2020 Your Opportunity?

About this time of year, I read a lot of posts from colleagues or listen to them as they talk about the year ahead. What I read and hear is brimming confidence and hope that, “This is going to be my year!”

Well, I wonder about that. I mean, what do they mean? Generally they mean that things are going to be different; they plan on taking advantage of opportunities as they come up, really commit to something they want (and this generally in turn means self-improvement of a fashion).

However, I don’t see the required change in behaviour much of the time; oh there’s short bursts of it yes, but not the sustained, repetitive actions that in sequence result in real change. These false starts are sparked by initial good intentions, but without being repeated, no pattern of new behaviour comes about; the very behaviours that cumulatively form new reputations, nurture commitment and enthusiasm to keep going. Without a change in behaviour on a consistent basis, the, “This is my year!” rant fizzles out and is replaced by a defeated-sounding, Same old, same old.”

Opportunities you see are around us every day no matter what day of the year the calendar proclaims it to be. Sure January 1st is a good time to mentally adjust our thinking. However, the first of January is an external cue not an internal one. The internal cue is that voice that you know is there deep inside you that whispers all the time what it is you want most. It’s so palpable and real too isn’t it? I mean you know what you want most; whether it’s losing weight, a new job, the courage to tell someone just how much you love them, ask for a promotion, etc.

That internal voice is no louder on January 1st than it is the rest of the year. It’s just that the flipping of the calendar gives us permission to pay that voice a little bit more attention. And with people all around us making new year’s resolutions, that collective energy makes it easier for us to proclaim our own good intentions to change something and feel universally accepted and supported. In short, it’s easier to make a resolution to do something when others are doing the same thing.

However, there are those who believe that the slightest little slip up puts the whole resolution bit in jeopardy. So you have a slice of cake when out with friends and your inner voice that’s been at you to lose weight is drowned out by another voice that says, “Failure! Told you so!” And there goes that unblemished resolve to not eat fatty foods that taste great but detract from your goal. Well might as well pack in the, ‘lose weight’ resolution for another 12 month’s and try again. Nonsense! Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just start again.

Opportunities come up every day and many in any given day. I suspect however that many people fail to see opportunities for what they are until they pass. I include myself in this number too. On a small scale, we all have the opporunity to get up, walk over to a colleague and compliment them. Perhaps it’s something they’ve achieved at work or in their personal life. Or perhaps it’s the risk they took that you compliment them on rather than the result. (This by the way is one of the things the enlightened recognize and do more than others).

That doesn’t sound like a big opportunity does it? I mean choosing to get up, go over and say something nice to a colleague. Big deal you might think. Do it once and it’s noteworthy for it’s uniqueness. Do it a second time and a third time and it’s establishing itself as a new pattern. Continue with a pattern and you build a reputation. This is true whether it’s complimenting a coworker, visiting the gym, reading a book, going to concerts or anything in fact.

It’s the small every day choices we make that in the larger context we look back on and say we either seized an opportunity or let it slip past. Could we have lost that weight last year or three years ago? Sure we could have, but we missed those opportunities out of the choices we made. However, it’s 2020. On this day we could make the decision to seize an opportunity and resolve to commit to some new behaviours. Be kinder, be more forgiving, go a day without dessert – then maybe another, drive the speed limit rather than 20 km’s above it.

I’ve resolved to ask of three people how I might be better. I’ve yet to decide who the three will be, but I’m wanting to choose people who know me well. Why three? It’s manageable and until I hear what they have to say, I’ve no idea the effort required to be better will take to sustain such change over time. We’ll have to see…

Consider yourself one this day as you read. What opportunities are you hoping for and looking forward to in this coming year? To bring them about, what are you doing this month, this week and this day? For most opportunities require us to do things that put us in position to take advantage of them as they arise.

Cheers to you, to me; to us! For we are in this together.

 

Thoughts, Attitudes, Choices, Action

In life, there are the things we can’t control and the things we can. Without much real thought, I’m betting you’ve heard the advice urging you to worry about the things you can control and letting go of the worry and stress over the things you can’t.

Take Monday mornings; take this early November morning at 5:01 a.m. as I write. Outside, the temperature is 2 degrees and with the wind it feels like minus 2. At this moment it’s pitch black and the weather has rain in the forecast. If you reread this paragraph, I haven’t given any indication of how I feel about this day, but just from the words I’ve used, what are you feeling? Positive or negative?

My consciousness of the day began at 4:22 a.m. when I opened my eyes, looked across the room at the digital display on the clock and acknowledged the time. I closed my eyes again, rolled back the comforter and let the cooler morning air touch my body for a few minutes while my mind started to engage. Ten minutes later, a cup of tea is steeping, I’ve had my head outside the door to breathe in the air and yes, the laptop is fired up and humming.

