Tag: Self-Help

Want real success? Let yourself fail…often…and stop worrying how bad that might sound on the surface and look on your resume.
Some of us feel disappointed by 2012 and are ready for it to be drawing to a close. Others created some positive change during this past year by choosing what is best for them.
I was told I would miss my paycheck before I moved.
I do.
But that is all I can really miss about a situation that was overall less positive for me to be in.

As the end of the year comes steaming to completion we are hit over the head with motivational musings such as “new beginnings” and how being positive can help jump-start your career as you head into the new year.
Being positive is generally-speaking the way to go.
Your attitude sets the tone for each day as early as when you rise out of bed.
Do you wake up loathing your lot in life and what awaits you at the office?
If so, change your attitude.
That is one thing you can control. You cannot necessarily control all that will occur on the job on any given day.
Changing your attitude to one of positivity takes practice.
You cannot be positive part of the time; it is a way of life. If you are only positive when it is convenient or when things are going well for you, you will not be able to weather life’s personal and professional challenges well.

You have to train your mind to expect good things.
Instead of giving way to negative feelings on the less than savory things going on in your life as you start your day, why not ask yourself what good thing could or might happen for you on this day?
If you can train yourself to be receptive to goodness, you will more likely deal better with negative things that crop up on some days.
I have come into this knowledge the hard way.
I had to be willing to fail professionally before I could enjoy some success personally.
If you are not of the risk-taking variety of folks out there you are limiting the goodness that can come to you.
For many years I justified a job that was grinding me up, by the paycheck I received. I watched as my co-workers’ health deteriorated and suffered through the stresses the job placed on all of us. We were all relatively well-compensated but something was always missing, eluding all of us as we grumbled about less time with our families and friends as one of the main reasons we disliked the job.
Money kept me and my old co-workers doing what we were doing.
It, along with our fears, keeps a lot of us in jobs we might not be passionate or entirely happy about.
We end up living the life of a consumer—buying stuff we see on television. Even if we do not buy something, we buy into the lifestyle that our money that comes from the jobs we grumble about provides. On weekends we find ourselves catching up on television programs that have already aired and then discussing them many days later with people who do the same thing.
We stopped living in the moment.
We gave up on taking any risks that might create positive change in our lives.
We did it for the paycheck.
We had enough money and yet we were miserable.
I often wondered why people with more money than they need were not as happy as I thought they should be.
They were successful by business and professional standards perhaps.
Personally, they were suffering a bitter existence.
They were unhappy on the inside as they enjoyed the outward success that they were taught all their lives would make them happy.
Their fears kept them from taking chances that might help improve how they feel about themselves and their lives.

Failure stings.
It hurts.
It can make us feel inadequate.
But you may never come to know what is really important and meaningful in life if you do not fail often.
Everyone is going to make mistakes on a new job.
I have made plenty of them, try to learn from them and certainly try not to make the same ones more than once.
I am old(er) than a lot of you reading this, do not necessarily believe that age and wisdom go together (since I’m allowing myself to fail almost daily for the first time in a long time!), and while I am afraid some days that I do not, or won’t have, enough money, I know those feelings are only temporary.
The courage to endure repeated professional failures has liberated me to change my attitude and enjoy my personal life more than ever.
Something really good is going to happen today.