Feel around in the darkness

As you dream of defining what success means to you in a given period of your life, you may be faced with tough decisions.  It may seem as though you feel around in the darkness for a switch to shed light on things.  Rather than be discouraged, remind yourself if everything was clear, the learning process wouldn't be as rewarding.  Your emotional process is a teacher.  Do you listen?

As you self-question about your priorities, you can grow to trust yourself and accept who you are. To begin to understand your personality will empower you to make better decisions for you.  If you get to a stage where you make decisions that ignore your perceived strengths and weaknesses, it would be time to reassess sources of meaning in your life and rethink the basis for your decisions.

1) Focus only on where you desire to change.  What's the point in defining components of success in areas of your life you don't desire to improve?  Learn to discern the key issues based on priorities you're struggling to sort out.  Narrow down your priorities to the most important ones.  Draft lists of tasks at hand, what you can or can't control. Gauges of success relate to what you can influence, in terms of things like your mindset, physical and mental health and well-being. 

2) Stay true to sources of meaning in your life.  If you're unsure of where to focus, tell yourself you're not meant to master everything.  Learn to step back and identify what you desire separate from what other people desire for you.  The guidance of others can be reassuring and useful, but its essential to learn to listen to yourself.  This will separate you from other people's priorities.

3) Recognize the value of short and longer-term.  Your sense of progress will mean different things depending on where you are in health, relationships and job hierarchies, among your perceived options.  To take a job in order to earn money to make the rent is a kind of success, but that may be a means to an end rather than the end you work toward in the bigger picture.

4) Connect with aspirations.  In all likelihood, your evolving concept of success will relate more to your hopes than those things that cause discomfort in your life.  However, if you haven't yet isolated your primary hopes, or they seem to be changing, the root causes of your uneasy feelings is a hint about where to go next.  Facing fears will help you uncover a new route to fulfillment.

5) Give yourself time. It's up to you to determine when to recognize certain things about yourself and your circumstances.  When you're ready to let yourself feel, ready to be patient to see how certain events unfold, ready to recognize options you hadn't considered before, your view of success will change with you.  This doesn't relate to human measurements of time so much as your level of comfort about new kinds of self-discovery.  Success is a state of mind and results.

The Grander Experience

You may have dreamed up stories about how cabbies got into their "line of work." If you ask them, you would hear any number of stories, from an indecipherable grunt to friendly chatter, to why immigrant professionals moonlight as drivers as a way to support their families, especially when they're unable to obtain professional licenses they had had earned in their home countries.

Consider the story of the businessman who had flown to a state capital just to call on one client. Time was ticking. The man simply planned a fast turnaround trip from and back to the airport. A shiny cab pulled up. The driver rushed to open the passenger door and ensured the passenger was comfortably seated. As the driver entered the front, he drew the passenger's attention to the neatly folded Wall Street Journal. The driver also gave the passenger a choice among music, climate control and a beverage. The business traveler was noticably taken aback and assumed the taxi driver had a story. The passenger sensed this was no ordinary cab.

As it turned out, the driver had lived a partial career in Corporate America. He said, " I got tired of thinking my best would never be good enough, fast enough, or appreciated enough. I decided to find my niche where I could feel proud of being the best I could be. I knew I would never be a rocket scientist, but I love driving cars, being of service and feeling like I have done a full day's work and done it well."

The driver went on to explain that he took a hard look at himself, his talents and skills. This led him to consider becoming a professional taxi driver. He desired to surpass his passengers' expectations.

The professional taxi driver role appealed because the man was a people person with a high standard of treatment.  He recognized clients value those who go further for them. He loved to get-to-know his way around the city and discover places in his own proverbial backyard he hadn't ever seen before. He was also so self-directed that he even dabbled a bit in match-making for his regular clients. The more he explored his business potential, the more he realized that being his own boss offered him freedoms he hadn't thought possible.

Did he receive tips? Definitely! The grander the experience seemed, the more fulfilled he became.  His invited clients to call him by his first name, like family. Each person has the power to define a grander, more fulfilling experience. What will you choose for yourself from this moment?

Delaney & Haley: Challenges create our tomorrows

Struggling artists often have tales to tell, which help explain how they survive the tough times.  You may even ask struggling artists "how are things?" Some of those people will admit, "why change, when we feel good about ourselves and seem convinced everything seems to be going so well? Stand back and recognize which skills they develop which strengthen their resolve.  Learn to sense that those challenges we face define who we are and ultimately create our tomorrows.

