The M.A.P. Maker

Positive change: The BIG power of small

As you embark on the new year, you might be tempted to use it as an occasion to make wholesale change in your life. My advice? Don't!

Wholesale, grand scale change almost never works. You run at it fueled by an initial adrenaline rush, maybe feel that first blush of successful change, and then almost inevitably start to falter as old patterns start to take over again. 

Instead of going for that wholesale, grand scale change, do something different. Tap into the BIG power of small. Twenty small steps in pursuit of a big change is exponentially more likely to bring the results you want than one gargantuan one. 

Training for change

One way to think about it is using your time through the year to train for a marathon. Except in this case you're not training for a marathon, you're training for a substantial positive change in your life. 

If you're training for a marathon, what is likely to be more successful, breaking your training into ongoing, consistent effort or trying to cram all your conditioning into the beginning of the year? 

Clearly, if you do the latter with a marathon, you have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Your chances aren't much better taking that approach to making a positive change. 

Instead of making a wholesale change, think about the small changes you can make that would add up to the larger change. For example, let's say you're tempted to make a sweeping commitment to eating healthily. Great! 

Real change is like playing with LEGOs

To tap into the big power of small, resist the urge for instant gratification. Instead, brainstorm what building blocks to that change could look like.

So maybe your first change is in your level of understanding and awareness. You decide to educate yourself on what your body needs and the impact of various foods on both your physical and mental state. You can start incorporating more healthy foods into the picture as you feel called to, but it isn't your focus.

Maybe the next step is to simply commit to eating the recommended minimums on fruits and vegetables. No wholesale change to your diet. Just adding the positive impact of nutritious food. 

Maybe another step would be to minimize your sugar consumption, or to start drinking more water. 

As you make small changes and give them time to gel, you can start building on them. If you take the approach to change I talked about in yesterday's post, looking at it as a year-long project, by the end of a year's time you can have made significant and - even more importantly - long-lasting change. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
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A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

New year's resolution success: Make it a 1-year project

If you're like most people, your new year's resolutions are anything but a path to long-lasting positive change. You make a resolution, stick with it for a couple weeks before letting it lapse, and then beat up on yourself for not being able to stick with it. 

Instead of setting yourself up to fail (and let's face it, that's what most people do with their resolutions) by expecting magical change in one fell swoop, take a different approach. 

Rather than a flick-of-the-switch change, look at your resolution as a year-long project. Take action on it, but don't assume that your current decision to make a change will be enough to power it forward through long-term integration into your life. 

Instead, commit to doing the work to integrate it over the next year. In all likelihood that integration process will have its share of backsliding. But think about it this way:

If every month you take two steps forward and one step back, by the end of the year you will still have taken twelve steps in the right direction!

To support your project, here are some ideas to keep in mind. 

Set up monthly checkpoints

When you make your resolution a year-long process, it creates the opportunity to check in on a regular basis. Once a month, stop and take a look at how things are going on your resolution. Ask questions like:

• How well am I doing?
• What do I need to do differently?
• Where am I falling down? What can I do about that?
• What is getting in the way of my progress? What can I do about that?
• What support do I need? Where can I find it?
• What knowledge do I need? Where can I find it?

Look at your experience as research and development. You work on implementing your resolution for a month, and then bring it back into the lab to look at how it went.

What can you learn from the experience so far? What's going well? How can you build on that? What is challenging? What might you do to overcome that?

Checking in once a month lets your learn from the process. It also gives you twelve built-in chances to get back on track when you wander. 

Create accountability

One of the benefits my clients find in my coaching is accountability. Knowing that someone is going to be asking about what they have committed to do adds an additional incentive to actually do it. 

The same is true any time we express our commitment to something to someone else. It's much easier to let something slide when you're the only one who is watching it lapse. 

Is there anyone in your life you can use as an accountability partner? It could be as simple as checking in with them once a month to update them on your progress, what you've learned, and how you plan on moving forward. 

Find a partner

While we're on the topic of the value of incorporating others into your efforts, you might want to find someone who can be your resolution partner. In this case, instead of just you creating accountability by reporting in to someone, you partner up with someone who is also working on their own year-long resolution project. 

