Category: Work Life

Remember your very first day on the job? Your shoes had a shine like the tiles on the Space Shuttle and the crease in your slacks could have diced celery. The air was somehow fresher, the birds chirpier. You had been hired. You’d been given a chance to excel, a chance to make a difference.
Now contrast that with this morning.
Are you motivated to wake up every morning and go to your job with full enthusiasm?
After a while, most people end up making one compromise after another until they’ve resigned themselves to mediocrity. It’s darned hard to keep that first-day buzz going.
BUT…there’s no reason you can’t choose to recover a good measure of that first-day feeling. You can motivate yourself to strive for excellence, and put it to good use in the service of everyone whose lives you touch on a daily basis. And, you can love your job again.
It’s all about making the choice to do it.
Why You Need to Get Motivated, Find Your Enthusiasm, and Love Your Job Again
Have you ever met a two-year-old who wasn’t enthusiastic? We come prepackaged with it. And then…
What happens to us?
What happens is that we make a choice. Some of us choose to make the effort to stay in touch with our inner enthusiasm and love our jobs. Others find reasons to lose touch with it—boredom, responsibilities, challenges, fatigue.
But here’s the problem: Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of all success. Without it, nothing great happens. If you choose to lose touch with your inner enthusiasm, you are choosing mediocrity. It’s really that simple.
Sure, there are plenty of reasons to curb your enthusiasm. But there are just as many reasons to find it again including celebrating your incredible good fortune. In the process you can make that fortune even better.
Here’s How to Find Your Enthusiasm
Step 1: Start with the fact that you’re not dead yet, that you were born at all, that you have a job, and that compared to a lot of folks, you have a pretty darn good job.
Step 2: Now take a close look at the circumstances of this good job you have. Write down your five biggest complaints and spin them into positives. For example, “My boss micromanages me” can be reframed as “My boss cares enough about me to step into my work when I need help.”
If you’ve truly committed to finding your first-day buzz again, you should be an awful lot closer to it now than you were ten minutes ago.
All this rethinking and reframing has removed a HUGE energy drain from your life—one you were probably unaware of. It takes massive amounts of energy to continually reinforce your own sense of victimhood. Excellence is MUCH less expensive. Now that you feel lucky instead, what on Earth are you going to do with all that energy?
How about playing the Big Game you signed up for?
Now, you just filled yourself up with a lion’s share of this precious thing called the human spirit, and it will not invest in mediocrity. So play the meaningful, bighearted game you always dreamed of playing, and leave the mediocrity to others. Get motivated and start loving your job again.
About the Author:
Roxanne Emmerich is renowned for her ability to transform the “ho-hum” attitudes of leaders, executives, business owners and entrepreneurs just like you into massive results-oriented “bring-it-on” attitudes. To discover how you can get motivated and love your job again, check out her new book – Thank God It’s Monday. Now, you can get a free sneak preview at: http://www.thankgoditsmonday.com/preview_the_book/

Do you beat yourself up because you say one thing and do another?

Are you feeling out of control?

Is there any area in your life that is out of whack?

Had enough?

To create a different outcome:

1. Be clear that what you say you want is really what you want rather than what you think you should want. Following another person’s dream rarely, if ever, brings long-lasting fulfillment.

2. Explore the beliefs and patterns that are contributing to the situation you are continuing to create. Most of the sabotage we experience comes from subconscious beliefs and patterns that are very difficult to change with our conscious mind. Healing with Theta, hypnosis, EFT and other modalities that work with the subconscious can produce powerfull internal shifts that will raise your quality of life.

3. Have the courage to walk in uncertainty without quitting too soon, feeling frustrated, and disheartened when things don’t manifest according to your picture and plan or move too slowly. Identify the things that keep you excited, inspired, and motivated no matter what is happening in your life. Strong self-care, daily rituals, walks in nature, getting together with loving friends…… Life is an journey not an event. Are you looking for a quick fix or life-long happiness?

4. Build in support and accountability with a friend or colleague who may also want the same support. Hire a coach to cheer you on, provide objectivity, give you a nudge (or a kick in the butt), celebrate your wins, and support you in seeing the fabulous, beautiful, lovable person you are.

