The Boredom Trap

What do we do to shake off that feeling of stagnation at work. Lately I've been feeling bored with the work I'm doing at my day job. I know that having a day job is extremely important for me right now and that I'm helping others, which is one of my main goals at this time of my life. But lately I've been feeling as though the day to day has become extremely routine and often times I sit at my desk feeling quite bored.

 

One thing that I am starting to realize is that I can't wait around for someone else to give me a project to work on or make the job exciting. I need to fish out ways to bring back the passion to my job. One thing that the job has going for it is that I am always around new and interesting people. Clients change on a daily basis and getting to know them as individuals and finding out how I can be of service to them is a great way to bring that passion back into my work activities.

 

Another thing that I want to start doing is listing every day something that I learned. Life is about growing and learning and quite frankly when you stop growing in a position it's usually because you've outgrown it. I'm going to start making a mental list of all the things I learn at my job, whether it be about myself, the work or people in general.

 

More than anything else I'm going to take these lessons and utilize them in other areas of my life and business. I know that the job I have is an important piece in my master plan towards building my own business. These lessons will aid me in dealing with others, learning valuable skills and inspire me to keep moving forward. I accept these lessons with gratitude and each day I try to remember that the only thing keeping me stagnated or bored is my own thinking.

Moving Past Criticisim

This has been a crazy week for me. I have gotten a lot of negative and positive feedback. Of course everyone loves when the response is positive, but how do we deal with negative criticism.

 

I recently helped put together a workbook for clients at my job on how to find employment.  One of the sections that I researched was how to deal with criticism. While creating a plan for dealing with criticism, I never thought I had an issue with taking constructive criticism.  Now that I have received a lot of it this week, I am beginning to really take a deeper look at some of those steps. A big one that is starting to stick out for me is to see what the motive behind the criticism is. Is it meant to help or to hurt. Sometimes criticism that seems harsh is actually there to help us grow as a person but all criticism is reflective of the other person's point of view. We have to take into consideration the other person's life experiences and where they are in their lives. It can at times be hard for others to be happy for our success when they do not feel like they are successful in their own actions.

 

So how do we let the feedback in without letting it discourage us from moving forward in our goal. Well one thing that I do is keep a support circle around me that is going to give me honest feedback, geared toward helping me advance. The opinions of these people are what is most important to me and I make sure to incorporate their feedback and learn from them. Another thing that I am learning is to avoid making it personal, which I admit can be hard.  All criticism will not be positive or constructive but even the negative criticism teaches you how to deal with situations. I am learning to take a deeper look at people's underlying circumstances and above all move past negativity and practice forgiveness and love.

Keeping up the Pace

Last week I was so busy, preparing for my workshop, meeting new people, and feeling like there was always something that I needed to get done. Now that the workshop is over I have some time to relax. But is relaxation really what I want?

Although I'm happy not to feel like there is always something that needs to be done, I want to make sure that I keep up that same momentum of accomplishing small goals towards my overall vision. I have had a habit at times of working really hard for a few months and then slowly down to a near crawl. Now that I've gotten my pace up I have to keep in step.

I think the best way to do this is to maintain a list of smaller weekly goals. When I go to my day job at the non-profit, I know there are things that I need to accomplish each week. I want to set those same weekly to do's for myself.

And bigger yet I think I need to start preparing for my next workshop. I know that the excitement that I feel about my workshops and being able to inspire others through art will allow me to get my weekly tasks done, while still staying motivated and having tons of fun.