Acknowledge your progress

Finally, acknowledge your progress as you move forward. Spotlight your successes. Recognize the steps you have taken in a positive direction. Give yourself credit for those positive steps, without taking it away with a yeah-but focused on where you haven't been up to snuff. 

Reward yourself. Praise yourself. Ask someone else to give you kudos. All too often the only feedback we get from ourselves is a kick in the ass when our efforts fall short. How motivating is that? 

Trying setting up a reward system where you get a reward each month if you meet certain goals. For example, if you're cutting down on sugar, treat yourself to something special each month you hit a target goal (like 25 days out of the month where you keep your sugar intake within a set range). 

At the end of the day, real change takes time. Making your new year's resolution a year-long project will make that time an inherent part of the process. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

Career lessons from stick-wielding chimpanzees

What do monkeys, bananas and sticks have to do with your career's potential? Believe it or not, a whole lot. 

I'm reading Change Your Life Now by William J. Knaus. In it, he describes an experiment back in the 1920s where a banana was put outside chimpanzees cages, just out of reach. While the chimps couldn't reach the banana, they could reach a stick, which they used to sweep the banana within reach. 

Knaus then points out that the chimpanizees in question had occassionally played with sticks while growing up. But if the experiment was repeated with chimps who didn't have that stick experience, they missed the connection and couldn't get to the banana. 

His point is that not only does not trying new things due to fear of failure limit your potential because of doors you never open, it also limits your potential by reducing the range of your experiences and the resulting insights and frames of reference they create. 

Simply put, the more experiences you have, the more information you have to both make decisions and come up with creative approaches. With that in mind, Knaus offers this advice:

To widen the range of your constructive experiences, consider putting aside fear of failure, and start experimenting. 

 Think of everything you do as an experiment that will give you insight and information. Sometimes the results will be the ones you hope for, and other times they'll be less preferable. But you will always get insights. And you can use those insights to build your future. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

Maximize your potential with both/and/or thinking

Does your thinking limit your potential?

A couple days ago I posted about a black-and-white thinking trap many people fall into when it comes to finding career happiness. One of the ideas I talked about was taking a both/and perspective rather than the rigid binary view of either/or.

Both/and thinking expands your possibilities from having to decide between two choices to exploring how both choices could be valid.

Both/and thinking examples

In my previous post, the example centered around looking for career happiness. The false choice was between looking for a career you love and learning to be present and happy with what currently exists. The reality is, that doesn't need to be a choice at all. You can easily do both. 

Another example might be eating a diet. Either/or thinking says, "I have to maintain a strict regimen of healthy food and drink. No junk food or other tasty treats that don't make the healthy cut. Both/and thinking says, "My main focus is healthy food, and I get to enjoy the occasional not-so-healthy treat that I really enjoy."

When I stopped eating sugar, I didn't eliminate it completely. Instead, I gave myself a "sugar budget." I could eat sugary things - like my favorite, peanut butter cups - but I always had to ask myself, "Is that really what you want to spend your sugar budget on?" That eliminated all but the things I appreciated most. 

Both/and/or thinking

In pondering the notion of both/and thinking, I realized that, as a general guideline, even that was missing something. If black-and-white thinking falsely limits you to two choices, then both/and thinking must also be falsely limited to those choices.

In many situations though, there is a rainbow of possibilities. So instead of limiting your thinking to both/and, expand it to include "or." I could have this AND this, OR I could even have this other thing that hadn't originally occurred to me!

Both/and/or thinking requires some creative work on your part. It requires that you use the original binary assessment of your choices as a starting point, not as a snapshot of reality. 

Ask yourself, "What are the other possibilities? How else could I approach this? What are some other ways I could see this?" 

Or is one of the smallest words in the English language, but based on the doors it has the potential to open, it just might be one of the most powerful. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

 

How can you "be the change" in the new year?

Be the change you want to see in the world.

~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

Here's a question for the new year. What does this quote actually mean to you? Not in general terms, but in very specific terms, as it relates to your life. If you were to be the change you want to see in the world, what would that actually look like?

