dozen years ago, I went on my own -- Internet Time Group -- to champion first eLearning and later, informal learning. You are well-known in adult learning, with 40 years of experience and accomplishments to go with it. What is it like to go from being an "expert" in your field to doing something where you are more of a novice? As of yet, I don’t have much experience in my new field, well-being, so you may want to take my temperature on this one a few months from now. Thus far, I am thoroughly enjoying "beginner’s mind." It is liberating. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few," wrote Sunryku Suzuki. I am painting on an immense, blank canvas. I get to set my objectives anew. I am free to think big thoughts. I can ask any questions I want. I can mash up everything I know from other fields to spark innovation. Who are the best people to talk with? What are the top things to read? How big a dream can I take on? This is much more fun that pontificating on topics I already know about. (If anyone reading this has pointers for me, get in touch via jaycross.com). Can you tell me about the process that led up to you deciding to move in this new direction?  My first significant paper on informal learning came out in May 2003. Since then I think I’ve said most of what I have to say on the topic. I can answer most question on auto-pilot. Informal learning was getting old. I want to learn new things and make new discoveries. What got me going with informal learning originally was the anomaly that most learning in organizations is informal yet training departments have nothing to do with it. I saw an opportunity to improve the way business is conducted by getting things into balance. My new interest is the impact of well-being on business. Research suggests that happy people sell more, produce more, and come up with more creative ideas. Neuroscience tells us that people are driven by emotion, not logic. Yet "business-like" means without emotion. Most workers hate their jobs. There’s a giant opportunity to make people feel happy and fulfilled while simultaneously boosting profits. That’s noble cause. I think well-being is going to be an easier sell than informal learning. Sixteen to twenty years in school has brainwashed people to the extent that they confuse schooling and learning. They argue that informal learning is out of control. They’re right. I think that’s good; the schoolers disagree. I began the year at a meeting on a Swiss mountain top where an interdisciplinary group sought ways to reinvent management. I’m convinced that the goal of a business is to delight customers. How do you delight customers? By delighting employees. Happiness is contagious. Marty Seligman’s latest book, Flourish, sets out five areas that contribute to well-being. One is having a purpose greater than oneself. I am getting on in years. I want to make my dent in the universe. If I can help at least 10,000 people lead happier, more fulfilling, and more productive lives, that accomplishment will make us all feel happier. In June, five friends and I spent the weekend at Asilomar Conference Center, a wonderful retreat center on the coast between Monterey and Carmel, to talk about our lives and aspirations. I rated myself on the five things that lead to well-being that Marty had described. I lacked that "purpose larger than myself" and needed to work more closely with others. I determined that My calling is to create happier, more productive workplaces.  What kinds of activities have you been engaging in to make the change? How are you learning about your new focus and how is it changing your daily work? I believe in learning by doing, so I’m following routines to make me happier personally. (And they appear to be working). I’m setting up ways to curate what I find. I’m making lists of books to read and people to talk with. Soon I’ll begin hitting up my network for suggestions. I’m reading a lot and I have feeds plucking things from the internet for me. I’m having fun setting up the processes I’ll use get to know the field. Unlearning is going to be a challenge. When I see people making ridiculous claims about informal learning, I feel compelled to respond. I’ve got to stop that. There’s only so much time in the day.  What are you most looking forward to with this new career identity? How are you going to be integrating it with your identity as an adult learning expert? It’s a lot more enjoyable meeting new people. Well-being is more fun to talk about than learning. I don’t really think of this as a new identity. I been saying for several years that my field is helping people work smarter. Well-being falls under that umbrella as well as learning. My beliefs about learning are so deeply ingrained in my psyche that they will shape my ah-ha’s and discoveries. Well-being and informal learning are each related to freedom, autonomy, recognition of accomplishment, meaningful relationships with others, trust, and transparency. I expect my mash-up of the fields of well-being and adult learning to produce innovative approaches. What advice do you have for others who may be thinking about moving from a very established career into something different? What has surprised you most or challenged you most in all of this? Expertise is overrated. I am hopping into this new area with no fear. Determine what you’re after. Marty Seligman’s Flourish was my touchstone. Choose a role that lets you use your signature strengths. Take the VIA Survey of Character Strengths to identify what yours are. A few things that stood out for me in Jay's interview that I think are applicable to a lot of people: Having a "purpose larger than ourselves," is a big driver for Jay, as it is for most of us. I find that when people start to be dissatisfied with their current career trajectory, it's often because they start to become aware that they are not working on a larger purpose.  