This is my morning routine. It’s quiet time; Kelly time. I’m not fighting an urge to hit a snooze button, I’m not rushing around having left myself no room for the slightest change in my morning preparations. Outside it’s still and silent, dark and Monday all over.

I cannot change the calendar and make is Sunday; so Monday it is. I don’t wish it were Sunday, or Friday for that matter. It’s Monday and I accept that. It’s early in the morning and I’m in control of what I do at this hour. For me it’s blogging with a warm cup of comfort – tea with milk only please – the chair reclined and the fingers tapping away on the keyboard. I’m in control. At 6:00 a.m., I’ll have 30 minutes to shower, shave, dress, make lunch and roll out of the garage on the way for a 60 minute drive into work. Like I said, I’m in control over that which I can control.

Monday you see isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s just – well, Monday. 4:22 a.m. isn’t a bad time to wake up it’s just 4:22 a.m. How I see this day, this time, what I choose to do between now and when I need to get going, this is my choice; my time. It may differ from how you choose to spend your time and that’s perfectly okay. You may be blissfully sleeping away in lullaby land, slumbering in semi-consciousness and only becoming aware of the morning as it breaks on you. You could be staring at the clock in your room unbelievably amazed it’s 4:22 a.m. and you still haven’t slept a wink for all I know.

What we cannot control is out of our hands – this is what a lack of control boils down to. It stands to reason that putting any effort into attempting to change the things we can’t is wasted energy. No amount of effort on my part is going to change the day on the calendar even if I dreaded Monday and only slightly liked Tuesday better. If I had an intense loathing of Monday, all I’d be doing is setting myself to feel embittered and in a foul mood every seven days. I don’t want that!

No, I think it better to throw my energy into the things I have control over; my attitude, my reaction to the things around me, the day ahead and what my schedule calls for, the thoughts I have and the actions I take based on those thoughts.

Now you just know there’s going to be that person you meet today – you know, the one who will just be so down on Monday – as if the calendar has conspired to make their personal life a misery. I don’t mean down as in sad but down in the sense of wanting to battle Monday and put it down every chance they get. They’ll look for fellow conspirators too, other people who want to groan and complain together, (for misery does indeed like company) about Monday. Monday, Monday by the Mama’s and the Papa’s is on their playlists today… “can’t trust that day, Monday morning somehow it just turns out that way.”

I can’t afford to waste time and more importantly energy worrying about Monday. You and me, we’ve only got so much energy and because our actions are the manifestations of our thoughts, I choose to think the positive, hoping my actions will align with my thoughts.

It’s still dark outside, it’s still 2 degrees but feeling like minus 2. It’s still Monday on the calendar and the only difference between the people like me and those who are fighting Monday morning is the thoughts we choose to have; perspective. This is choice.

Choices we make are ours to make. We can choose not only at the start of our day but every minute of every hour of every day, how we interpret and interact with things that happen in our day. Positive or negative, good or bad; it’s within our control how we choose to see things. When others first interact with us and see us positive or negative they get an impression. When they interact with us and see us on an ongoing basis it’s a pattern. Then it’s a routine, then finally a way of being. Choose wisely!

Puzzling Out Life

This past weekend was one where the days were cloudy, the skies brought periods of rain and at our house, my wife took both Saturday and Sunday to recharge herself; feeling spent and mentally exhausted. And so it was, while I planted flower bulbs and got some things done outside in preparation for the snows to come, my wife sat inside and worked on a puzzle. Coming in and out of the house both days, I watched her; sorting the pieces, finding some that fit, lots of trial and error, and with the picture on the box as an ongoing reference, eventual success.

It struck me as I watched her for a few minutes that here was an analogy of life really. We’re all trying to piece things together. However, the more I thought about it, (because this is just what  I do), the more I realized there’s quite a difference. Puzzles almost always include a vivid picture of what the finished jigsaw puzzle will look like, and like her, I suspect most people who work on them use it as a reference.

Now for you and me, life doesn’t come with a complete picture of what we’re working on. Nor do we conveniently get all the pieces at the start. And for the very unfortunate, there might even be the odd piece missing; one that didn’t come with the box or one we lost at some point, making the finished puzzle incomplete.

I tend to think that it’s a good thing that we don’t all have blueprints and the complete picture as we start out in life. I mean, when you go into the store with the intent of buying a puzzle, you put some thought into what you’re after. While you might want a landscape, someone else is after a floral arrangement, another person a collection of animals, maybe a seaside beach crammed with vacationers etc. Life on the other hand? We craft our destiny and were we shown the picture of our lives with clarity as a child, we might not like the end result we’re working toward.

