Appreciative Inquiry - A Way To Move Forward In Personal Development

1. Discover –Find out what works. What are you doing when you are at your best?  –– Appreciate It

2. Dream – Imagine what might be or how it could be better –Envision It

3. Design – Determine what should be, the ideal, and how you are going to get there––Co-Construct It

4. Destiny – Create what will be and commit to action and results —Sustain It/Work It

Seems so simple, but like us all you’ve seen a “plan” like this before.  Tried it  and No Big Changes in Your Life.  It doesn’t matter  how many things you’ve tried in the past or how many times you’ve” failed” in the past.  Forget what the voices in your head are saying (or the people in your life)…KEEP GOING…

• Thomas Edison‘s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, I didn’t  fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.
• Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.
• Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.
•  Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.
• After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.
• In 1944, the director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, “You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.” Norma Jean, of course, never quit and became Marilyn Monroe.

Who you are right now is not who you have to continue to be.  KEEP GOING.  Let Go of all those voices in your head telling you that you can’t, and it’s hopeless. It is not. Just sit back and take a look at your current situation.  Don’t be afraid of what you find.  Just suspend it out in front of you like “laundry on the line”.  If you can do that and be alright with whatever FEAR comes up, just experience the FEAR, and not being AFRAID of that experience, in time everything will be fine.

Don’t try to resist it or change things right away, just simply acknowledge whatever it is that isn’t working for you -your job, your relationships, your finances, ect – and slowing let go–don’t struggle with it — just release it.  There is something about FEAR that when you take it on it runs like a coward.  Once you learn this and that FEAR is gone the FUN begins.  BUT it doesn’t end there, because life will continue to throw up all of these FEARFUL things to make sure you’ve learned the lesson.  Over and over again in all kinds of situations and circumstances life says:  “Look Over Here…Something to Be Afraid of and Live in Fear of.”  Letting go of Fear seems to me could be a lifelong lesson to learn.

You can’t LET GO  of anything (Fear) until you acknowledge that you are HOLDING ON (to being fearful).  Sometimes all it takes is acknowledgement for fear to release the grip on its own.  It’s occurred to me that:

LETTING GO is not about something that you DO.  LETTING GO is something that you UNDO.  It’s an Undoing of a Holding On.

Just Quit is not about Giving Up it’s about LETTING GO of what is not working so you can discover what does work for you…KEEP GOING.

No one can make the discovery about “you” for you…it’s on you…KEEP GOING.

The journey of life is all about… the journey…you’re going to screw up every now and again… Things aren’t going to go your way…Money is going to be tight…JUST KEEP GOING NO MATTER HOW MISERABLE, HORRIBLE OR HOPELESS THINGS MIGHT SEEM TO YOU….tomorrow is a new day.

How Much Have You Let Go?

Do Everything With a Mind That Let’s Go.

 

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. 

If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. 

If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.

Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.                                                           

                                                                     ~AJAHN CHAH

 

 

Labor Day, Finding Work You Love and Making Choices

Happy Labor Day to all of those laboring.  Below are some labor related quotes to ponder today and throughout the week.

THIS IS THE GOAL TO FIND AND BE IN A “JOB” YOU LOVE

 

Don’t expect it to be easy and think all you have to do is hope that you are going to “fall into” a job/career that you love. Sometimes you have to go out and “find your life”. Finding what you love to do doesn’t include continuing to stay in a job where you are miserable…adjust the action steps…set sail… 

 

Begin by recognizing that in order to “find” your life and doing something you “love” it starts with asking yourself tough questions and being HONEST with the answers.  NEVER stop learning!

So You're Not Working...Now What?

Many in the U.S. are currently not working because of Covid19. Many are getting enhanced Unemployment Insurance….the extra $600 on top of what they would normally get for unemployment. For some this is more money then they were getting when they were working.

For those of you who wanted to “Just Quit” this is your time! This is your time to figure out what you really want to do with your life. It doesn’t have to be “another” job. It can be ANYTHING. Don’t waste this semi-UBI (Basic Income) time just waiting to go back to a job that you hated.

See this as an opportunity. Figure out what you really want to do in life and start planning and preparing to do that.

Use your time wisely. Make it count.

Just Quit and Live Happened WorldWide

Finally most have stopped the madness of 8-10 hours of working to make others rich in nonsense jobs. Finally. People can now rest and be able to just live.

People and lands are being restored.

Everybody stop, breathe, pray for restoration.

It is a wonderful time to be alive.

You Can Learn Great Things From Your Mistakes When You Aren't Busy Denying Them

I can’t stand this workplace, the environment is negative, the workers are unhappy, the customers are ghetto and classless.

The Store Director has a chip on his shoulder.

It’s a very political place.

~Worker Living in California

When we are clear of what is not working for us in our jobs, we are half-way there.  We know what we don’t like.  We know not to put ourselves in that type of work situation in the future.

There is something about your current job that you do not like.  What is it?  Just name one thing that you don’t like.  Sometimes just naming it helps.

  Try not to forget what that one thing is so you don’t end up back dealing with that one thing again in another job down the road (out of desperation or just forgetting what was not working). There is something that this work situation is trying to teach you, learn it so you don’t have to repeat it down the road.

When Writing The Story Of Your Life Don't Let Anyone Else Hold The Pen

It is a sales job and I’m interested in the marketing side, specifically market research. My current sales job has heavily increased the amount of merchandising I do, and I feel that I didn’t go to college to do something I did as a teenager for a summer job.

My boss also enjoys taking responsibility for big sales I make. 

I often work 8am to 8pm while being asked why I didn’t get to all my stores. My superiors play a game of willful ignorance about customer level issues that cause all the sales reps to work long, unpaid overtime (which is illegal-they’re getting sued for this) because their hands seem tied in terms of covering their own “butts”.  Even talking to them about any technical issues in the slightest results in a response of: “I don’t understand. I don’t see how that could be” and me slamming my head against the wall.

Our territories in the past two years have become overly large due to not replacing old territories and we’re still pushed to do what 2.5 sales reps could barely handle two years ago.

Other members of my company come into my territory and screw things up with my hot leads by trying to sell without me, often claiming sales while not actually ever speaking to the decision maker, and then I have to defend myself later when the sale never comes through.  

I’m surrounded by work 24/7 because our selling displays are in my house.  I work from home and go into the field every day.  I have files and boxes all over my house.  

The Monday-Friday article you wrote perfectly describes my life every week, and I need time to learn SPSS and other statistics programs to make a change. However, since my life revolves around this job I have a hard time finding time to work on my skills.

~Worker Living in Wisconsin

We all have a work story. 

You have a work story for this job and every job you have ever had.  A story has a beginning, middle and an ending. 

How do you want this job to end?  When do you want this job to end? This job WILL end and you can help orchestrate its ending the way you want it to end.