Archive for February 2011
Try out your career choice in the real world.
In this post, I’ll talk about a very effective way to really get clear about your career choice once you’ve made your initial decision about what you want to pursue. In my past few posts, I’ve described three key steps that will really help you choose a career that has the greatest probability of being truly fulfilling to you in the real world: exploring what you really want, creating a list of career possibilities and doing some informational interviews with people who are successful and happy at the work you are considering for yourself.
Try It Our Yourself
Once you become clear about a career you think you’d really like to pursue, it will really benefit you to look for opportunities to work with someone who is really enjoying your chosen path and is successful at it.
I recommend that you look for opportunities to work or volunteer at an entry level in the field that you are interested in. In days past, people used to be able to become an apprentice in a field that they were interested in learning more about; that’s essentially what I’m recommending to you. Unfortunately, the idea of apprenticeship is something else that we have let fall by the wayside in our modern culture. There’s not really a system set up for people to learn from someone who is a master at what they want to do. However, that doesn’t need to hold you back from having this valuable experience yourself. You will just need to take responsibility for arranging an apprenticeship experience yourself.
How to Arrange an Apprenticeship
The question is, how to go about doing that? Well, if you’ve done your informational interviews, you already have a great foot in the door in the field you’re interested in. Contact the person or people that you interviewed in the field you’ve chosen. Thank them again for the opportunity to talk to them and let them know that they were instrumental in your decision to follow the career you have chosen. Then, tell them that you would like to get some hands-on experience in the field by doing some entry-level work or volunteer work in this area and ask if they know of any opportunities to do this. These people are great contacts for you to begin networking with. If they don’t know of any work opportunities, ask them if they can suggest other people that you might contact in the field so you can get this valuable experience.
Make the Most of It
Once you find an apprenticeship in your chosen field, make sure you make the most of it. Watch the people who really love their work, connect with them, learn from them. That’s how you’ll really discover whether this field is truly the right career choice for you. Plus, you’ll be making invaluable connections for the future.
Know You Love It before You Go Any Further
By getting real, hands-on experience in the field you’re interested in right now, you will be able to make a much more informed choice about your future career. For most people, they go through years of schooling and study before they actually get to the point of experiencing what it’s like to work in their chosen field. By then, they have invested so much time and effort in their field that they often find it very difficult to make a change if they discover that they don’t really like it. With the real experience that I’m recommending that you get right now, you will know if this career is right for you. Trust your heart on this one. After learning all you can about your potential career through informational interviews and through direct experience, if you find that you feel really inspired and excited about this career, you are ready to go for it.
In my next post, I’ll give you some final motivating thoughts to help you find the courage and inspiration to actually follow through with these steps.
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Discover your passion. Live your dream. Your Inspiring Life
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Once you have done a number of these informational interviews, you will have gathered invaluable information about what your potential careers are really like on a day-to-day basis. By going through this process, you may have saved yourself years of study and effort in a field that ultimately would not have satisfied you. Plus, these initial connections will become invaluable contacts for you in the future once you’ve chosen a career path.
It’s exciting, isn’t it? You’re getting much closer to being able to make an inspired and informed decision about your future career.
Look at What You’ve Learned and See How You Feel About It
The next step in the process is to review all the information that you have gathered and see what it means to you. Were there specific careers that really stood out for you and inspired you? Move those to the top the list. Was there a career that didn’t appeal to you at all once you were able to talk to someone who was doing it? You might want to talk to someone else who’s in that field for a second perspective. If, after this, that career still doesn’t appeal to you, then cross it off the list. Was there one particular career that really stood out as something that you might want to pursue? Put a star next to that one.
Listen to your heart as you go through this process. Considering all the information you gathered, look for careers that really inspire and excite you when you think about doing them. Again, don’t let your fears hold you back from hearing the guidance of your heart. If you’re having trouble with this, use EFT to let go of the limiting beliefs and feelings that might be blocking you from making a decision. Once you let go of the negative thoughts that come up, it will be much easier to trust that your heart is really guiding you to what will be most satisfying and fulfilling for you to do as a career.