Here’s another thing; we evolve. When we start out we often think we’ve got some idea of what we want to be and it changes doesn’t it? I mean, we seldom anymore decide at 14 what we want to be and retire at 65 or so and look back at a single job or career. No, we change. We start off with an idea in mind, perhaps get some education related to the end goal, then a chance encounter sparks a new interest. We may change our major if we’re in school, return to take on some new learning, or use our transferable skills to compete for a job we’d previously not known about or had much interest in. Suddenly, we’re down some new occupational path, and this can be it for life or we have a second change of heart and take on another job. Guess what? We might have 8 various jobs and 3 career changes by the time we’re done with work.

So imagine buying a puzzle where you opened up the box and only found a piece or two. Every now and then, you’d arrive home and find the odd piece at your doorstep. No picture for reference, no clue as to how many puzzle pieces you’ll need to complete the picture. The emerging picture wouldn’t necessarily be all about your work either. No, you might have personal tragedies, major triumphs, moments of anger, failure, shame, exhilaration, success, happiness and sorrow.

I suppose we all work on a puzzle in this respect. The interesting thing is that when we look at ourselves, we often see a very different picture than the one that others see when they look at us. We might view ourselves as troubled, insecure, doubtful and unsure and be surprised to find that all the while someone else sees us as having it all together, happy and content. “Ha!” we think … “if you could see my world through my eyes!”

So how many pieces do we get that we have to put together? Nobody knows. Some lives are shorter or longer than others. Some are filled with adventures and travel, others with mountains of another kind climbed, fraught with heartaches and some with ultimate success. We work on ours every day; sometimes getting pieces that shed some light on a theme and others that are confusing and we’re not sure how they fit; they just don’t appear to be us.

No, we may not know the final picture, but we do get a huge say in what the finished puzzle looks like. The actions we take, based on the thoughts we think, the chance encounters and exposure to new things and people that come and go in our lives; these all contribute to what we piece together.

Thing is, there’s no do-over. You don’t get to take the puzzle back and start with a new one. You do get to create a new image within the overall puzzle though, and that image is entirely one of your choice; to make it what you will.

So, what do you want your finished puzzle to look like? You’re working on it today you know. It’s often confusing, the not knowing, the stress, the lack of clarity, but it sure feels good to do a section and see it come together.

 

Coming To A Decision

All through your life you make decisions. By their nature, some of those decisions are bigger or smaller than others. Some are so huge they affect the course your life runs as a consequence. At the other end of the spectrum are those decisions you make automatically; seemingly without much thought or difficulty; like switching on a light when you enter a dark room.

It’s important to acknowledge and affirm you make decisions; that we all do, because when you linger over making a choice for what appears too long, you may just say outloud, “Why can’t I make decisions without all this stress?!” And it’s then, at those moments, you have to remind yourself that yes, you do make decisions. It’s just the gravity or importance of what you’re weighing over that has you paused until you choose.

Have you ever considered just how many decisions you make in a day? I’m not surprised you haven’t. You’d likely miss many even if you tried to recall all the decisions you make. What time to get up, to shower or not, turn on the light or stumble in the dark? Which pair of underwear? Slacks or skirt, shave or not? Cereal or toast and if it’s toast, butter, jam or peanut butter? Do the dishes now or when you come home at the end of the day?

Okay, so you’ve given yourself credit over the small ones. Good. Now, to the bigger ones; maybe one you’re fretting over now for all I know. Okay so let’s look at that process. First of all, if you’re upset that it’s taking too long to make your choice, consider on the positive side of things that you won’t be upset with yourself for having made a rash, spur-of-the-moment decision without giving things the time and reflection they require. Every made a rash decision without thinking and regretted it? Hopefully it wasn’t over something huge; yes, hopefully it was choosing one ice cream flavour over another; something with small consequences.

When considering 2 or more options, we generally weigh the pros and cons. We look at the benefits of each choice, (the good) and the negatives (consequences). Can I suggest by the way that we both remove the word consequences as a negative. Make a good choice and the positive outcomes are consequences of having made that decision. Consequences go both ways. Too often someone warns us of consequences in our decision-making and like the word stress, we come to associate it with a negative. But stress and decisions can both be positives.

Okay so you’ve got your pros and cons. If you’re looking for a choice that has all positives and zero negatives, you’re not likely to find it. Just as obvious is that whatever you don’t choose in the end likely has some upside or positives too. Believing there’s an option with nothing but positives, where everything is a win, just doesn’t happen much of the time when you’re faced with 2 or more big choices and you have to decide.

Take choosing a school to go to as an example. Is it the College or University close to home or the one across the country. One close to home might mean you could continue to live with your parents and save on residence costs, but then again, sometimes the freedom to do what you want without the constant scrutiny of your parents would be a welcome positive. You might mature faster by doing your own shopping, washing and cooking. On the other hand, you’ll miss dad’s barbeque and mom’s lasagna. As for programs, they may be similar but one has a slighter better reputation but comes at a higher fee. One’s in a densely populated city and the other isn’t. Maybe your family encourages you to go to one over the other, but the other is close to those ski hills you’d love to get out on. Ah decisions.