This has the potential to be an incredibly powerful quote, both in your life and for the world around you. But most people miss its potential, not because they don't agree with it, but because they leave it at a broad, generic level. They don't translate it from concept into implementation. 

To truly be the change in the coming year, ask these questions:

1. What change do I want to see?
2. How does my current life contribute to that change?
3. How does my current life inhibit that change?
4. How could I be the change?

To go deeper into each of these questions, read on...

What change do I want to see?

If you want to be the change, you have to know what change you're trying to embody. Explore what change you want to see.

Don't just leave it at the broad level (e.g., I want to see more peace). Challenge yourself to look at what that means in detail.

Using peace as an example, you would ask, what contributes to more peace? What inhibits peace? What are the different components? Think of it as creating a map of the change you want to see. 

Off the top of my head, here are several things that build toward peace. 

• Compassion
• Openness
• Non-judgment
• A desire to understand
• Groundedness
• Abundance / prosperity

On the flip side, the lack of any of those things inhibit peace. 

Any of these things can be experienced on multiple levels, including:

• Personal
• Community
• National
• Global

Ask, for example, what contributes to developing compassion on a personal level, both for yourself and for others. Then you can ask the same question for the other levels. 

How does my current life contribute to that change?

Now that you have built a map of the change you want to see, you can plug your own life into it. The first step is taking stock of your current situation. What choices are you making that contribute to any of the components you identified above? What actions are you taking? 

Look at it from both an internal and an external perspective.

Internal

What is going on between your ears can have a profound impact on how you show up to be the change. Take a look at how your internal perspectives contribute to the change you want to see. 

• What beliefs do I have about myself that contribute to the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about myself? (e.g., "I can make an impact," or, "My ideas are worth listening to.")
• What beliefs do I have about others that contribute to the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about others? (e.g., "People are basically good," or, "Most people will work to make the world a better place, given a chance.")
• What beliefs do I have about the world in general that contribute to the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about the world? (e.g., "The world is full of opportunity," or "Things frequently change for the better.") 

External

Once you have taken stock of your internal contribution, take a look at how you are directly impacting the change you want to see. 

• How have the choices I have made in the last year contributed to the change I want to see? (e.g. "I have chosen to engage people who disagree with me with curiosity and questions instead of a sledge hammer," or "I have started choosing locally grown, organic produce.")
• What action I have take in the last year contributed to the change I want to see? (e.g., "I have invested in helping people thrive by making loans on Kiva.org," or, "I have offered a friend who was going through a challenging time an impartial, compassionate ear." )

How does my current life inhibit that change? 

Odds are good that there are choices you're making and actions you're taking that inhibit the change you want to see in the world as well. By identifying these, you have the opportunity to be the change by subtracting those choices and actions from the picture. Addition by subtraction.

The questions to ask are the flip side of the questions about how you contribute to the change you want to see. 

• What beliefs do I have about myself that inhibit the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about myself? (e.g., "I can't make an impact," or, "There's no point in trying, because I'll just screw it up.")
• What beliefs do I have about others that inhibit the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about others? (e.g., "People can't be trusted," or, "People are inherently selfish.")
• What beliefs do I have about the world in general that inhibit the change I want to see? What stories do I tell about the world? (e.g., "The world is a dangerous place," or "Things always go wrong.") 

External

The next step is taking a look at how you are directly inhibiting that change. 

• How have the choices I have made in the last year inhibited the change I want to see? (e.g. "I have habitually argued heatedly with people I don't agree with," or "I have consistently chosen to buy products I know are harmful to the environment.")
• What actions have I taken in the last year that inhibit the change I want to see? (e.g., "I have posted inflammatory comments on online articles slamming 'those people' I don't agree with," or, "I avoided someone I knew needed my help." 

What could I do to be the change?

Now that you have a deeper picture of how you are currently being the change (or not), it's time to ask, "How could I be the change?" Given the components of that change you identified, what actions can you take and what choices can you make?

A great place to start thinking about this is my recent newsletter article about 7 ways to change the world. 

Remember this is a long-term deal. Being the change is a lifetime effort, not a one-year flash in the pan. 