The ideas for change have been percolating for awhile, but some events--the conference at the beginning of the year and the retreat in June--really moved him to take action.  I find that while reflection will get you so far, it's getting together with like-minded people who are also thinking about what they want that often pushes us forward.  There's a process we go through in shifting our energy and attention away from our former career into the new one. Jay talks about "unlearning" as a challenge and needing to disengage from the conversations around his informal learning career interests because "there's only so much time in the day." Again, this is a common situation for people--we often are operating in the same networks of people, so we see the same conversations and have to discipline ourselves to not engage at all or to engage in ways that are tied to the new career focus we are developing.  Jay talks about enjoying being in "beginner's mind," approaching a new subject area with fresh eyes. I've found that, especially for people who are life-long learners at heart, this process of getting to learn about a new field is what can make a career change even more compelling. It's an opportunity to explore something different and really immerse yourself in the learning process.   Thanks to Jay for his willingness to share his thought process and experiences as he embarks on this new direction in his career. I think he offers us a lot of ideas for how we can pursue and think about our own ongoing career development. I also think he offers a terrific model for how to go about change as we pay attention to our shifting needs and interests in the career life-cycle.   ______________________________________________________________________ If you need time and support to plan for your own career transition, join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat. 

In my life, I've had some of the most profound and important realizations about myself when I've been working with relative strangers. I was thinking about this in regard to my upcoming Dream It/Do It Retreat where I'll be bringing together a group of people who don't know each other to work on their creative projects.  I've found that people are often reluctant to do really personal work around people they don't know. They have concerns about trust and privacy that I definitely understand. We are worried about being judged and with strangers, we don't know what their reactions will be to who we are.  Interestingly, though, I think it's with strangers that we can sometimes most be ourselves. We are not tied into the identities that people close to us most expect. We are not forced into certain roles that we are required to play depending on the group we are with. In a group of relative strangers, we are free to be whoever we want to be.  When we are working on new ideas, it is actually this freedom from the tyranny of our old roles and identities that is most needed. This gives us the space to try on new ways of being without someone we know well judging us for it.  The reality is, the people we know well are often as invested in our old identities as we are. Especially at work, our bonds have been formed around us being a certain type of person in a certain role. When we are exploring new options, especially in the early stages, I've found that it can actually be more effective to do this work with people we don't know who are engaged in the same quest. They are less wedded to our old identities and have nothing to lose if we talk about changing. They don't have hidden or unconscious motives to keep us where we are and so, are more likely to be objective and supportive in their interactions with us. And they understand on a deeper level the changes that we are going through and so can relate better to the emotions and decisions we face along the way.  I find that there's a special intimacy that can develop among strangers who are on a journey together, an intimacy that can be more helpful than that we find with our friends, families and co-workers.  Have you experienced this? How has it helped you to grow?   ______________________________________________________________________ If you want to enjoy the intimacy of strangers as you plan for a new creative venture, join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat. 

As regular readers know, I've been focusing a lot on conversation this year. I see it as a tremendous professional development opportunity, but I also think conversations are fun.  For the past several months, I've been kicking around the idea of bringing together two of my favorite things--food and conversation--into a fun event that would help build connections and community. One of my observations of modern society--at least in the US--is that we don't have opportunities to connect with different people who have had different experiences. Homophily is definitely a problem.  I've also been frustrated at times with the quality of discussions. We spend an awful lot of time talking about things that don't really matter and not as much time pursuing intriguing questions that help us share our authentic selves and build a sense of community.  With those thoughts in mind, my husband and I have devised a local event, a Conversation Cafe. We're bringing together 30 strangers to share three courses and three rounds of conversation. For each course, diners will move to a new table where they will meet new people and engage around new questions. It's meant to entertain, challenge, inspire and, most of all, connect people to one another.   We're planning our first Cafe for September 29, 2012 from 7-9 p.m. If you're in the Philadelphia area and want to join us, registration info is here. We'd love to see you!