5. Make wiser choices with your time and energy. We make choices minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. One of my favorite books is Debbie Ford’s, “The Right Questions“. She says the choices we make today create our future. Published in 2004, The Right Questions offers brilliant insight and simplicity that provide a solid foundation for making choices that are aligned with your heart and spirit to successfully manifest the life of your dreams.

Common sense seems to be in very short supply. Perhaps it always was.
Even allowing for the creative and often hysterical reporting of the news media it is hard to avoid the conclusion that those making and executing laws and regulations in many parts of the world have taken leave of their senses. A previous culture of personal responsibility seems to have changed into a culture of dependence and blame.
Not, of course, entirely, but significantly.
This is wholly understandable. Those societies that reward the feckless and punish the responsible must expect the message to be understood and acted upon. Perhaps some rulers have forgotten that true compassion – indeed, true love – involves helping people to achieve and maintain their independence. Taking away independence is theft of the most precious possession we have.
So far this reads more like a political address on behalf of a Fascist Party than a basis for discussing what people need to learn. I make these points, however, because unless our training system starts with the right premise, everything else that it does will at best be ineffective and at worst be damaging.
I don’t need to explain the difference between education and training, between knowledge and reflection, between information and thought. So I’ll skip the bit about facts, passing exams, exam marking and the roulette wheel of teachers who can (and those who cannot) forecast the likely questions with reasonable accuracy. I’ll omit the scathing references I would have made about people who decry the Arts subjects. I’ll nod only briefly towards the words of George Santayana (1863-1952) ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.
I’ll concentrate on to why ‘what we need to learn’ has changed so much and so recently.
First, in the past few years we have come to understand better the relationship between body and brain. If there is a work / life balance to be struck there is also a body / brain balance in need of attention. Today we are at the threshold of understanding the mind. We have not got there yet but we will, and probably reasonably soon. We now appreciate that the mental prisons we feel trapped in are largely of our own making. We are all capable of much more than we thought.
Such potential brings with it the responsibility to use well the resources we manipulate and to learn a new view of the time over which we manipulate them. Strangely, our forebears had a better sense of this aspect of time than we do. They invested for what they saw as the future; we invest for the next annual – or half-yearly, or quarterly – sometimes even monthly – profit results.
Proper planning has never been so important and never so neglected.
Second, we need to learn the basic skills of interpersonal communication – or social intercourse, if you like. Whether you were in favour of invading Iraq or against it I think we can all agree that in the 21st Century settling disagreements by thuggery is an admission of failure on a breathtaking scale. But that failure doesn’t originate in the White House or Downing Street, it originates in your local town, the nearby neighbourhood, in the way we speak to a traffic officer, in the way officials deal with us.
Have you noticed how people seldom ask questions of each other these days?
Maybe they think it’s intrusive or not very polite. At a time when many of us are going to spend more time in front of our computers we need to improve our social intercourse and change it from the coffee party to intelligent, informed discussion laced with that unique ability human beings have to be amusing about serious matters. Some races have always been rather inhibited about asking questions. We cannot afford such inhibitions any more. It leads to a collection of floating islands, not to a society.
Third, we need to re-learn the joy of work. We’ve separated work and leisure to the point where work is seen as bad and leisure is seen as good. But everyone knows that too much of either is wrong. To do this we must make work joyful, not always easy when rough conditions, noisy machinery, inconsiderate bosses, rapacious shareholders demand effort and forbearance that is above and beyond normal duty. For all that, work must become a time and place of joy.
We seem to have failed to learn that the true satisfaction of a job well done is not in dollars but in the heart of the person doing it. In my mentoring the simple and true story of Alf Tuck, the man who came to thatch the cottage roof, has transformed the attitudes of hundreds of people towards their work. If you want to read it, please ask me by email, and I will send it to you.
Fourth, we need to reconsider the facts we must know. Five years ago it was important to know quite a lot of facts. Today we need to know different facts:
* how to access and store information on the Internet
* how to discriminate between right and wrong information and good and bad sources
* how to reflect on the facts we learn; facts by themselves are like random numbers; they only
* become useful when we interpret them and make decisions based on them.
Fifth, our civilisation is based on trust. That trust is based on truth, a commodity in very short supply at present. No truth, no trust. No trust, no society. There will never be perfect truth and we have to learn to distinguish between truth, lies and hyperbole. But if we do not understand and accept the relevance of truth for our very existence, our society will increasingly fail.
There are many other things we have to learn, of course. These are, to my way of thinking, the five essentials. At present they are being neglected in favour of doubtful academic awards. If you agree with my very brief summary of what people need to learn today there is one remaining question: where do we get the teachers to do it?
That’s my question to you.
John Bittleston blogs at TerrificMentors.com, a site that provides mentoring for those who wish a change in career or job, wanting to start a business or looking to improve their handling of people (including themselves).