Your choices and actions are the paints on your palette that will paint a picture that is either closer to or further away from the world you want to see. The question you have in front of you is, "Which colors will I use?"

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst 

 

Stop resisting change and ask these questions

Do you ever find yourself gripping your current situation with white knuckles (either the situation as it is or as you think it should be), resisting change with every breath? Fighting change is often fighting reality, and as one of my favorite quotes from Byron Katie goes, "When I argue with reality, I lose - but only 100% of the time."

Over on the Advanced Life Skills blog, Jonathan Wells takes a look at how to overcome that tendency and to start exploring the new. He writes:

Why not take a careful look at your own life, and ask yourself the following questions:

1. What areas of my life no longer seem to be working?
2. What goals have I been unable to reach?
3. How long has this been going on?
4. What adjustments seem reasonable?
5. What’s preventing me from trying a new approach?
6. What price have I paid for not making adjustments?
7. When am I going to try something new?

Now write down three possible approaches for each area that needs some adjustment.  Choose one approach, and take action.  Notice how things changed.  Were your new results better, the same, or worse?  If they were better, look for ways to fine tune your new approach, and take more action.  If they were the same or worse, try the next approach on your list.

The key here is to open yourself to exploring something new. Take a deep breath and get curious. What's really going on? If it helps, treat it like you're asking those questions about someone else's situation that you happen to be intimately familiar with. Step away from the tendency to take it personally and look at it objectively. 

Asking these questions helps create clarity (which helps, because fuzziness tends to feed fear). And experimenting with possibilities gives you a low pressure, low risk way to move forward and discover what works. 

Take a deep, honest look at your career, and your life. Are you resisting change? Try Jonathan's questions and see where they take you. 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

7 ways to improve your career right now

My Passion Catalyst coaching clients come to me when it's time for a career change. Typically, they feel frustrated and stuck, and they want to make a change yesterday. Unfortunately, substantative change doesn't tend to happen with a flip of the switch. It takes time to unfold. 

That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the frustration with the current situation many feel. So what to do? Grit their teeth and suck it up until they can make a change? Often, part of our early work focuses on the question, "How can I make things better, right here, right now?"

Following are several things my clients have found helpful over the years. 

Commit to change

Believe it or not, the very act of committing to do something about your current dissatisfaction (and then backing that up with real steps in that direction) can lighten the load.

I frequently hear this one from clients. When they choose to take a serious step towards change by working with me, they no longer feel as trapped as they did before making that choice. And because they don't feel as trapped, the negative energy doesn't just keep building like a pressure cooker.  

Do an energy audit of your work

If you can't change jobs right now, you have a choice. Either you can sit and stew about how miserable you are, or you can decide to change what you can. Tempting as it might be to paint the situation with one broad black brush, that's not especially realistic or helpful. 

The reality is that your work is made up of many smaller components, some of which are grating and some of which you probably enjoy. 

Your goal is to bring as much of what energizes you into your work and eliminate or at least reduce as much as possible of what drains your energy. To give you a place to start, do an "energy audit" with these two simple questions:

• What do I enjoy?
• What do I dislike?

You can think of the things you enjoy as energy gains and the things you dislike as energy drains. When you have it broken down like this, you have more to work with. Now you can ask yourself, "How can I bring more of what I enjoy into the picture? How do I minimize the energy drains?"

Make a juice menu

Your work life doesn't happen in an isolated silo. It's connected to the rest of your life. So it stands to reason that the more energy you feel in the rest of your life, the better you have the potential to feel at work. 

 One great way to consciously build more of what energizes you into your life is to make a "juice menu," as in, "What gives me juice (energy)?" Make a list of things you love doing, things you find engaging and enjoyable. Things that leave you feeling energized. 

Brainstorm as many things as you can think of for the list. They could be as quick as a 10-minute activity or as long as a weekend (or longer). Then commit to picking at least one thing off the list every day and doing it. 

Create energizing habits

Some habits drain our energy (think sitting in front of the TV watching mindless television for hours on end), while others enhance our energy. Build energy-enhancing habits into your life. Some examples are eating healthily, getting enough exercise, and getting enough sleep.