One of the best tools I've found for my own ongoing professional development is a career journal. I began journaling for professional purposes about 7 years ago when I bought an artist's sketchbook to maintain all of my ideas related to a particular project I was working on. Since then, my journaling practices have evolved and in this post I want to explore the different ways you can use a career journal to support your positive professional development.  Career Journals as Collections In their most basic iterations, career journals are a place to collect things--ideas, quotes, articles, images, lists, notes, etc. I have journals that are devoted to specific projects as well as more general journals and in each, I'm collecting those snippets of ideas and information that feed my thinking processes. When I read, I jot down quotes in my journal. When I find an article I will print it out and glue it into my journal. I also use it to collect random Post-It notes, images I find in magazines that may convey an idea or experience I want to capture, and examples of work that others do that I admire or think may have connections to my own work.  Career Journals to Process Another way I use my career journals is to process information. I'm someone who often writes her way to understanding, so my journals are filled with entries where I've re-worked ideas, thought through connections, reflected on experiences and applied my understanding of concepts from other fields to the work that I do. There are also tons of mindmaps and VisualsSpeak collages I've used to process my ideas.  Often when I'm stuck, I will use my career journal to work through an idea or concept as a way to get it out of my head and on to paper.  Career Journals to Document Another way to use a career journal is to document. To me, this is separate from collecting items and ideas in your journal. Documenting information carries more intent. I'm writing things down for a purpose, rather than to collect it for some future use.  Mostly I document plans and "to do lists" in my journals. Often I will see the evolution of a project this way, how it morphs from one iteration to another. But you could also use your journal to document achievements , experiments like the 30 Day Trial, your One Sentence Journal responses or to keep your question log.  Ways I Haven't Used My Journals. . . But Could In looking through my journals to write this post, I also noticed how I typically do NOT use my journal, but really could.  For reflections on my daily work habits--I know that I'm not as productive and effective as I could be and that if I made more of an effort to use my journal to log and experiment with daily career habits, I think that could be very helpful. I recently finished Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project and was struck with how successful she was in using her Resolution charts to reach her happiness goals. I think it's an idea that could carry over to careers and to working with in my career journal.   To document emotional reactions to career experiences--I tend to save my emotions for my personal journaling, but think that if I did more to document where I feel energized or inspired by plans, there might be some value in that. I'm trying to live a more integrated life, where I'm not keeping my emotions out of my work, but my journals don't reflect this.  To reflect on what I'm learning about myself and how I like to work--Periodically I will feel stuck or run up against a need to re-invent myself and my journals often reflect this in terms of the projects I pursue and document there. But it might be helpful if I did something that was more ongoing--even weekly or monthly check-ins with myself about how I'm developing. Keeping track of how I'm developing could show me sooner when I'm starting to get restless or dissatisfied.  Debriefing on what did/didn't work with a particular activity--This is a habit I want to make more regular in terms of actually documenting my after action reviews. I tend to do these mentally, but not actually write anything down, which could be helpful for later review. Occasionally I've done that type of reflection here on my blog, but it's not included in my journals.  Benefits of Career Journaling As I was going through my journals, I started thinking more about what I've found beneficial in using them: Great method for helping me process learning--I learn by talking to people and by writing. So writing my ideas, thoughts, concepts,  etc. in my career journals has given me a lot of insight and understanding. It's also helped me find clarity on the projects I'm working on. I have a quote over my desk that says "Our job is not to control our idea. Our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be) and then bring it into being." My journals help me do that.  An archive of ideas to return to when I need inspiration--Sometimes I have ideas that I write in my journals and then other parts of my life get in the way. When I need inspiration, I can go back through my books and find nuggets that suggest new things I could do or new twists on what I've been doing. Very helpful.  I can see trends over time--As I go through my journals, I see ideas that I keep returning to and questions I keep wrestling with. Recognizing one of these trends led me to write a paper with a colleague at Rutgers University. Another trend was in-person retreats, which led me to plan for Dream It/Do It. I don't always act on my ideas immediatly. But when I see that I'm returning to something again and again, I start looking for ways to bring it into being.  Some Career Journaling Resources If you're interested in starting your own career journal, here are some resources to get you going: 6 Ways Keeping a Career Journal Can Help Your Career Using a Career Journal to Further Your Career Development and Empower Your Job Search How Journaling Can Improve Your Career Self-Discovery Through Journal Writing 8 Great Journaling Tips Journal Your Way to a New Job I'd love to hear from you if you keep a career journal. How do you use it? How has it helped you in your career?   ______________________________________________________________________ Do you have a creative dream you want to bring to fruition? Join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat. 