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” – Deepak K. Chopra

In the last week I have had three inspirational ideas to grow my business. All three of these ideas that have been popping around in my mind for a little while and last week, I began thinking more seriously about taking action to develop these ideas into new services.

In the past, my pattern has been to move quickly (sometimes impulsively) on thoughts that feel exciting or have that intuitive nudging to “do it now.” This time I felt a slight hesitation, which is one of my indicators that I need to get present to what I am thinking and feeling by tuning into my spirit. Many times, what seemed like a great idea, didn’t net the results I had hoped for and slowing down to explore these ideas more fully felt important.

When exploring new business ideas, some key questions can be enlightening

1. What’s my purpose?
2. What do I wish to accomplish? My objectives? Benefits to others?
3. Do I feel juiced and excited?
4. What actions do I feel inspired to take?
5. Do I have everything I need to move forward? Am I missing anything like people, systems, a website, equipment….?
6. Is this the right time?
7. What comes after? If I’m offering a program or service and people, what can I offer people as a next step?

When I feel unsure, clarity comes to me by taking walks in nature, meditating, writing, and having conversations with a few trusted friends. This year I made a deliberate decision to say yes to the things that feel Divinely inspired and aligning my actions with smart strategies so I am in the “flow.”

I will continue to take follow my intuition when it yells, DO IT NOW! And for the other times that don’t have the same feeling of inspired urgency, I’m committing to keep tuning in and listening to the whispers and nudges of my spirit. I know that when I follow my inner brilliance, what I manifest in my life is greater than anything I could have humanly imagined.

I encourage you to do the same. Take time to slow down, create space to tune in and listen to your heart even if it is just a few minutes. Be open to the commune with your wise Self.

If asked the question, “What do you really want?”

What would you say?”

Would you have an answer?

Would your answer describe what lights you up with passion and excitement because you know who you are? Would you go blank or you talk about what you think you should want?

What are you passionate about? What fires you up about life? Do you know?

Several months ago I had the opportunity to interview Janet Attwood, author of The Passion Test, which is a fabulous book to clearly identify your five top passions. She says, “Passions are how you live your life. Goals are things that you achieve. When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life and only to the extent that you are clear.” Knowing your passions will help you identify your core values and answer the question “what do I want?” If at a loss to begin, you can take the passion test online at www.passiontest.com

At the beginning of 2008, I felt a burst of inspiration about the the POWER of saying Yes! I’d been releasing limiting beliefs and transformating past pain, stretching myself a fuller expression of my potential….was I still playing it safe even though I said I was ready to stop playing small and hiding out in my comfort zone? Was I allowing that deeper YES to be fully expressed?

Are you?

I realized I was still holding myself back.

Why? Some fears and feelings of unworthiness still had enough juice to keep me from manifesting the things I desired. I realized it was time to say YES in a bigger way and deepen my faith in trust in myself, others, the world, and The Divine hand that guides me.

In 2009, I am shouting out – I Say YES!!!!!! How about you?

Do you know your life is meant to be happy?

It is

Do you know you have more power than you realize to create your dreams and desires?

You do

You are a Creator. You have the power to manifest more of what you want than you have ever experienced or imagined at any time in your life.

A thriving and prosperous business, a loving relationship, vibrant health, shedding those excess pounds, a happy family, peace of mind…

Yes… you do

How about creating that NOW?

Start by saying YES to your deepest desires, dreams, and destiny…..and begin living the life you are meant to live.