Consider that having decisions to make is a privilege. Some on this planet are fighting passionately for the rights you enjoy; the right to choose. Be it school, a political party to vote for in an election or if and whom to marry. Never wish you didn’t have to decide; that others would make decisions for you. Coming to a decision helps you grow. Some of your decisions, yes, you’ll regret those choices. This makes you human. We all make decisions we’d like to reverse, and yes, some of those are big ones. While you hope to learn the lessons that go with those choices you wish you could have back, the key is to look forward and make better, informed choices, not relive and beat yourself up over choices made in the past.

Go ahead and get information when weighing your choices. Pay attention to your gut too. If you flip a coin between two important options, do you feel hopefully of one over the other as the coin is in the air? What does that tell you? Grab the coin and put it in your pocket without looking at how chance might have played out.

In the end, DO choose. Spend the time you need but please make a decision. Don’t run the risk of missing a deadline, losing an opportunity, then feeling bad because you waited too long.

In the end, go with the positives of your choice and feel good!

Success? Here’s What It Is

Success to me is being able to seize opportunities now because your past decisions placed you in a position to take advantage of them. Future success is having the decisions you make in your present put you in position to take advantage of opportunities in your future.

Let’s be honest here, we can’t know with absolute certainty, exactly what our futures hold. Furthermore, the further we gaze into the future, the odds continue to get lower and lower that what we imagine, guess, hypothesize, or yes – even plan for – will actually turn into our reality.

So if this is true, some people would take this to mean why plan anything? Indeed, why plan at all if what we do in the future can’t be predicted with absolute certainty? I found myself cooking hamburgers last evening instead of chicken breasts, rice and vegetables. Why? Because just as it was time to start preparing the evening meal, my wife had a change in what she wanted and having both options available, she surprised me and opted for burgers. What I’d planned at 11:30a.m when out shopping wasn’t what I started preparing at 6:00p.m.

Now yes, it is only dinner. But what about the big stuff? You know, choosing courses in high school that lead to College or University? What about planning on graduating and getting a job instead of post secondary education? These choices to be made and more importantly, decisions to be made, have consequences years down the road. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said, “I wish I’d stayed in school”, or, “I wish I had my degree.” Then again, less often but now and then, I also hear, “I wish I’d just got a job after my degree instead of getting my Masters.” Additional schooling isn’t always the right choice.

Yes, we can’t know with any certainty that Life (with a capital, ‘L’) will turn out exactly like we envision it will when we look ahead. That being said, I don’t advocate just throwing up your arms in submission and winging it until you die. We’ll all have regrets in the end; choices we made that we wish in retrospect we could go back and alter. Some of our regrets will be larger than others, and I suppose the best we can hope for is that our regrets tend to be minor and not major ones.

As good as the burgers were, I’d rather have had the chicken. However, as I bought both when out shopping, I still get the chicken tonight; a day later than I had planned, but I can only do so because I had the foresight to buy both. A minor delay in getting what I want most. However, we can’t always have it so. No, some of the choices we make send us down roads that never seem to have a U-turn; and there’s no going back. That person you should have told how you felt but never had the guts to do so moved away, married someone else, and you just wonder ever so often, ‘what if…?’

Education is a great example of this whole concept of putting yourself in a position to succeed further ahead in life. While you’re only in your early teens now perhaps, school officials are on you to choose your courses – the university or college stream. The choices you make either keep both doors open or close the university option. Sure you can always go back and upgrade courses later in life as a mature adult, it just means you take a longer route to get to University.

Keeping doors open sounds like a reasonably smart thing to do though, especially when you can be influenced by so many things between now and when high school is done. By the time you’ve finished with school and you’re in your late 20’s, you’ll either be happy or disappointed with the choices you’re being asked to make now in your early teens re. those course selections. The jobs you are considering in your 20’s require some level of education. If you opted for the degree, you have more options than the college diploma; the college diploma more options than the high school diploma and the high school diploma more options than dropping out without finishing high school.

Now some make a wonderful life without having finished high school. The jobs they hold and enjoy doing don’t require post secondary education, so let’s acknowledge them. However, many more people are happy they stayed in school, graduated and went on to get a degree or diploma, and a lot of people wish they had. Even the ones who lie on their resumes and say they have their high school when they don’t are demonstrating they know it is an advantage to have it.

Whether we’re talking education, volunteering, working or relationships etc., the principle is exactly the same; the decisions we’ve made in our past either allow us to take advantage of opportunities in the present or they don’t. The thing is, our past decisions can’t be altered.