What to Do If You’re Still Not Sure
If you’re still not sure which career would suit you best, there are a couple of possible things that you can do. First, I would recommend you do some tapping about it. Use EFT to let go of the feeling that you’re not sure what career path you should choose. Tap on whatever underlying issues and limiting beliefs arise as you do. Tap on any other issues that may be blocking you from making a choice. These might include issues such as: I’m not good enough to succeed at that, I’m scared to make a choice because it’s such an important decision, I don’t trust myself to make the right decision, etc. Often tapping on issues like these will really help give you clarity and I recommend you give it a try.
Listen to Your Inner Guidance
If you still feel unsure after all this, you may want to do some additional informational interviews. Also, ask for your inner guidance to help you to choose a career that will really fulfill you. Then pay attention to what comes up for you. Journal about it and take some time to ask yourself what you really want. Perhaps an answer will emerge that you hadn’t even considered.
This is an important decision so it’s worth it to take the time to get clear about what feels right to you in your heart. By taking the steps I’ve recommended in the past few posts, you’ll be well on your way to discovering a career that will truly inspire and fulfill you.
Blessings,
Laura
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My self-help program has many resources to help you discover what you want and let go of the inner barriers to getting there. Learn more about it here: YourInspiringLife.com
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Once you have created your list of possible careers as I described in my last post, it’s time to go talk to some people who are happily working in the careers you’d like to explore and discover more about what they are really like. If you don’t know how to connect with people in these careers, ask your friends and family if they know anyone who’s in these fields and enjoys it. Post questions on Facebook. Search your local phone book and the internet for people in the fields that interest you.
Once you find someone, ask if you can talk to them about their career on the phone for a while or via email. It’s important to make sure they like their work before you go too far into the process of connecting with them. If they do, ask them if you can interview them in more detail about their work.
What to Ask
Ask them questions like these: Do you like your work? What do you like about it? What are the best parts of it? What are the challenges? Are there any parts that you don’t like? What is a typical day like for you? What kind of education and skills do you need to succeed? What’s the key to your success and fulfillment in your career? What would you recommend to someone considering going into this field? And ask any other questions you might have as well.
The Next Step
If you like what you learned, ask if you can shadow them for a while and go in and watch them work for a few hours. Or, do some volunteer work with them and see what it’s like day to day. I know this is going to take some effort, but it is totally worth it. You need some real input to inspire you and help you get clear about what you want.
Don’t Let Your Fears Hold You Back from this Invaluable Step
I know this can sound scary or intimidating to do, but it will really help you get clear about what career you want to pursue. You need to know what the careers on your list are really like on a day to day basis. Do some EFT to let go of any anxiety about reaching out to people like this and go ahead and do it.
You Don’t Have To Impress Anyone
Remember, no one expects you to be an expert in the field when you’re doing these initial informational interviews. I know from experience that most people appreciate being asked to talk about what they do. It’s nice to be seen as an authority in their field and someone who is doing something that somebody else might want to do. For most people, it will make them feel good to help you. And if for some reason somebody doesn’t want to talk to you, I’d say it’s probably because that person is not inspired in their life and they are feeling dissatisfied and grumpy about it. You don’t want to talk to that person anyway. If that happens, you might suggest that they come and read this article and then find someone else to talk to.
These informational interviews will give you a ton of valuable information about what these careers might be like for you in the real world. In my next post, I’ll talk about what to do with all the information you’ve gathered.
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Have a career that truly inspires and fulfills you. Your Inspiring Life
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So, how do you discover what you really want when you don’t even know what all the possibilities are? That’s one of the challenges of our modern world. It’s wonderful that we have so many choices. However, we just don’t have that many opportunities to be exposed to all the different fields out there in our everyday lives. In this post, I’ll go over the first step to getting clear about what you really want: making a list of possibilities.
In my last post, I gave you five simple questions to help you get clear about what might really inspire and fulfill you as a career. If you still find yourself confused after exploring these questions and you still don’t really feel like you have a sense of anything you would like to do, then I have a little homework for you.
