Enough! I Need a Change!

I haven't been posting regularly on this blog because I allowed myself to get involved in too many things at the same time. No matter how capable you think you are, you have to face up to not being a comic book superhero. We all have our limitations, and the key to success is to either avoid over-committing in the first place or to recognize the problem and develop a step-by-step plan for reducing your load to a manageable level. This also involves determining which of your commitments are to be eliminated or minimized.
Eliminate a commitment that is:

• Not satisfying to you, even if you accomplish it.
• Too demanding, because you could do several alternate things for less effort and/or time commitment and with a higher total reward.
• Not rewarding, in terms of either immediate compensation (may or may not be monetary) or in terms of long-term payoff through the opening-up of new opportunities.
• Goal-less. Some tasks are done, in juggling terms, for the sake of keeping the balls in the air. You don't want to keep running on the treadmill in order to stay in the same place.

What are the consequences of saying "No!" to a new or ongoing task? Sometimes you can stop doing something, and nobody will even notice. In other cases, you have to find and train somebody else to replace you, because the task must be done by someone. Occasionally, you can simply walk away, forcing someone who otherwise would never have volunteered, to step up, because the lack of a reliable person doing that job threatens the organization. You may be perceived as weak or unreliable for quitting your task, but if you can take that criticism, you may consider yourself a hero for forcing someone else to take responsibility and for giving yourself new found freedom to consider other directions and opportunities. The future starts right now. Re-assess your obligations and, if you feel overburdened, continue only those you deem worthwhile.

You Matter More than Your Job.

Most Americans, when asked about themselves in the course of meeting new people, will describe themselves by what they do for a living. In other parts of the world a self-description includes more basic, general, and personal information. When you describe yourself in terms of your job, you open yourself up to two negative consequences. First, you present a very limited image of yourself. There is much more to you than the job you happen to be performing. The second problem is that when you have a self-image that is based on your job, you are setting yourself up to be traumatized if you lose that job. There are many things that you could be doing for a living. It may have been a complete accident that led you to the position you now occupy. Spend some time thinking about what really matters to you and what you would really like to do or achieve in life. Start talking to people about those important things instead of talking about your job all the time, and you might find doors opening toward actually doing some of those other things.

Everything's Relative

It's hard to believe that it's late spring or meteorological summer, with a long string of temperatures of 60 degrees F or less. It feels quite chilly even though it's June. However, I have to remind myself that most people around here (Illinois) would have given almost anything to get temperatures this warm a few months ago. Our bodies and brains adjust their expectations so that we notice significant deviations from the normal temperature, even as that normal temperature varies over the course of the year. Similarly, a day is longer for a young child than it is for an older person because it is a larger percentage of the life experienced up to that point. This is why time seems to accelerate and whiz by as you grow older. A day, week, month, or year becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of your life. The allure of travelling to exotic places decreases as the number of those trips increase. A tourist and a traveling salesperson have different impressions of the same trip.
All of this is to say that there are very few absolute goals in life. You might as well be satisfied with what you have, because the value of looking for more decreases as you keep seeking additions to what you already have. Enjoy the journey. It's more interesting than accumulating destinations just for the sake of saying you've been there.