Resist the urge to try to change all your habits at once. Pick one and focus on it for 21 days. Maybe you don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, for example. Make it a goal to eat five servings of fruits and veggies for 21 days and see if it makes any difference. As one habit starts to solidify, you can build others into the picture. 

Meditate

Do you ever feel like your energy is flying off in all directions (a little like a Catherine Wheel firework)? If you're like many people, going at full speed with multiple commitments, the answer is probably yes. That can be a huge energy drain.

A great way to stop the energy from being wasted and re-energize is meditation of some sort. Experiment with what works for you. A great, easy-to-digest book if you're new to meditation (and even if you're not) is Meditation Made Easy by Lorn Roche.

Shift your perspective

Let's say you're in a situation that you can't change. There's still one thing you have control over, and that is your perception of the situation.

For example, instead of "I hate this job and I feel stuck, grumblegrumblegrumble," try shifting that to, "No, this isn't the greatest job, but I like some of the people I work with, and I'm fortunate to have a paycheck coming in while I take steps towards something new."

Even the fact that you don't like it could be reframed. "Having this job that I'm unhappy with is giving me the strong incentive to make positive changes. If it weren't quite as unpleasant, I might just muddle along accepting not-too-bad for the rest of my career."  

Challenge yourself to play with perspective shifting. Make it a game. Make it a creative habit of finding new perspectives when you catch yourself grumbling. 

Be grateful

Finally, be grateful. Studies have shown that gratitude can have a huge impact on your happiness. Make a habit of finding things to be grateful for every day. Keep a gratitude journal. Challenge yourself to find something new to be grateful for each day, both in your work and in the rest of your life. 

None of these are magic wand solutions. They won't make a bad situation fabulous. But they will increase your energy gain and reduce your energy drain, the net effect of which will be a better, more enjoyable life. 

And then you can put that energy into moving towards a future that is rich, satisfying and fulfilling!

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

Creating good habits: A kindergarten approach

Have you ever tried to create a new habit, only to find yourself backsliding right back where you started? Here's a simple yet (for me, anyway) effective way to support your effort. 

Back in March, I decided that I needed to build some better habits into my life. I resolved to:

• Exercise 30 minutes a day
• Meditate 20 minutes a day
• Drink 64 ounces of water a day
• Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day

My intent was good, but I knew that the implementation of that intention had a perilously short life span if left to its own devices. I needed a way to keep myself on track. 

I decided to take a page from The Kindergarten Handbook (OK, there's not really a Kindergarten Handbook, but there should be). I created a four-columned chart with a column for each habit and went to the local stationery store to buy some sticky stars (multi-colored, thank you very much). I put the chart on the wall where I see it all the time.

Each day that I did my new habit, I got a star in that column. Any day I didn't, I was faced with a huge, ugly, you-failed-buddy expanse of white space. 

It's amazing how effective that approach has been. There was an immediate and sustained shift in behavior. I would like to say that I responded to the reward of being able to put a star up daily for each column, but the reality is that I was more driven by not wanting to see the white space as constant reminder that I didn't do it. 

There have been many days when the only reason I did one of the new habits was because of the chart. 

I did this for a couple months, then fell off for a few weeks. And while I did each of them more consistently than when I had begun (which tells me that I really was deveoping better habits), it was still too easy to just let it slide. I started it up again a couple weeks ago, and have jumped right back to close to 100%. 

What new habits do you want to develop? Why not make a chart and experiment? Maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't (who knows - I might just be stuck developmentally back in kindergarten). But the risk is zero, and the potential upside is huge. What have you got to lose?

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Passion Catalyst lesson #5 - Success is not a solo sport

This is a series of lessons learned in my nine years as a Passion Catalyst.

As I was transforming myself from Curt the marketing guy to Curt the Passion Catalyst, I realized I had a lot to learn. I had put a framework around something I had done naturally, informally for years, but the career passion spin was new. 

I decided to start building a "knowledge base" by interviewing people who had successfully pursued their passions. As I did, a few common themes started to emerge. One of the big ones, expressed in some way by pretty much everyone I talked to, was this: "I couldn't have done it alone."