Make a List of Possibilities
To begin, make a list of all the different careers that you think might be interesting to you. Search the internet for “list of careers” and make a list of all the ones that you have even a mild interest in learning more about. Don’t judge your choices or try to narrow them down at this point. Just have fun considering all the possibilities for your life. Once you have the list, put them in order of what sounds most interesting to you.
Don’t Listen to any Negative, Limiting Thoughts
Don’t worry about the negative, limiting beliefs you or someone else might have about a potential field, trust your instinct and know that your enthusiasm and interest are guiding you to the right path for you. And remember to use EFT to tap on any negative beliefs that might come up about your ability to succeed at any particular field. As I have said before, the key to fulfillment in life is to release your fears and follow your heart.
Making a list of potential careers that you think might be fun and interesting for you is the first step. In my next post, I’ll talk about what to do next with your list. See you then!
Blessings, Laura
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Find more ways to discover what you want in Your Inspiring Life
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So many choices... what inspires you?
So you’re trying to figure out what you should do with your life, right? When it comes down to it, there really are just a couple of possible reasons why you’re having difficulty with this question. And for each one, there are a few ways to go about discovering what it is that you should be doing with your life.
First, the issue may be that you actually do know what you want to do but you just haven’t given yourself permission to trust this instinct and embrace what you are being inspired to do. The other alternative is that you are feeling a desire for a more fulfilling life, but you truly haven’t yet discovered what really inspires you.
Either way, the starting point for both is the same. First, you must give yourself permission to really explore the possibilities for your life. To begin, ask yourself what would truly be fulfilling and satisfying to you. I’ll give you five simple questions below to help you answer this question for yourself.
But Read This First…
The key here though, is to give yourself permission to play with the questions I’m going to ask you in a moment. No judgments are allowed. What I mean by that is, you’re not allowed to knock something down just because you think it’s “impossible,” unrealistic, that your family wouldn’t approve, that you can’t really make money doing it, that you don’t see where your answer is taking you, etc. So before you answer these questions, promise me that you will do your very best to write down everything that comes to mind no matter what you think of it, no matter how realistic you think it is, no matter whether you think it’s silly or insane or whatever. Just write it down. If you need to, do some tapping on the resistance and then answer the questions. Okay, as soon as you agree, you’re ready to get started.
Discover What Your Heart is Calling You To Do
Answer the following questions and let yourself play around with them and just have fun.
1. What are your favorite things to do? Make a list of everything you do that you really enjoy doing. Write down your hobbies and all the things you really love spending time doing in your time off. Include things you’ve enjoyed in the past that you may not have time for right now as well.
2. What kind of books and magazines do you like to read? What kind of topics do you like to spend time exploring on the Internet? What kind of TV shows do you really like? Look for general themes in these things that point you to your key interests.
3. Is there something that you have always wanted to do but you never gave yourself permission to do it because you thought it was unrealistic, impossible, or that you weren’t good enough to do it? Think back and give yourself permission to just write those dreams down.
4. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
5. What would you do with your life if you won the lottery? After you bought all the stuff you want and took a few awesome vacations, what would you do with the many years of life that you have before you? Without the pressure of having to make a living, what would you want to do with your life?
Okay, there are a lot of other questions you could ask yourself to get yourself started in this process. My self-help program includes these and shows you a number of additional ways to get clear about what your heart is calling you to do. But these will get you moving in the right direction and may uncover an answer for you. Look over your answers and look for themes, look for clues about what you really want to do. Often, the answer will become very clear as you look at your answers to this exercise.
If you still feel stumped after exploring these questions, perhaps you need to give yourself permission to further discover and explore what really might inspire you. In my next post, I’ll talk about a powerful way to get clarity about your options and then whether the career that you’re considering will really fulfill you.
Remember to Use EFT for Any Resistance
Remember though, once you have some clarity about what you want to do, it’s likely that there will be negative beliefs, resistance, and anxieties that arise within you. EFT is a wonderful tool to release these. Again, my program includes 22 EFT processes to help you do just that. You can learn more about my program at Your Inspiring Life.