When I first started playing around with writing about career journals, I asked on Twitter if anyone was using them. I heard back from Harold Jarche, who wondered if a blog "counts" as a journal. Of course it does and many of us use our blogs this way, collecting, processing, documenting and thinking things through. But I tend to think that we may miss something if our blogs are our only form of career journaling. Some things are just too raw to share publicly--ill-formed ideas you're barely ready to see yourself, let alone share with others. Or stories of how something may have gone horribly wrong, but you still want to learn from it. Some things that are in my career journal feel too personal to share--the work I do when I'm feeling really stuck comes to mind here. And certainly to do lists and plans aren't blog fodder.  I also have to say that in terms of process, my career journals answer a different need. When I do a blog post here, it's more for my readers than for me. Sometimes there's overlap, but often there isn't.  When I write in my career journals, I'm doing that strictly for me with no worries about an audience or what they need or want to read.  I also, quite simply, enjoy the physical process of writing in a book. It taps into a different part of my brain, is more liberating and free-form. When I blog, there's a structure to it that doesn't always fit in with where I need to go in my thinking. And typing, for me, is about producing and communicating, while writing has a quality of "thinking out loud" that I just don't get from my keyboard.  Ultimately, I think that my blog has been a great complement to my written journal.  Writing for an audience forces me to put some of my thoughts together in a more coherent way. It has also encouraged me to be more reflective about what I do and how I do it. For example, many posts here have been a result of conversations I've had with people or insights I've had in working with them that didn't make it to my career journal. If I didn't blog, then I'm not sure I would have been as good at teasing them out.  In the end, I would say that blogging as a form of career journaling can be incredibly helpful. At the same time, I also think you need a space to maintain those things that aren't ready for public consumption. I'd argue that you want to have both to get the full benefits of the process.  What do you think? How do blogging and career journaling fit together? 

Last week Allison Jones pointed to an excellent post from Amber Nusland on letting go of the things you're not good at. In it she says: Part of why people struggle in their careers is our collective insistence that they do things that they aren’t really good at. Almost every bit of business literature you read these days (don’t even get me started on some of it) talks about how successful business leaders are great mentors, or great team leaders, or great strategists, or great marketers. And I just don’t think it’s that simple. There’s probably something that you don’t know much about, or that you aren’t really good at, but that you’ve felt compelled to do anyway because it was considered a prerequisite of a promotion or a different step in your career that you wanted to take. You probably struggled with it, felt guilty that you weren’t good at it, hesitated to talk to your boss about it because if you admitted that it wasn’t your strong suit, you’d probably limit your career development opportunities. I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment! While we all have things that we have to do that are just part of the job, many times I find that people become unhappy or are less succesful in their careers than they could be because they are playing to their weaknesses instead of to their strengths. They begin to doubt themselves instead of realizing that they are trapped in a cycle of spending so much time trying to fix their weaknesses that they have no time to build on their strengths.  Letting go of your weaknesses is one area where "letting go" is good for your career. But this got me to thinking about other things we need to let go of in order to focus on our positive professional development. Some other things to let go of: Bad situations that aren't going to change--They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. When you find yourself in the same scenario again and again, it's time to move on from it. Change your reactions or change your situtation, but don't stick with what doesn't work.  The wrong crowd--Are you surrounded by complainers, work-obssessed people, or overly competitive folks? Do you find that you're drained after your interactions with certain people? Whether we realize it or not, the wrong people can contribute in a major way to our career unhappiness. Sometimes we have to let go of the people who sap our energy or suck us into their negative ways of viewing the world.   Outmoded ways of thinking--I meet many people who cling to old paradigms when all around them has changed. They are fighting against a tide that will eventually beat them down. I also see many people who have old beliefs about themselves--their capabilities, their options, and so forth. It's helpful to step back sometimes and look at how our thinking may need to change and adapt to the circumstances we are now in. Often it is our own thinking patterns that may be holding us back.  Our clutter--Periodically I will look around my office and realize that I've allowed piles of paper, books, files, etc. to build up around me. Simultaneously I will notice that my focus and energy has evaporated. Simply cleaning up and clearing out opens up new space for me to think and create.  "Good enough"--Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that are "good enough," but somehow they still sap our energy. We can't put our finger on it, but we know that it's not where we want to be. In these cases, we do well to consider if letting go of good enough might not make way for "great" to find us.  Although we may tend to think that our careers are based on what we build with, they are also based on what we release. We have to let go of the old and what isn't working to make space for the new. This can require a leap of faith, but it's faith well-placed. What do you need to let go?   ______________________________________________________________________ Do you have a creative dream you want to bring to fruition? Join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat--two days of solid dreaming and work time to move your career or your creative project forward. You'll be surrounded by a supportive group of kindred spirits, plus great food and access to a fully-stocked art studio!

