Change: Personal and Professional

Sometimes, change happens with no warning: an accident, an illness, a lay-off. Sometimes change happens over such a long period of time we don’t even notice: our lives, our careers, our happiness. The only real constant in the world is change; how profoundly true. Every second brings a change – a new breath, a new note on the radio, a new bird at the window, new words spoken. Managing this constant change is a skill that we all could use a little brushing up on.

Change can be a difficult thing to manage. First you must recognize the need or requirement to change which can elude you for many years, if not your entire lifetime. The best way to recognize the need for change is to take inventory of your current feelings – happy, sad, mad or numb? If you laugh 30 or more times a day, if you like what you are doing 90% of the time, if people enjoy your company, if you get excited when it is time to go to work, if you love your body, or if you are pleased with yourself, then you can stop reading here. The rest of us can keep reading.

Because it is possible to feel the feelings noted above all day every day, you have just recognized your need to change. Where do you begin? Well, the best place is to identify the task during your week that gives you the least amount of satisfaction. If you think about it, you are probably going to be able to list 5 or 10. If that is the case go ahead and get them down on paper and then rate them 1 to x … with 1 being the least amount of satisfaction. This is your starting point.

Once you have the preverbal key, then ask yourself, ‘do I have to do it’? If it is your job, well you don’t have to do it – you can quit - but come on! We have mortgages, bills, mouths to feed … we can’t drop everything and begin making baskets from recycled materials because that is what makes us forget what time it is. Let’s bring a little realism into the picture. If your true passion is weaving baskets, then that becomes your goal and you build steps to reach that goal. It could take months or years to be a profitable venture, but because it is what you have always wanted to do, the journey is worth every bump, rut and breakdown.

So in a professional/career sense, this is long-term change where you will go through many revisions of paths to the desired end goal. These paths can be identified as sub-goals and broken down into small steps so that each day you can make progress toward the goal. Making progress keeps us motivated and helps us keep our eye on the prize. These small steps allow for nimbleness in the light of changing terrain and the option for redirection.

Change is within reach now that you have a big bodacious goal (BBG). You can make it happen in small steps that will carry you to that place where you will laugh 30 or more times a day, like what you are doing 90% of the time, people will enjoy your company, you will be excited to go to work, love your body and be pleased with yourself. Such positive change, whether personal or professional, can only serve us, and others, in the best ways possible. So what is your BBG?