I hope these questions have been helpful to you. Let me know if you have any comments or questions by leaving me a reply to any post on my blog. Blessings and I’ll see you next time.
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You can choose both fulfillment and prosperity in your life.
I know money is important, but please do yourself a huge favor and do not choose a career or life path just because you think it’s going to make you a lot of money. If you do that and you’re not really passionate or interested in what you have chosen, you’re going to feel like a slave to your paycheck for the rest of your life… or until you quit and again find yourself exactly where you are right now.
Cultural Pressures
I think we as a culture are still in a period of intense change and it’s not clear how things are going to settle out. So many people feel dissatisfied in their work; unfortunately, I think that’s the norm. I think that a big part of the problem is that we have been taught that we have to do something that makes us money regardless of whether we like it or not. “That’s what a job is, right? We wouldn’t get paid for it if it was fun.” Cultural beliefs like these influence us all. I think the answer to the dilemma begins with recognizing that this feeling of dissatisfaction comes from an awakening of the desire for a life that fulfills more than our monetary needs.
The Dissatisfaction Points the Way
When we feel pressure to choose a career because of its future prospects and marketability rather than our passion for the field, more often than not, we’ll find ourselves feeling unhappy and stifled as we spend a significant amount of our lives doing something we just don’t like. These feelings are telling us that there is some part of us that wants to break free and find our way back to something that really feels fulfilling and satisfying to us. Of course, along with that, there’s a lot of fear and anxiety that comes up about leaving the traditional career path behind. That’s part of the hero’s journey of our lives. It’s part of the challenge that we must all embrace if we are to move beyond the current cultural norms and really live a life that fulfills us.
Follow Your Heart
So I say, go ahead and listen to your heart right now and go for what you really want. As you begin taking steps toward your goal, your feeling of aliveness and enthusiasm for life will return. I absolutely believe that there are plenty of ways to prosper doing what you love. In fact, if you are really passionate and excited about something, there is a much higher chance that you will become very prosperous doing it. Why? Because you are going to put a lot of positive energy and care into what you do and you will probably be happy to spend a lot of time doing it. That all adds up to an experience where it is very likely that you will shine in your chosen field.
One of the remnants of that former way of living that I mentioned earlier is that we don’t have much practice listening to the passion in our hearts, the still small voice that inspires us and guides us to do what is most fulfilling in our lives. If you’re not sure what your heart is calling you to do, don’t worry, I can help. In my next post, I will give you five simple questions that will help you discover what will truly fulfill you in your life.
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Let go of your fears. Follow your heart. Your Inspiring Life
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Feeling the urge to take a new path?
What’s the next step for me in my life?
For most of us, this question will come up many times over the course of our lives. And don’t worry, when it does, it’s a good thing. It usually comes up at major life transitions when we are feeling the inner urge to make a significant change in our lives: graduating from high school or college, choosing a major, changing relationships, children leaving the nest, or anytime we’re really feeling dissatisfied with our current work or life and feeling the urge to do something else that feels more satisfying and fulfilling.
It’s Part of the Natural Process of Life Unfolding
This is all just part of the process of adjusting our lives to reflect the changes that happen within us over the course of our lives. If we are open to it, we can change and grow so much throughout our lives. Our interests and passions change and we get clearer and clearer about what matters most to us with every experience we have. That’s why people often change careers a number of times in their lifetime. I believe that this urge to change comes from a deep internal need within us to do something that really fulfills us in our lives. And the way that manifests for us is likely to change over time as well.
The Old Way of Doing Things has Changed
In times past, men would typically have the same job for 40 years and then retire on their pensions. Their wives would stay home and take care of the children and the home. But in our current world, all of that has changed. Men and women can make whatever choices they want in their careers and change as many times as they like. The uncertainty of this social shift can be intimidating at times but it also frees us to listen to our hearts and embrace whatever inspires us. With these expanded possibilities, there is a much greater desire within us to do something that really feels good to us, something that truly uses our unique talents and abilities, something that we are passionate about, something that feels good to do every day.