Thanks to Robyn Jay, I was pointed this morning to John Hagel's Labor Day Manifesto for the Passionate, Creative Worker. What a gem! Eleven simple truths to live our lives by. Here are a few that stood out for me: Blaze new trails.  John says, "There is no established path to greatness." So true. In Crossing the Unknown Sea, David Whyte writes: "A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements."   I've found that when the path ahead is clear, then we are most likely on someone else's journey. It's when we step off the road that we meet our own personal avenue to greatness. It won't be clear. We can only choose direction over destination.  Recognize that institutions exist to serve people. Sometimes I fear we've forgotten this, that we live our lives in thrall to the insitutions we've created rather than seeing that they should be serving us. Umair Haque's Bettnerness: Econmics for Humans gets this, outlining a capitalism that is based in humanity, rather than in institutions. I think that each of us has a responsibility to ourselves and to each other to contribute to creating insititutions that reflect the best of who we are, serving all of us. Escape the trap of wasting time by being busy. Tim Kreider's manifesto on the "busy" trap reminds us that we are making ourselves feel anxious and that we are missing the best parts of our lives in pursuit of being "busy." But are you really THAT busy? How are you choosing to spend your time? Because it's always a choice. Creative people need to give themselves the space for serendipity and fallowness and the opportunity for the muse to visit. "Busyness" is the enemy of greatness. Continually reinvent ourselves. John writes: We know that passion is the key to personal growth; it compels us to take risks, overcome fears, and attempt things never done before. And as a result, passion transforms the passionate. Only as we continually reinvent ourselves can we start to discover and reach our full potential. "Passion transforms the passionate." Yes! But we must allow our passions to transform and shape us. When we cling too tightly to who we've been and to who others think we should be, then we strangle that passion. We lose the power of that wonderful energy. Reinvention is a very practical need, too. We live in a world where fast, transformative change is a given, not an option. We can choose to reinvent ourselves or we can react to circumstances that will force us to change. I personally prefer the first option. As John's manifesto concludes , we need to help each other on this creative journey: We all have the potential to become passionate creative workers.  Let us join forces and help each other along the way to become better, far better, than we ever could alone. And, let’s have a hell of a time along the way. That's what we need most--community and engagement, working with each other to go further than we can on our own. This is the energy and spirit I want to cultivate through the Dream It/Do It Retreat, one where we support each other in our creative journeys and in our development as passionate people.  We need quiet contemplation for our thoughts to percolate and spirited, supportive, nurturing discussions to further shape and refine our creativity. What do you think of this manifesto? How do you see yourself living out these principles?  ______________________________________________________________________ Do you have a creative dream you want to bring to fruition? Join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat.

A few weeks ago I read Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project, which chronicles Gretchen's year of personal experiments to increase her happiness--her version of the 30-Day trial! . One section on goals vs. resolutions really struck a chord with me. This is what she writes on her blog about it:  You hit a goal, you achieve a goal. You keep a resolution. I think that some objectives are better characterized as resolutions, others, as goals. "Run in a marathon" or "Become fluent in Spanish" is a good goal. It’s specific. It’s easy to tell when it has been achieved. Once you’ve done it, you’ve done it! "Eat more vegetables" or "Stop gossiping," or "Exercise" is better cast as a resolution. You won’t wake up one morning and find that you’ve achieved it. It’s something that you have to resolve to do, every day, forever. You’ll never be done with it. . . . it can be easy to get discouraged when you’re trying to hit a goal. What if it takes longer than you expected? What if it’s harder than you expected? And what happens once you’ve reached your goal? Say you’ve run the marathon. What now - do you stop exercising? Do you set a new goal? With resolutions, the expectations are different. Each day, I try to live up to my resolutions. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity. I never expect to be done with my resolutions, so I don’t get discouraged when they stay challenging. Which they do.    This idea of goals vs. resolutions really resonated for me in regard to the work we do in our careers because I think that ongoing professional development is largely about keeping resolutions. While having goals can be helpful, they also require us to have some sense of the destination--where it is we want to end up.  But so many of us work in a world where the destination is often unclear, or we are in the midst of transition, so we are working on direction, not destination. In those cases, resolutions seem far more appropriate for what we want to do. They are a way to keep moving forward, to keep developing.  Career resolutions are really the habits we create for ourselves that we do on a regular basis. How do we spend that first hour of work? What rituals have we created for ourselves daily, weekly, monthly?  Goals give us a sense of destination, while resolutions are the habits that can take us there. And even when our goals feel unclear, we can still keep our resolutions as a strategy for continuing to develop even if we feel stuck or lost.  What do you think of this idea of career resolutions vs. career goals? Does the concept of career resolutions resonate for you?  ______________________________________________________________________ Do you have a creative dream you want to bring to fruition? Join me on November 9-11 for the Dream It/Do It Retreat--two days of solid dreaming and work time to move your career or creative project forward. You'll be surrounded by a supportive group of kindred spirits, plus great food and access to a fully-stocked art studio!  