What we can do is think about the decisions we make today and moving forward. It’s these decisions that will put ourselves in position to seize opportunities in the future; some of which we can’t possibly even imagine now. The good decisions keep the doors open.

Making Bad Choices, Then Feeling Bad

Out of control; moving from one chaotic event to the next, over thinking things and then having everything you do questioned, analyzed, evaluated, summarized and judged; these the things you do to yourself.

Sometimes the one who judges us the hardest isn’t a stranger, family or friend, but rather the one who greets us each morning when we look in the mirror; ourselves. After all, we know ourselves more intimately than anyone else. Only we know each thought we have, why we do the things we do. Check that last one… there are times we haven’t got any explanation for the things we’ve done. Could be we often ask ourselves, “Why on earth did I do that? What was I thinking?”

Living daily in chaos and under constant pressure and strain stretches our resources to the point where our thinking becomes skewed so the decisions we make are flawed. We end up making bad choices we then regret; lowering our opinion of ourselves and feeling worse than before. Rather than learning from our mistakes, they get repeated, and later repeated yet again, and how we perceive ourselves sinks each time. The pattern of feeling bad about ourselves a lot of the time can lead us to make even poorer choices.

The funny thing is (only it’s not funny at all), when we make all these bad decisions, they seem so right at the time. That’s the hardest part for us to understand later. Trying to explain this or justify this to someone else who questions us is just impossible. We can’t help feeling so small; like a child being scolded by an adult who catches us doing something dumb. But as a child, at least we could be forgiven for not knowing better. By now, we should have grown up, matured, learned to make better decisions and have our stuff together. Instead, we can’t even make simple decisions without a struggle; like what to pack the kids for lunch.

You’d think that asking for help would be easy; a logical step to make sense of all the chaos, but think about that – if it was easy, you’d think you’d do that – so is not asking for help just another thing you’re doing wrong? Figures!

If everything above sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. If you struggle to do things that others find simple, like find something on the internet, open a bank account, file your taxes or get your child tax credit, don’t feel you’re the only one so there has to be something wrong with you.

The thing about making decisions is that when you make a good one you feel better. Make a second and a third good decision and you develop a pattern. Repeat the pattern and you start to gain confidence and view yourself as having good decision-making skills. The same however is true when the decisions you make don’t turn out the way you’d hoped. One bad decision on its own is exactly that; just one bad decision. A second followed by a third etc. establishes a pattern and you can easily feel that based on results, you make poor choices.

Decisions we make are always based on the information we have at the time. So when trying to figure out what to pack the kids for a school lunch, we look in the fridge or the cupboards and what we pack is based on what’s available. We can’t send what we don’t have. While it’s clear to someone else we sent something inappropriate, it was at the time the best choice we had, avoiding sending something worse or nothing at all. Unfortunately, other people only see what we sent and judge our decision-making solely based on what they see, not what possible items we rejected. In other words, you may have actually made the best choice anyone could have made based on what you found as options.

The same is true for the big decisions that go wrong in the end. You might choose a job that doesn’t work out and then another; then start to question why you make such bad choices. It could be that you just lack the right information in the first place about how to go about finding a good fit. The thing is, at the time, the choices you made – and continue to make – seem right. You’re not dumb or stupid; you lack the knowledge to make a better informed choice. Without that necessary information, its like a game of hit and miss; with a lot more misses.

Getting help with making decisions from people you trust is not a sign of weakness, but rather wisdom. But I get it; people you’ve trusted in the past, abused your trust and things didn’t go well. That’s led you to only trust yourself, and as things aren’t working out any better, this has you feeling worse, with no one to turn to.

Decide for yourself of course … but you may want to find one person you can share small stuff with and see if they can help you. If they do help you make good decisions, they might help you with the bigger things later.

Good decisions are hard to make in times of chaos – for anybody. Learning how to make better decisions, like any other skill, can be learned and could be exactly what you need.

The High Cost Of Indecision

So you have a big decision to make. You’ve been wrestling with it for some time, weighing out pros and cons of the choices before you. Somehow though, you just can’t bring yourself to make that choice. Two questions for you: why the delay and what’s it costing you to delay?

As to why you are stalling on deciding, you probably don’t want to make the wrong choice. Could be that in the past you made other big decisions with what you thought was sound reasoning and good judgement and those decisions didn’t turn out so well. The last thing you want to do is repeat making a poor choice and coming to regret it.

This is often the case when the choice before you is similar to one you regret from the past. Like deciding if you should commit the next two or three years to going to College/University and going into debt in the process. Years ago you borrowed money and started school but never finished the program because it didn’t turn out to be what you’d hoped it would. All you got was the debt and an incomplete education; one year of a 3 year program. The fear now is you’ll make another bad choice and add to your debt.

You might also be wrestling with taking a job – any job – versus waiting to find the right job. You figure that if you’re working in a job you don’t like just to make some money, you won’t have the time to properly look for that dream job, and you won’t be able to go to an interview if you’re working now will you? So you’re stuck.