If you’re reading this post, I’d say you are feeling that internal calling to live life that feels more passionate, authentic, and fulfilling. Trust that instinct. It’s a good one. In my upcoming posts, I’ll talk more about ways to reconnect with that source of inspiration within you and discover what you really want to do with your life.
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Discover your passion. Follow your heart. Your Inspiring Life
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EFT can help you feel your unconditional well-being.
Although it may seem otherwise, the things that happen to us in our lives are not really the cause of our negative emotions. You can prove this to yourself by using EFT to tap on an issue until you get the intensity of it down to a rating of one or zero. When you do, you will show yourself and your mind that your thoughts are the real cause of your negative emotions. And you will know that you are capable of letting them go and reconnecting with the source of unconditional well-being that is always within you.
To illustrate this point, let’s say that you’re really upset at someone in your life. You’re probably going to have a lot of feelings and negative thoughts about that person and it will feel like they are the cause of your negative feelings. However, you will discover when you use EFT to tap on the circumstances and the negative emotions that go along with them that your feelings don’t depend on outside circumstances. They are not caused by things outside of yourself. They are caused by your thoughts about that thing and the judgments you have about it. EFT will help you let go of the static of that negative thought and the negative feelings that go along with it.
So what does that mean? It means that your well-being does not depend on anything outside of yourself. It has entirely to do with your thoughts. Your thoughts are what hold you back from the unconditional well-being that exists within you at every moment.
EFT as a Tool For Feeling Well-Being
There are a variety of methods to take you out of your patterns of negative thinking and I will go into a lot of those here in this blog. From experience, I know that EFT is one of the best tools for doing this. I have not heard people talk about this aspect of EFT as a tool for well-being. It tends to be used (very effectively) to let go of specific issues like painful past experiences, habitual patterns of negative emotion, and negative beliefs. However, if we use it consistently when we can’t seem to get ourselves out of stuck place, when we are obsessing about some problem or issue in our lives and we can’t seem to find our way back to place of well-being, it becomes an invaluable tool for dealing with those issues and releasing them. It becomes another doorway into your unconditional well-being.
Get It Down to a One or Zero and See What Happens
Be sure to tap on the issue until you get it down to one or zero whenever you can because this will just reinforce for you its value as a tool to reconnect with this place of peace and well-being within you. When you do, you will know this is true from your own experience.
And you will discover on a deeper level that your well-being is not conditional. It doesn’t depend on anything outside of yourself. Anytime you believe that it does, take some time to tap on that. Tap on the issue until it shifts, until it’s gone. What will happen is that you will have a new understanding of that issue, a new clarity that will reflect the peace and well-being and wisdom that you are, that exists beneath the layers of thought.
Follow Your Heart, Feel Your Unconditional Well-Being Your Inspiring Life
What's holding you back from fulfilling your dreams?
In this post, I’ll show you how to let go of negative thoughts and feelings with EFT. I’ll give you some ideas for how to use this technique to let go of procrastination, perfectionism, fear failure, and the need for love and approval of others.
In several posts I wrote recently, I talked about how procrastination is generally a mask for an underlying perfectionism. Perfectionism is an underlying mask for a fear of failure. And a fear of failure is masking a need for approval and love of others which we think that we need in order to feel happy and worthwhile as a human being.
The Essential Problem
When it comes down to it, this belief that the approval and love of others will bring us happiness reveals that we are focused in our minds, that we are not connected to the unconditional source of well-being within us. And that’s the essence of the issue.
What to Do about It
In future blog posts, I will be covering a lot of different techniques that I have found to be helpful for letting go of issues like these, but today I’m going to be talking about using EFT to help you release these issues and return to your natural state of unconditional well-being.
How to Let Go of These Negative Thought Patterns with EFT
EFT is a powerful and easy-to-use tool to let go of negative beliefs and feelings. Here are the basics of how to do it; I’ll go into more details below. All you need to do is simply tap on the nine key acupressure points of EFT as you think about any issue that is dominant in your mind at the moment. Follow where your mind takes you. You can use my How to Do EFT Video to guide you if you like.