Consider Joe Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tennessee.  In his early painting days, he often lacked food money.  Yet, somehow, he developed clever strategies to get by.  He’d visit a neighborhood butcher who would offer him big bones with morsels of meat.  The nearby grocer donated wilted vegetables. That’s all Joe needed to make down-home soup to focus again on his painting.  Whenever he felt he needed stuff, he developed a knack for getting it.  This nurtured his incredible persistence in other areas of his life including, promoting his work.

Then why not recall a handsome young singer who ran a struggling restaurant? It was said that if a customer ordered steak, this singer would dash to a supermarket across the street to buy one. In fact, the kitchen fridge was rarely filled longer than the time it took customers to order and get served their meals. This restauranteur was Harry Belafonte. His singing career reminds us that making sacrifices and living creatively enables anyone to keep working at realizing dreams.  He sang as he cooked and clients began to return to his restaurant for more than the food. 

And who could forget the difficult life of a writer? Alex Haley is one author who reminds us a big difference exists between saying you'll be a writer and dedicating yourself to writing.  He left the coast guard to set himself up in a room with a typewriter.  It took a while before he was able to support himself. During his toughest times, he was offered a chance to get back into the coast guard which would've enabled him to write part-time.  But, he turned that down.  In his mind, that woul'dve been a cop-out.  He was dedicated to writing full-time. He accepted flack from people who thought he was better than that.  Almost 17 years after leaving the coast guard, Haley published Roots.  His life is a testament to the value of courage and persistence and other desirable qualities it takes to stay the course.

Answer the call

How many people have you met who did a course or a degree in one area of learning, but were unable to get a job in that field afterwards? Were your job projections inaccurate? What if technology advanced or politics closed a mine, or evolving social infrastructure made the planned career obsolete? Where does that leave you?

If you feel prevented from pursuing that thing which you aim for, this can lead to frustration and disappointment, especially with the burden of educational and other bills hangs over your head. Does helplessness linger inside? If this sounds like you or, you know someone who has had such an experience, what do you do about it? You could begin by answering a call to reflect on your existence and life strategy.

1) Reframe your life. Its no good "crying over spilt milk," which means what's already done is done.  You have chances to define your identity in meaningful ways. If you no longer function the way you had been thinking, simply learn to adapt and entertain the idea that other ways exist. Why not seek them?

2) Decide the problem lies in you. The real issue is that you may have forgotten what you learn represents tools you can use to get yourself anywhere. Don't limit yourself to apparent closed doors or missed opportunities. What steps can you take to apply your skills gained somewhere else? How can you reframe circumstances to benefit yourself and others differently?

3) Expand on your knowledge. Whatever you learned during formal training, this is not the end of your learning process. Consider that you aren't competing with anyone.  Outward reaching doesn't have to be limited to what you assumed would be waiting for you before or during study, before or during your last position. There's more to life than what you think you know already.

4) Create new opportunities. This doesn't necessarily mean you must start and run your own business. The key is to learn to market your skills to people whom you think would benefit. How are you taking initiatives to contact people and demonstrate what you can do for them? These individuals could be prospective clients, prospective employers or people who could become your mentors.

5) Accept what you hadn't seen. Its possible the work future you foresaw for yourself was missing something. Many kinds of service roles exist, and you may not considered one to which you would be well-suited. Your biggest challenge may be to see beyond your own agenda. The needs you perceived within yourself may not be your fundamental needs at all. Society may have adapted to reveal what your true needs and desires are. Look at your conditions as a blessing. How will you react?

Shoot for the Moon

Many people will reflect back on their lives about chances they took and wonder why they did it.  They may not like how results have evolved. Perhaps you know someone who feels regret?  Risk-taking assumes you think a bit about the implications before you take action.

The reason you would assume an experience is risky was because some potential outcomes aren't desirable. Yet, possible appealing outcomes are strong enough to motivate you to take chances beyond your norm.  As you conetmplate taking risks, consider these preliminary questions to sink your heels in:

1) Where does your allegiance lie?  What you're willing to gain or lose is often linked to your priorities, those people or situations which enrich your life. How does it affect your choices?

2) How do you need to suffer?  Ever heard the line, "no pain, no gain?" Some people assume they must offer something in return for their eventual sense of success. What will you give of yourself? Will it be physical exertion, emotional stamina, or some other branch of who you are?

3) What needs would you forego?   Taking risks implies you feel ready on some level to embrace change.  This kind of attitude involves reviewing and redefining your basic needs and perceived needs above and beyond that.  As you change, your needs will evolve. To risk new kinds of desires, self-image and self-acceptance go hand-in-hand.  How do risks cause you to rethink who you are?

4) Why not shoot for the Moon?  If you sense its time to promote transition or really make big changes, its possible you'll sense it will motivate you to raise your own expectations.  You may be more likely to take a risk if you foresee a justifiable outcome on the horizon. Work towards it!