This indecision isn’t confined to work or school either. Perhaps you’re indecisive about asking someone out, wondering if you should or shouldn’t pop the big question to the love of your life, or indecisive about whether you should tell everyone your big secret.

Whatever you are indecisive about, there’s a cost you’re paying now, and a cost you’re going to pay the longer you put off making a choice. The choice to choose is entirely yours to make or not of course (and that’s the real issue) but don’t pretend you’re not paying for your indecision.

What’s the cost? Anxiety, low self-esteem, self-doubt, dangerous thoughts about what’s wrong and the pressure, pressure, pressure! Deadline dates for enrolling in school might get missed, the love of your life might get tired of waiting on you to pop the question, that guy or girl you’re mad about might end up going out with somebody else; not because they like them any better, but because they actually got around to asking. As for employment, the job you dream about might appear and you never get an interview because of the present gap on your resume…and it’s only getting wider and becoming more of a problem.

Help!

Okay, here’s help. Suppose you have two options you’re trying to choose between. Let’s start with something with relatively less pressure; ice cream. Is it going to be Butterscotch Ripple or Raspberry Thunder? The problem is you like them both, and no you can’t get a scoop of each. Choose. Maybe for you this isn’t a big deal and you don’t see the relevance to your problem. Go with me on this. Choose. So you went with the Raspberry Thunder figuring you like it just as much as Butterscotch Ripple and after all, you figure you can always choose it the next time you want a cone. Decision made and you’re enjoying the ice cream instead of standing there in the heat salivating but being unable to decide.

The choice between two post secondary programs, or two universities is exactly the same just on a bigger scale. Don’t fret it. Choose. You would enjoy both programs and more importantly you’d be happy in the career possibilities a degree in either opens up. Great. You’ve got a choice between a winner and another winner, just like the ice cream.  Make the choice and the anxiety over having to decide is eliminated. Second guessing is not helpful. Commit to your choice. Oh and by the way, after you’ve graduated, you might decide to find work in the field or perhaps add to your education with the other choice – but let your future self wrestle with that one – you don’t have the information at present to know how you’ll feel in 3 years.

Now when you have to make a choice but don’t know what the choices are, (like trying to decide what to do with your life; what to be), it can seem harder. Really though, you just lack the information upon which to make a decision. You need to learn what kind of work is out there, what education and experience is needed, where the jobs are located, the hours, pros and cons etc. In short, you need to research to get the information you lack now to make a good choice.

Then again, when faced with a decision flip a coin. When it’s in the air, see if you don’t suddenly in that 2 seconds find yourself hoping it lands one way or the other. You’d be surprised how often the way you hope the coin lands is more important than how it actually turns out; you know instinctively what you want; just don’t look to see if it is heads or tails – you’ll only be confused.

 

The Pressure To Choose

At 8 years old, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

At 13 years old, “You should start thinking about getting a part-time job.”

At 15 years old, “Are you taking College or University level courses in school?”

At 17 years old, “What Universities or Colleges are you looking at going to?”

At 19 years old, “What will that degree or diploma qualify you to be?” Are you sure?”

At 24 years old, “You changed your mind! What are you going to be?”

At 30 years old, “You’re changing careers?  Again? So what’s it going to be now?”

At 36 years old, “I’m sorry things aren’t working out. “What’ll make you happy?”

At 45 years old, “What are you going to do with your life? Such a disappointment.”

At 55 years old, “Had you made better choices, you’d be retired by now.”

At 60 years old, “So what are you going to do with the next 5 years of your life?”

At 65 years old, “It’s a shame really. Such potential and no life savings, poor dear.”

Maybe this sounds familiar in part or in whole. Interesting when you put the sequence of questions together though and look at them in their entirety. Can you spot the questions that are truly asked to seek information and separate them from the questions that really show others expectations and judgements?

When you’re the one asking out of genuine interest, the questions seem innocent enough. Perhaps you’re the grandparent or parent with an inquisitive nature; you want the best for your grandchild or child, and you see the world before them. They can be anything and anyone they choose to be; the possibilities are endless!

However, on the receiving end, you may well remember the angst you felt yourself when the question was turned to you. First of all it’s improbable as a child that you’d even know the majority of jobs that you could find rewarding. You’re limited to considering an occupation based on what you’ve been personally exposed to. As a very young child, many want to be a Doctor, Fire Fighter, Dentist or Teacher because these are within the limits of what they’ve seen or experienced.

By the time high school is underway, your already being told to choose university or college level courses, most often without any real idea of what either experience might be best for you personally. For many, a school official may have reasoned you were bright enough for university or you were intellectually challenged and university would prove far too difficult. Though well-meaning, you were encouraged to take the college level classes, or you were introduced to a trade as a viable alternative because you were good with your hands.