I first "met" Soha El Borno online when she was working at Wild Apricot as a Web Copywriter and blogger. She always posted great content and was an excellent resource for social media and nonprofit work.  When I put out a call for your career transition stories, she responded to me quickly by email, telling me she wanted to share hers.  As you'll see, she's like a lot of women who go through career transition when they start trying to juggle a desire to be home with their children with their professional identities. My own foray into self-employment began when motherhood and career aspirations collided and I know a lot of other women who pursue the freelance route to better meet their needs for career and family.  Here's Soha's story: Q. Can you give us some background on yourself, just for some context?   I hold a bachelor's degree in  Marketing and published my first article about a year after I graduated. I started out doing marketing writing -- specifically marketing communications and PR - for a few years. I then moved to a software company, where I did all their copywriting and blogging. I transitioned into freelance writing gradually over the years. During that time, I held my full-time day jobs and took onfreelance assignments on evenings and weekends.  Q. Like happens for many women, your career change was precipitated by starting a family and juggling the demands of family and working. How did that factor into your deciding about what new career direction you wanted to go in? How has that shaped your career identity?    Deciding to get into freelancing really came about as a natural next step for me. I always loved writing and got to do a lot of it in all my previous roles, but being a parent was also a high priority for me. I knew that if I was happy with myself and my career, that I was going to be a better mother. I also wanted more flexibility to be with my children. It just seemed like the right choice and I'm happy I took that step.  Q. What kinds of emotions have you dealt with in making the transition? How have you dealt with them?    I'd freelanced before, so I knew the basic drill. I took on extra freelance assignments while working full-time but this time around I didn't have the security of a job. So the pressure was stronger and I needed to find a lot more work. Emotionally, it was very hard, but worth the pain. I was determined to make it work so I started marketing a lot. I began by telling all my colleagues and friends that I was freelancing and many of them offered me some writing work right away. I also started using linkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and networking and that helped me get more work.  Q. What has been most challenging for you in making the transition?    The biggest challenge was juggling motherhood and work all at the same time. Trying to fit in freelancing where I can while delivering a high level of quality in my work was overwhelming. So I learned to be to a very early riser and got all of my writing work done in the early morning. That was the best time for me to finish my work and get some peace and quiet.  Q. What has been most rewarding?    There a lot of rewards. I love the flexibility and the fact that I can be involved in my children's life. And it's a wonderful mental exercise every day. I'm always learning and building my skills and meeting different people.  Q. What would you do differently if you could do it all over again?   Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing.  Q. What advice do you have for other people who want to make a transition? What was the most valuable advice you received from someone else.    Transitioning into freelancing takes time and patience. But don't let that scare you. If this is what you truly want, then go for it. Never give up on your dreams. When I was first starting out, I was working full-time and taking on extra freelance assignments. I worked during the day and on many evenings and weekends and all my hard work has paid off. If you're determined to make it happen, you will find a way. 

