Margie Warrell - Stop Playing Safe

In this age of perfectionism, it's all too easy to get lured into the falsehood that you have to be ‘the best’ — the best consultant, the best sales rep, the best engineer, the best designer, the best writer. Not true! It's not about being the best but being your best. Does that mean you’ll sometimes wish you were better? Of course you will. But by letting go of comparisons and consistently giving the best you can on the good days and not-so-good, you’ll eventually arrive at a point that you’ll realise how little reason you ever had to doubt your one-of-a-kind value in your workplace and the world.

Knowing your strengths and where you can add the most value — through the application of your education, skills, knowledge and experience — can help you focus on the opportunities, roles and career paths where you are most likely to succeed and therefore find the greatest sense of accomplishment and contribution.

Too often we undervalue the expertise we naturally acquire over time. If you reframe the concept of adding value through the lens of ‘problem solving’, you can home in on where you can make the greatest impact for others — whether by offering solutions to problems or finding better ways to fulfil unmet needs (or, as Steve Jobs did, inventing technology that fills needs people didn't even know they had!).

It was this exercise that inspired me to start running my public Live Brave programs and women’s retreats (though with dancing and champagne, the word ‘retreat’ is probably not the best descriptor). While there are many great women's leadership and personal development programs available for people to attend all over the world, I just knew I could make a meaningful impact in an immersive program. I didn't do any market research; I just dived in. Following my intuition proved a good decision. Following yours will too.

Some can afford to give up the security of a salary to pursue a passion that doesn't pay (or at least not enough, soon enough). Many can't. But following the money and following your heart don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Chances are you have other values to consider — like giving your kids a great education or paying your mortgage — that prevent you from going full-time on something you're passionate about. But that doesn't mean you cannot still infuse your passion into your life in some way. Or that you can't treat it as a ‘side hustle’ in the shorter term while you get your financial house in order to fund the shortfall if you were to transition to it full time.

In the meantime, there is nothing stopping you from bringing more passion to what you do right now . While your current job may be a ‘means to an end’, all work holds intrinsic value. So if you can't change what you're doing anytime soon, change how you're doing it. By shifting the frame in which you view your current role, you can profoundly shift your experience of it. Doing so enables you to be the kind of person others want to be around. That in itself is meaningful.

You don't have to be on course to becoming a Nobel Laureate to be living a noble life. What you do each day doesn't matter near as much as how you do it — the attitude you bring and the energy you spread. In thinking about how you can make a bigger difference, don't ignore the small daily differences you can make which, over time, add up to big ones.

In my podcast conversation with Alicia Tillman, Chief Marketing Officer at SAP, she shared how when she's facing a decision she will often put herself in the shoes of her ‘future self’ and ask herself, ‘What would my future self want me to do right now?’ Her answers reflect her deepest values, but also tap into her courage. She said this technique has never failed to move her forward.

Bold action can reshape your life, but unless it's guided by a clear sense of purpose, it can steer your life in a direction that leaves you wanting for something more. Much more. Simply committing yourself to contemplating the question, ‘For the sake of what?’ will not only embolden you to do more than you have until now, but will help you rise stronger from the challenges that unfold along the way. (If you haven't had one lately, it's coming.)

A verse in the Bible says that ‘to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’. The idea that there is a purpose for everything, and that every purpose has its time, has helped me be patient over the years as my own purpose has unfolded and evolved.

The same is true for you. The higher purpose for your life will reveal itself and evolve as you travel along your hero's journey, as new opportunities and new possibilities arise, beyond the horizon of what you can currently perceive. However, you must do your part by being in motion — working towards what fuels that spark within you, not what extinguishes it. Otherwise you risk missing opportunities because your focus will be elsewhere.

Let me close this chapter with the wisdom of a man whose vision for what ‘could be’ changed how we connect, communicate and come together — Steve Jobs. As he said at the Stanford commencement address in 2005, ‘Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.