Archive for July, 2010
Do the Work that Comes Easy
I had an awesome chat with Catherine Cain of Be Awesome Online. She woke up at 7am on a Sunday morning to talk to me. She was happy, funny, and questioning. That’s not easy to do after just rolling out of bed. She forced me dig deeper into my own business.
In our short conversation she helped me be more awesome online. She used her superpowers because she couldn’t help it. Really it was just supposed to be a conversation, but she couldn’t hold her superpowers back.
I’m not writing this post to gush about Catherine, even though she is amazing. I’m here to tell you about a really cool nugget of awesome that I got from our conversation.
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7 Skills You Need to Develop a Career that You Love
Do you wish that you had the ability to find a career that uses your superpowers? What can you do to make your dream career a reality?
Creating a career that you love doesn’t magically happen. It takes work. I refuse to blow smoke up your butt and tell you how easy it is, because then you’ll curse my name all around the internet.
I would rather focus on helping you build a career based on your core needs. This takes time.
You have to know what truly makes you happy, so you can create the career that fits your needs as well as the market.
Too many people will say that if you just follow your dream then the money will flow into your life. This can be partially true. What most people fail to recognize is the importance of aligning your needs with other people’s needs.
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Work Happiness Has Four Legs
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Chrissy Scivicque of Eat Your Career.
About a month ago, I was out walking my dog (a 15-pound golden yorkie-poodle mix named Mollie) and, from a neighbor’s house a large, black pit bull came bounding out at us. Without any hesitation, the dog attacked. All I could hear were the cries coming from Mollie as she tried frantically to get away. Thankfully, her collar was just loose enough that, in that moment of pure terror, she was able to squeeze her head out and run. That beast of a dog chased her a few streets and then gave up. After running back home, I found Mollie, God love her, waiting for me on our front porch—a little torn up, a lot scared, but 100% alive.
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One Sentence Work Journal
You must find a way to do what excites you. That means understanding what makes you feel engaged, upset and happy.
Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project gave me the idea of keeping a one sentence journal. I think this habit will help you understand more about who you are and what you need to be happy within your business.
I usually write two sentences instead of just one because I like to write about what happened in my day and how I felt about it. I focus on the most emotionally powerful event. This helps me stay focused and not let the journal get too jumbled.
Download the One Sentence Work Journal PDF
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Chunk Your Way to Success
You may have heard of the idea of chunking. If not, the idea is simple. Let’s say you want to create a website for your business, but you don’t know where to start. All you see is this giant pile content, programming, and designing before you, so instead of getting to work you decide to watch an episode of your favorite TV show.
The day goes by and you accomplish nothing. The week goes by and still nothing.
Now your motivation is dwindling. That website that would have helped so many people is becoming an after thought.
You blew up your motivation into tiny pieces because you didn’t create a strategy that felt achievable.
Download the Chunk Your Way to Success PDF
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Retrain Your Brain
You may be happy some of the time, but you just can’t stop daydreaming about the good ol’ days. When you first started your business you were excited and happy to wake up each day. Now your business is owning you. You’re afraid to make any changes because of the consequences.
Many of us get stuck in this cycle. We are afraid to create systems that will make us happier.
If so then what is stopping you?
Download the Retrain Your Brain PDF
Internal Demons
I used to be very afraid. I was afraid that people might hate what I created. I was afraid that my family and friends would laugh at me.
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Take Back Control of Your Business – Series
Over the past two and a half years I’ve learned a ton about developing a business.
I’ve learned how to:
> Network the “right way”
> Write in a way that attracts my desired audience
> Create happiness systems that maximize my productivity
Over the next few posts, I want to share a few of these things that I’ve learned.
The most important part of developing my business has been working with my emotional core. Too often we discount the importance of having a foundation built on happiness. A person can do great work if they bully themselves into producing results, but this is impossible to sustain.
Starting tomorrow I’m going to explore how I’ve created a small business that has allowed me to maximize my happiness. It’s a 3 part series, so stay tuned for all three installments.
3. Keep a One Sentence Journal
A small business owner who only worries about money and neglects happiness is missing the point of being an entrepreneur. We need to develop a core that allows us to always come back to our emotional center. It’s important to connect with our work in a balanced way.
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Finding Your Own Path to Fulfillment
Peter Buffett wrote a solid book about finding your path to fulfillment – Life is What You Make It. (This is an affiliate Amazon link.) It breaks down the story how he refused to follow his father’s path into investing. He was never interested.
The book is well written, but it doesn’t slap you in the face like I hoped it would. I was hoping for a wakeup call that would help guide readers toward a new perspective.
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A Simple Guide to Overcoming Project Resistance
Do you ever notice how you are just resistant to some projects? You may have a 10 day deadline and you don’t start on it until day 5.
You think this will allow you to do some other stuff you’ve wanted to work on. The problem is you end up trolling the internet or doing stuff that doesn’t matter that much.
You’ve convinced yourself of the advantages of procrastinating and it backfires again and again. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a little procrastination, but when your procrastination starts stressing you out then you have a problem.
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