As you tap on any issue and clear it, it is likely that new layers and aspects will emerge that point you deeper into the negative beliefs, feelings, and painful past memories for you to release. As you do, you will be releasing old habitual patterns of conditional thinking that you have probably lived with for a long time. Once you let go of these conditions that you are placing on your well-being through EFT, you will naturally begin to feel that wonderful experience of well-being that’s always available to you beneath your negative thoughts.
Some Ideas to Tap on to Let Go of These Issues
I’m going to make some videos to help walk you through using EFT to let go of procrastination, perfectionism, fear of failure, and the need for love and approval. Look for those in future blog posts or on my YouTube channel. Until then, here are some ideas for topics that you could tap on to let go of these issues:
- Not wanting to do this thing.
- Procrastinating on the next step.
- Feeling like I need to be perfect.
- Fear of failure.
- Fear of rejection and ridicule.
- Worry about what other people think of me and what I do.
- Feeling like I’m not lovable and not worthy unless I am perfect.
- And any other conditional thoughts or painful memories that emerge from your mind as you go through the process.
I think that gives you a general idea in a place to start for your own tapping. As you tap away these issues, you’ll be tapping into your unconditional well-being.
So that’s enough for now. As I said, in future posts, I will go into other effective ways I’ve found to help us to come back to the natural state of unconditional well-being within us. Look for those new videos soon, too.
Also, my self-help program, Your Inspiring Life, has 22 EFT recordings that help you easily let go of all of these limiting beliefs and more. I designed it to help you let go of all the internal barriers that are holding you back from fulfilling your dreams. It helps you feel inspired and motivated to take action to create a life that truly fulfills you. You can learn more about my program here: Your Inspiring Life
In my next post, I’ll talk more about how to use EFT as a doorway to access your unconditional well-being in each moment.
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EFT helps you dive into the sea of well-being.
In this post, I’ll talk about EFT which is a very powerful, rapid, and gentle way to let go of negative beliefs, particularly those that we find difficult to let go of otherwise.
EFT: The Turbo Belief Changer
To use EFT, all you have to do is tap on nine different acupressure points on your face and body as you think about whatever negative beliefs you’re having and the painful feelings they are triggering in you. (If you not familiar with EFT, here’s a link to a video post that tells you all about it: So What Is EFT Anyway).
So let’s say you are feeling anxiety because a project you’re working on isn’t turning out perfectly. You would just tap on This anxiety that this isn’t working out the way I want it to. You could also tap on This anxiety from thinking that what I am doing has to be perfect right now. Phrase it in a way that resonates for you; that’s the key. You can follow along with my How to Do EFT video to clear these issues if you like.
As you tap on this issue round after round and ideally get your experience down to a one or zero, you will feel your natural state of unconditional well-being surfacing again. It is always there, just beneath the stormy surface of the negative ideas and corresponding feelings of your mind.
The Sea of Consciousness: EFT Helps You Go Deeper
Our consciousness is like the ocean. The mind is like the surface of the ocean. The surface can have wild storms on it, 50 foot high waves, tsunamis, or it can be relatively calm and peaceful, with just gentle waves rolling on the surface. But when you go deeper, when you go below the surface, there is a deep calm that is ever-present, and so much more vast than the surface of the ocean.
When you tap on an issue with EFT, you calm the waves of an intense feeling and when you clear it completely, your mind quiets and you sink down below the surface into the vast, beautiful experience of the presence of who you really are. You reach the place of unconditional well-being within you.
The more we do this, the less we identify with the surface turbulence of our minds. We know that negative feelings are a result of negative thoughts generated by our minds and that we are so much more than that.
I’ll talk more about connecting with this unconditional source of well-being within us in future posts. It’s one of my favorite things to share. I think it is the key to everything. Next time, I’ll talk more about how to use EFT to let go of procrastination, perfectionism, fear of failure, and the need for love and approval from others.
You can live a life that inspires and fulfills you. Your Inspiring Life
Please know that your email is totally and completely safe with me. Thanks so much for subscribing. See you soon.
Blessings,
Laura