Yes, people feel a lot of pressure and anxiety when feeling they have to pick a career. Even in a job interview, employers often ask, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” Or they might ask, “How does this position fit with your overall career goals?” Ever sat there and realized you have no idea whatsoever? You haven’t thought much beyond just getting this job and you’ve no career goals that come to mind?

Well if you’re fortunate enough to know what it is you want to do and you’re working the plan to get there, I say good for you! Excellent in fact! Well done! With a long-term goal you can get help mapping out the steps along the way you need to take to eventually arrive at your destination of choice. That’s commendable.

However, if you have no long-term goal in mind, or you’re torn between 4 things that you find appealing, you might be thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just decide on something and be normal like everyone else? I’m such a loser!”

Well, you’re not a loser for starters, and no, not everyone else has it figured out. In fact, only a handful of people know what they want to be when they are children and years later emerge in life fully satisfied in the same profession they once only dreamed of. For the majority – the vast majority – as we grow up we meet people in different roles, and the more we see and interact with, the more we have new information to consider.

If you want an answer to that question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, that will be 100% right, tell them, “Older.”

Now depending on who is asking, realize that as parents and grandparents, they care about you. They are naturally curious to hear your thoughts. Even if you have no idea or you’re confused, it’s okay to say exactly that. It’s better than just saying, “I don’t know” and closing the door to your bedroom, shutting them out.

Good advice is to talk with people about their jobs. Gain some experience by doing some various things and pay attention to what you find pleasing and personally rewarding. Equally as valuable, pay attention to what you find unsatisfactory. You don’t have to choose one career and stick with it until you retire. That’s not the only success.

Success could be changing jobs several times over your lifetime, making full use of different skills as you acquire them, leading where you once followed, or taking on a new challenge to stretch yourself. You might head back to school and you might not. There’s no one formula for success.

Be true to yourself. Maybe – just maybe – that’s a good thing to be as you grow up.

Suppose You Were Given This Key…

Imagine if you will that you chance upon a box which upon opening, has a key and a note. The note reads, “Congratulations. You are now the owner of a key which will open any one single thing you desire. Choose wisely.” What would you open?

Depending on your inquisitiveness, you might be already wondering whether you found the key at home or work; was it out in the open like on your desk or hidden behind some wall in a castle you’re visiting built in the 1400’s? Don’t fret about that. You might wonder who put it there? Why me? How big or small is it? How could it open anything? Will it change shape as I insert it? You’ve been gifted this unique opportunity so just accept it and don’t over think it; the key is in your possession so leave it at that.

So do you opt for something tangible like the keys to a house? I suppose if you’re homeless or have had a life full of moving from one substandard housing unit to another this might have great appeal. On the other hand, if you already have stable housing and you’re relatively happy with what you have, the idea of using this key to unlock something you already have holds less appeal. In other words, you might not want to use the key to make a minor upgrade on what you already own. This you perceive is the big game-changer; the one chance you’ve got to dramatically alter your current existence.

Maybe you’ll go for the tangible but indulgent. You know, the key to a yacht, your own private jet, the front door to a vacation property in some island paradise. Why you can almost hear the jingle, “Just imagine” from a Lotto 649 commercial playing in your head. The fanciful side of you may want the yacht but before you actually declare with finality that the yacht is what it fits, the practical side of you says, “Hold on! We’ll have to pay the insurance, the storage fees and just think of the gas money at todays prices!” So you second guess what you want this key to open and pause to reconsider.

After some moments you think that maybe something tangible isn’t the only thing this key could open. Maybe the romantic lover in you imagines then that this key unlocks the heart of that person you’ve always wanted to see you in the same way you see them. They’ve always had your heart but somehow you’ve never felt they shared your feelings; this key you own could be used to open what you most desire and always have; them. But then some voice whispers to you that it just seems wrong somehow to get this person this way. You really want them to come to love you for who you are, not because you used this key as you would a love potion.

Sigh….

What about a job then? Ah, a job! Not just any job but THE job! The one you’ve tried unsuccessfully to get for what seems like an eternity. It does say it will open anything you desire so why not the door that keeps getting slammed in your face every time you apply for work? Yes, your dream job. Just wish it and it becomes your reality…your phone will ring in minutes with some voice at the other end telling you they’d be thrilled to have you come and work with them!

Unlike the heart of the person you’re hopelessly – or Hope Fully in love with, there’s little or no guilt surely in getting what you want by using this key. There’s nothing wrong with using it to unlock the doors to that corner office in the tower, the Chairman’s office, the Ranger tower in the forest or – well wherever this job you want is located. So why does your conscience nag at you that using it to get that job cause you difficulty?