The more clients I see moving toward their own transformation, and the more I experience of my own journey,the more convinced I am that the support of others is as vital to our success as oxygen is to staying alive. 

That support might come in any of a number of packages. For example:

• Emotional
• Knowledge (e.g., a mentor)
• Logistical / practical
• Networking / connections
• Creative / brainstorming / idea-bouncing
• Spiritual
• Financial
• Motivation / inspiration

My own path has been packed with examples when, if not for the support of others, I would have just gone splat. Some of them have related to my business, others have related to other parts of life (which in turn related to my business, because life is a holistic system, with every piece interconnected). 

On the non-work side, I have written about the support of my friend Sharon during some really challenging times with my health. On the work side, one of my favorite examples took place in the first year of my Passion Catalyst work. 

The 11th-hour reprieve

As you might imagine, recreating myself with no formal background to stand on other than, "This is who I am - I do this naturally," presented some challenges. In fact, that first year was brutal. After ten months of trying to make something happen and making about a third of what I needed to meet my monthly obligations, I finally threw my hands up and said, "I give up." I resigned myself to having to go back to the marketing world. 

Just prior to that I had reached out to Richard Tait, co-founder of the game company Cranium, and asked him if I could interview him to get his career passion insights (his e-mail address had been on their web site, and I just lobbed the request over to him). He graciously said yes. 

Over the course of our conversation, I told him about my Passion Catalyst work, and mentioned some discussion groups I had been organizing. Something about what I was doing must have resonated with him, because later that day he sent me an e-mail offering to talk to one of my groups. 

Rather than something small-scale like that, I decided to create an event called the Passion People Speaker Series. Richard was the first speaker. That month, for the first time in the ten months since I had hung out my shingle as a Passion Catalyst, I earned enough to pay all my bills. And I could trace all that additional business to the event in some way, whether it had been someone who had heard about me via the event promotion, or someone I met at the event. 

In a very real way, my Passion Catalyst work exists today because of Richard's generous offer of support eight years ago. I'm not sure if I would have picked it up again after feeling so battered and bruised by the attempt. Richard's support, whether he realized it or not (I'm sure he didn't), amounted to an 11th hour reprieve. 

Do a support check

Having the support you need to succeed is too important to leave to chance. Take a look at your own life and ask some questions:

• Where do I get my support?
• Where could I get my support?
• What kind of support do I need? 
• What kind of support am I missing?
• Who can I reach out to?

And to balance the equation out and keep the energy flowing, complement those questions with these:

• Who needs my support?
• Who can I help, and how?

Be conscious about what you need, be purposeful and intentional about bringing it into your life, and be proactive in reaching out to find it, and the support you need will show up.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Career passion tip: Seek change

I'm no psychic, but I can guarantee one thing about your future beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's going to entail change. 

Most people resist change kicking and screaming, but that doesn't stop it from coming down the pike. It's part of the human experience, and it's going to happen whether you like it or not! 

So if change is inevitable, use it to your advantage. Instead of resisting it, tap into its potential to sculpt your career to increasingly reflect what energizes and inspires you. Think of incremental change as a tool to help you keep moving towards work you love (and make sure you stay there once you find it). 

Too many people look at their jobs like they are chiseled in stone. But in reality, most people’s work is much more malleable than they realize, especially when they add time as a variable. Small steps taken over time can add up to a big shift. And what is out of reach today eventually comes into reach when you combine choices and action with time.

Make a habit of seeking change. First spend some serious time taking a look inside. Figure out what makes you tick. Identify the common themes are that tend to be present when you feel energized (read Does your career fit for some ideas on how to go about that). 

As you develop the habit of seeking change, focus on incorporating more of what energizes you and reducing what drains you. The insights you gained in your self-exploration provide the building blocks for change. Using those insights you can continually ask, “How can I build on what is working? How can I change what I don’t like?”

Some changes will be big, and others small. Over time, you just might be surprised at just how much potential there is for change when you consciously, consistently look for opportunities to sculpt your work.

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst