It’s easy to get down and depressed when it seems like so many things aren’t happening the way you want them to. I meet with men and women who are working hard to find the next right thing for them and they come in stooped and frustrated. But they do perk up and become inspired once we scratch the surface and find the quiet possibilities that lie, often, just below the surface.

This shift we’re experiencing is creating a lot of second thoughts about career paths chosen and how they’ve been managed. Fact is that things just happen…We forget that the view from the ‘top’ is lonely because not everyone makes it there. But we’re coming from a time when it seemed that the top was accessible to so many. Now we’re all being pushed to think and act differently. I’m reading (or listening on my ipod, actually) The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. You’ve probably read it already, too, but if not…do. If you’ve been holding out on learning about changes in commerce, now’s the time to get up to speed. And if you have a long- standing but quiet dream of starting your own business now is the time to get started on making this happen. Be honest with yourself about what you really want and enlist someone to encourage you to go for what you envision. There’s room for everyone out there to make their mark…but let’s face it, many corporate work places have figured out that they can get by with fewer people on their payroll. Of course this will ultimately backfire because so many people are burning out. A major backlash will be coming — employees who have had it will walk when the economy shifts again. I talk to those people too ;-0

So get fired up, get out and learn. Get active. Let yourself be inspired by a dream you held long ago and then remember that feeling uncomfortable (this will happen after you decide to take action) is a great sign that you’re in learning mode. And everyone needs to be updating themselves and their notions of how work and commerce work now. What’s your next move?

Steve Nash has been an inspiration to me since the first time I saw him play, live, at the Staples Center years ago. I recently read a great article about him in Sports Illustrated. What struck me was Stoudemire’s statement here about how success on the court manifests — through creative vision and seeing. “When you have creative minds, you get involved in different sports, in different cultures, and it allows you to open up on the basketball court and just be yourself. Steve’s a heck of a soccer player. He’s one of those skateboard guys. For the most part, you want to be yourself. Being yourself allows you to play better, to have more fun. It opens up your spirit.”

Take a moment to assess how open you are to what’s going on around you. What energy are you leaving on the table? How engaged are you in a variety of activities that can lead to greater creativity right now? If you notice a bit of tunnel vision taking over, choose another path for a day or two each week. Opening up our spirit helps us to open up and see more opportunities to play in a bigger world.  Playing a targeted and competitive game results in a win, but diversifying yourself and expanding your skills and awareness ‘sharpens the saw’ and keeps our aliveness fresh.

This past weekend I had the good fortune to attend an independently organized TED (Technology Entertainment Design) event in Manhattan Beach. TED is all about Ideas Worth Spreading; you can find more about this at TED.com. While I learned so much during this one day event, I’ve found myself talking about a particular presentation about play and fun and see how this ‘plays’ out in work – mine, my clients’, and my 13 year old son’s.

Michael Shore, VP of Worldwide Consumer Insights at Mattel Inc. presented valuable research about what fun means to a wide cross section of kids, summarizing this with 10 Expressions of Fun. I’ve been measuring my sense of fun against these. And, after presenting this list to my video playing obsessed son, understand more about what he gets from these games, and appreciate more what we’re all really after. In fact, fun is absolutely key to a satisfying career. Check yourself against these 10 Expressions of Fun. How much are these a part of your work and life?

1) Enjoying freedom and unstructured experience
2) The ability to dream and play with possibilities and imagination
3) Experience yourself as special and exceptional
4) Enjoy a sense of belonging and acceptance
5) Get to be and act WACKY
6) Enjoy a sense of knowing, and accomplishment
7) Get to relax, kick back — maybe this is a little chill time
8 ) Enjoy feeling proud — get to strut your stuff a bit
9) Get to Stand Out — express yourself with passion
10) Be mischievous or daring — get a little sense of breaking the rules

So, how does this sound? Want more of these in your life? With more of these expressions showing up on a daily basis I’ve no doubt more of us can make a bigger contribution to the world. Does work really need to be work? As we say, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

I’m currently reading Awakening Joy by James Baraz & Shoshana Alexander. They include this poem in their inspiring book and it seemed fitting to add this to my blog on Valentine’s Day.

Choosing Life by Danna Faulds

The downward spiral starts.
Self-doubt and darkness
vie for center stage, while
I, the passive, drowning
one, waiting for my demise.

Just as I sink beneath the
waves of my despair a
thought arises. Why go
there? I’ve made this
trip a thousand times,
and it leads nowhere.

I’m choosing life. The
darkness lifts just a little.
I’m choosing life. The
downward spiral slows,
then stops. I’m lifted up
and buoyant now, not
shrinking from the truth.

Okay, I’m not perfect,
and reality certainly
doesn’t look like
what I’d choose. And
maybe that’s the only
point – to ride the spirals
down and up, and make
the choice for life.

Are you discouraged by the headlines about unemployment? I’m ready for some new ones. To that end I’m asking for your stories about how you found your new job or career — whether you worked with me or not. I know plenty of people who have created or found new positions and I want more people to hear the story that this does happen and how. Please ~ if you or someone you know has a story to share, please have them send it to me. We’ll post it. We need to give the other side of the story of unemployment to give others hope and inspiration.
With heartfelt thanks,
Daisy

Wow. This has been some ride lately. If you’re reading this you may be looking for ways to cope with having been laid off, downsized, right sized, wrong sized, fired, or worried about all of the above happening to you. You may also be thinking ahead and trying to come up with proactive ways to approach your next moves in your career — Your Stimulus Plan.
I’m with our President — we will recover from this chaos and more and new opportunities will appear. What does that statement do to you when you read that? Take a moment to notice. Are you skeptical? Too anxious and impatient to take a breath? Or do you brighten just a tiny bit? Any of these reactions will inform you of how your beliefs are affecting your actions, and therefore your outcomes.
My previous post was about not engaging in job search activities all the time. Why? Because we need our personal resources to be as available to us as possible. Doing a job search can be stressful, and it can also be fun. I used to enjoy job search activities (so I guess I found my right livelihood, right?) because it was a great way for me to learn about what other people did for work. It was a great excuse to talk to people I didn’t know and learn about what various companies were doing — sometimes I found interesting things, and others not so much. The job searches I did always opened new possibilities for me to learn something new, and my insatiable curiosity would not only be slightly satiated but new friends and opportunities would present themselves. And that’s how I always found what I was looking for — through curiously reaching out and talking about what I loved to do and what was important to me.
I may not be looking for a job, but I know what stressful thinking can do to me. When I’m stressed and fearful I react with irritation to most everything, or I get exhausted. I’m less available and upbeat with friends, definitely with family, and even at functions where I’m meeting new people — something I really love to do!
What’s the best way to approach your personal Stimulus Plan? Take a moment to write down what you’re worried about. And then ask yourself if what you’re worried about will really happen. And if it does, then what’s the worst thing that can happen from there? And if you find that you really believe all of this awful stuff you’ve written down I want you to go to Byron Katie’s website, www.thework.com, and look at what she offers as a way to deal with your beliefs. She’s figured out a way to deal with stressful thoughts that really is simple and helpful.
Because all of us at Daisy Swan & Associates also help people manage and undo their stressful thinking you can just talk with us and we’ll help you with the next steps to enjoy your job search strategies. We’ll help you get your mind around what actions you can take to increase your opportunities, how to create your best resume ever, how to talk with new people who may turn out to be the next most important people you’ve met yet, and how to create and move through your Stimulus Plan. You are your thoughts and beliefs. We will help you untangle those so that your path can become clearer and calmer. As Joni Mitchell says in one of her songs, we’ll ‘mirror you back, simplified’. There are gifts in this economic downturn. Be someone who finds them.

This article is from The New York Times
By: Rony Caryn Rabin
Published: November 19, 2008

Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.

That’s what unhappy people do.

Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study, which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.

While most large studies on happiness have focused on the demographic characteristics of happy people — factors like age and marital status — Dr. Robinson and his colleagues tried to identify what activities happy people engage in. The study relied primarily on the responses of 45,000 Americans collected over 35 years by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, and on published “time diary” studies recording the daily activities of participants.

“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.”

But the researchers could not tell whether unhappy people watch more television or whether being glued to the set is what makes people unhappy. “I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy,” Dr. Robinson said.

Still, he said, the data show that people who spend the most time watching television are least happy in the long run.

Since the major predictor of how much time is spent watching television is whether someone works or not, Dr. Robinson added, it’s possible that rising unemployment will lead to more TV time.