Okay, okay! So you go to something that’s just fun and harmless. The key may just unlock the door to the local ice cream shop. Yes! Ice cream when you want it for you and your friends! A myriad of flavours at your choosing; vanilla and chocolate when you’re in the mood and raspberry thunder when you’re craving it! Harmless too; it’s only ice cream! Ah, but your health would suffer you acknowledge. After all, how much ice cream could you eat without having your fill? What if you got diabetes or became lactose intolerant? Then your wish for ice cream would be a cruel joke and a waste of the key. Rethink.

What about a vault that holds money. Surely then you could use the money stored there to get whatever you want and when you want it! As your needs and wants change, the money would be there to easily go out and get it. Would that be so bad? It’s like using your last wish to ask the Genie for more wishes. That has its problems too of course.

Enough with the ideas to spur one’s imagination. Would it make a difference in what you wish for if there was a limited time to use it? Would you unlock the mysteries of the universe?

What would the key open if you come across it today?

Maybe you already hold such a key.

 

 

What Are YOU Waiting For?

Whether it’s deliberating on returning to school, putting off seeing a Mental Health Counsellor, having a mammogram or colonoscopy, getting in shape, taking that trip, saying I love you or any number of things you could be stalling over, I simply ask you, “what are you waiting for?”

Is it the right moment? When do you see that happening? What are you waiting to fall into place so the time is right?

Do. It. Now.

We know that time doesn’t wait; every powered clock ticks by and the second that just elapsed will never come again. Yes there is an urgency and you’ve been lucky so far in delaying taking action. So far, things haven’t significantly changed robbing you of the opportunity to do what it is your mulling or fretting over. However, with every passing second there is an increasing possibility that something can and will change, stealing your opportunity and that possibility will be replaced with regret. Is that what you want?

Consider: you might know someone who waited too long to tell another how much they were in love. Then what happened? In waiting for just the right moment, a third person entered in and with just a little more urgency said what they did not. Opportunity gone.

Maybe you know someone who said, “I should have gone back to school but I was waiting until I earned more money first…now I’m too old. There’s people who planned on traveling abroad and seeing the world but never actually went anywhere because instead they bended to family pressures and stayed home. Perhaps you know someone who always wanted to be a (fill in the blank) but put off really going for it because it just seemed too hard – and that disappointment still haunts them.

Too much can happen while you deliberate. People move or die, jobs get filled, prices rise, doors once open close, responsibilities surface, needs change… you get the point. Do it now.

I have to tell you that one of the biggest mental blocks I hear over and over in my job is, “but I’m too old now”. Who says so? is my reply. Most of the time the one person holding them back isn’t some Hiring Manager at a company they want to work for, nor is it someone in Human Resources refusing to advance their application. No, more often than not the person who thinks they are too old is the person themselves. Here it is in a nutshell: if you think you’re too old…you are. And until you change this crippling mindset you will continue to be.

How sad it is to be locked in some prison cell of our own making with the key in our hands and lamenting to anyone passing by that you just want to be released. The key (literally in this scenario) is in your hands! Open the door!

You always have choices: 1) Do it now. 2) Do it later (maybe) 3) Don’t do it.

If it’s important enough that you lie awake consumed with wanting badly; if it’s your every waking moment’s thought; if in your most personal and intimate moments of reflection it just keeps surfacing, don’t you owe it to yourself to make it your reality? At least to try?

How long is your lifespan? You have no idea of course. You imagine yourself living a set number of years, and you hope those will be in decent if not good health. Your time is finite. From the moment you were conceived and later breathed that first gasp of air your clock starting ticking and will at an unknown point suddenly stop without warning. Yours might stop at 34 years, 16 days and 23 minutes. Maybe it’s 51 years, 11 months and 6 minutes, 18 seconds. Of this you have no absolute knowledge or control.

What you can control is what you choose to do with the time you have now. What is important to you? Who are the people important to you? What are the causes you care about, where are the places you want to see in-person, what are the changes in the world you want to bring about that are important to you to make it a better place? What is the education or job you always wanted?

For if you knew you only had 2 years left, would you spend your remaining days going about life the way you are now? Would your answer change if you had 6 months? What if you knew you had 60 years left? Would having all that time left cause you to put off what you really want today?

Now you may be someone who wants to get going but can’t figure out what it is you really want. Maybe that’s at the core of your stress; the indecisiveness and associated inaction. DO SOMETHING. Nothing happens until you take action. So take a chance and learn from the outcome. Register for school, tell somebody how much you mean to them, go to the gym, buy the house, get on the plane, mend the feud that’s kept you apart, take the course, say yes instead of maybe.

With every passing second, you’re rolling the dice and gambling that they’ll always be time in the future to do what you want to do but lack the courage to do now.

Will your life be punctuated with a period or an exclamation mark? Hopefully not a dreaded question mark.