  Just about a year ago, I wrote a post about the dark side of creation--that time when we draw into ourselves to let things ferment. Harriet Wakelam, whose own experiences inspired my post, talks about it this way: I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'.  Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary.  During the process  I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected.  This is me--one minute I was talking and the next I disconnected. For months I was full of ideas and plans and then, like that, they switched off. I found that I had gone as far as I could go at that time in talking about careers and career re-invention and professional development. My blog posts dried up, I stayed off Twitter, my participation in LinkedIn groups dwindled and my Facebook updates have largely been about art-related topics.  At first I thought it was a temporary thing, that I just needed to take a few weeks off from the connections. But the few weeks became a few months and I felt dry as a bone. I've also felt guilty for my silence here, but silence seemed preferable to writing from the dry, silent place.  I've discovered, over time, that this is how my creativity works. Deeply productive and abundant periods of growth followed, inevitably, by long periods of fallowness. I cannot anticipate or control the times when the Muse is silent, any more than I can force the periods of creative abundance to occur. Each has its own season and I can only honor both periods, the yin and the yang of the creative process.  As we enter 2013, instead of a New Year's resolution, I am going with a "Word of the Year"--a word that can guide my activities and my intentions. My word for this year is "Release."  I chose it because I turn 50 in September and as I move into a new phase of my life, it feels important to me to let go of the habits, thoughts, activities and connections that no longer serve me well. After almost 50 years, I need to make some space for new things in my life.  One of the things I want to release is the judgement I place on myself for the fallow periods. I also want to release the pressure to always "produce" and the need to "say something, "when silence is really what's called for. Sometimes the most learning and growth takes place in the gaps.  Here's hoping that in release, the fallow fields begin to produce again. . . 

  For the past several months, I've been doing more work than usual with people who have been laid off from their jobs. I've listened to their stories of how the lay-offs occurred--usually in a brutally swift and cruel fashion--and been witness to their pain at having done all the right things, only to be told their services are no longer needed. It's heart-breaking, really, to see how they try to recover from this assault, accepting their disposability as inevitable in some ways.  I contrast this with the marketing messages we receive from companies and other organizations about the need to re-use and recycle. Inherent in this is the idea that we can be more responsible stewards of the earth's resources, finding ways to renew and re-use things, rather than throwing them away.  While this spirit seems to be alive and well when it comes to material goods, I don't see the same spirit animating our approach to people. But in my mind, "renewable and sustainable" isn't just about re-filling water bottles or recycling paper. I think it starts with seeing people as renewable resources, rather than as objects we use up and then throw away.  I cannot tell you the damage this is doing to workers, this idea that you are only as good as the last thing you did for the company. I see people who have poured their hearts and souls into doing what they were asked to do, into "doing the right thing," only to be told that this wasn't enough. And we remove them from our institutions just as efficiently as we take out the trash, with little regard for the fact that these are human beings, many of whom have tied up much of their sense of self-worth in the work we are now telling them we no longer need them to do.  In the past, through this blog, I've focused on how we as individuals need to keep renewing and recycling ourselves through a process of lifelong learning and adapting to change. I still believe this is true. But I also believe that, through our institutions, we are doing great spiritual and emotional damage to ourselves by consistently communicating to people that they are disposable and that they are on their own in the process of recycling and renewing.   To torture my metaphor, we are treating people like garbage--throwing them into landfills and just letting them waste away there. We are doing nothing to provide them with the structures and resources and emotional supports that would help them go through that renewal process.  I've come to realize that part of the reason for my absence here has been that I'm grappling with what it means for me to support people in their careers when they are operating in an environment that so regularly communicates with them about their disposability. Yes, I can talk about positive professional development, but for most people, this is used to develop their capacities in service to organizations and institutions that are essentially sucking them dry. Once they've been used up, they are cast aside. Somehow it feels almost immoral to me to advise people on how to play the game when the game is so clearly rigged against them.  I understand all the reasons for companies shedding jobs, including globalization and the impact that technology is having on work. But that doesn't excuse us from treating people decently. In fact, I would argue that it REQUIRES us to come up with better, more humane ways to treat people who are caught up in the winds of these changes. I'm only beginning to grapple with where all of this leads me. I'm not sure that there are easy answers. But I do know that it is only in the calling out of what's really going on that we can start to find better ways to handle the changes we are dealing with. For now, many of us can pretend like it won't happen to us, so it's easy for us to hide our heads in the sand. But I promise you, every person I've spoken with who's been laid off (many of them repeatedly) thought the same way you did. Like unplanned pregnancies or car accidents, a layoff is something that is going to happen to someone else. But increasingly, my friend, that is not true. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to begin talking about what we need to do to bring humanity back into these transitions, to find ways to support all of us in being able to manage the renewal process. We can't treat people as disposable, as garbage for someone else to take care of. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to others to find better ways to help each other through these upheavals.