How to Find Your Passionate Work

Following are some exercises to help you finding what is your passion in life and how can you develop it.

1. Go through magazines, brochures and newspapers and cut out any images, photos and words that inspire you. Make a collage, and see what main subjects are reflected.

2. In a middle of an empty page write the most important value for you in your work. Write other values that excite you and connect them to the ones listed thus far. Once you have finished, look at the relationships between the words and discover the message in relation to your vision.

3. Ask yourself the following questions:

a. What do you do that is natural, easy and effortless?
b. What activities put you in the flow, that place where you get energized and lose track of time and space?
c. How would you complete this sentence: I love it when I know my day will include:...

Once you have completed these three steps you hold a map for your heart's desires. You've found what excites you, the values that are important for you as well as your strengths and talents.

Now sit down and make a list of all the possible jobs that can include the contents of this map. Be creative and even invent new positions, or new jobs. Don't limit yourself to reasonable solutions.

Allow yourself to dream and pursue the unknown, all that lies beyond your comfort zone and limitations.

Take as much time as you need and have fun with it.

Positive monday booster from Vered Neta

consulting activities

I have some great news, guys.

Something happened to me that I decided to add some new activities to my common business. As you may know, I'm a marketing progect leader in Russian distribution company and a marketing lecturer in Ryazan University.

After my MBA boost of my entrepreneurial spirit I had a lot of doubts and thinking about own business. It took me 2 years to pay the debts after my study - and now I'm feeling like having a freedom to organize something myself.

First is the product project. We have a great idea and a clear vision how to build distribution. Need some personal finance to be invested, at least at a trial stage. The project is offline, but requires some online activity and refers to my personal interests to healthy life and professional connection in stationery business.

The second project started 2 weeks ago when I joined my family business. There's a group of smart people who know spanish real estate market. They are great in finding the place and good to communicate with people willing to buy it. The process is smooth, my task is to build communications and help improving client's inflow. Since they really know what they're doing, I'm happy to join them. This is #1 priority by now.

The third one is about buying a share of the business. I love the idea of business library connected to a network. And it is about micro-investment so I suppose it a good step to own business experience. Meeting the entrepreneur this or next weekend.

The last but not the least involves some abroad activities. This weekend we're meeting with a friend of mine to develop the business model and communication for yoga community.

Perfect. All the projects require my professional skills and refer to my personal interests. Abroad activities (love both places), markcomm, health, networks and media.

Feeling like openning a box of Godiva chocolate for the first time!

Doing the Work That You Love

So many people are sitting and hoping that someone else will make them happy. That their boss will give them a raise, that their company would make their job more interesting, that their kids would be nicer and behave better so they would be happier, that their husband or lover would make them feel good.

This is a childish behavior and even worse it puts you into the position of a victim. It’s time you take charge on your own life.

As a child, I remember my father, sitting in his room, surrounded by his books, writing.
His work was his love. Later in his life, when most people have retired, he was up early in the morning, busy with his work. It gave him, both a meaning to life and kept him young.

My mother never liked her teaching job, although she was very successful. She retired early and kept searching for satisfaction, without success. She became bitter and sad.

Until today I cherish the lesson I learned from them: Find a job that is your hobby, your art.
As children we all wanted to be somebody. A fireman, a pilot, an artist. As we grew up, we realized that our job must also pay our financial and social bills.

So we sold our passion and love for stability and security. We rationalize by saying that 'work is work', and pleasure will come later.

But does it?
When was the last time you found the time and energy to do the things that you really care for?

What if your work could follow your heart's desire? What if you could really do what you love to do?

Finding it might be difficult, as we have lost touch with what we enjoy most. It has been too long since we have given ourselves the chance to connect to it.

So, how about taking some time off and instead of complaining about your job, start searching what it is that you love doing. Find out what is it that you are good at, where your talents lie and what comes both naturally and easily to you.

Recall childhood activities that you once loved. Become aware of the situations that bring out the best in you.
Discover what values are important to you and what you would like to see manifested in your work.

Once you have created a framework for those activities, talents and abilities, in which you excel (as well as those values that you wish to express in your work), start investigating what sort of work expresses them to their fullest potential.

Allow yourself to be creative; don't dwell in the area of "sensibilities". Allow yourself to be open; as opposed to reasoning everything.

Communicate to the world the type of work you wish to have. You will be surprised at how much support you will receive, once you clarify your wishes.

When you do the work you love, it becomes easy and effortless, because work becomes a source of energy rather than a drain. You continuously grow and develop while creating for yourself a space of love and friendship. You tap into your creativity therefore remaining young and alive.

So how about making your hobby your work?!

Positive Monday Booster by Vered Neta

networking month

March was full of networking. First I met my ex-colleague for a quick dinner chat, it turned out to have a business interest as a motive to meet. Then I had a very productive breackfast followed by networking conference. Finally, today I attended business breakfast organized by Zubry community.

Here are my notes from today's event.

1. Networking is not only about business. Networking is about connections. I saw a lot of business today. I heard a lot of advertising. People were missing. Just imagine a breakfast with advertising posters - this is what I had today. Well, almost. I've got 1,5 personal connections. One is a great girl too busy to pursue her dream activities. And a half is a guy who can be interesting, but too proud of himself.

We're in business 24/7. What I expect from a business connection is to be a little more personal.

2. Networking is about care of relationship. And relationship means that more than one person is involved. Having in mind own interest care about the other party. People need to concentrate on listening. What's in it for me is good. But being combined with what can I give to the person is a weapon.

3. Networking is about being natural. Leave professional as a filter to check incoming/outcoming information. And that's it. Nobody wants to have breakfast with a classified ad. Nobody wants to connect to a marketing manual.

Marketing Triumph ingredients

The biggest marketing mistake I've made by now is beleiving I can make people moving just because I have a great idea. Not to humiliate personal skills and abilities, it is impossible to be the only marketing and innovation drive.

But it is possible to break the rules. The team, not the only person can make it. And for a leader - think out a set of actions, create a reasonable budget, get personnel, create a team (put teambuilding and educational expenses into the budget and use it) and set the market on fire.

To succeed, you need three components. Clarity of the mind + Team + Budget = Marketing Triumph.

Loose budget means lots of plans and weak implementation.
Weak team means you will abandon most of the plans' implementation due to the lack of time and efficiency.
Blurred mind means money spent for no purpose.

Clarity of the mind + Team + Budget = Marketing Triumph. Shake well. Enjoy.

Took me 1 year to find the recipy.

clarification

I've been reading How to Innovate With Less Management tips and stopped at one phrase.

# Skip the business plan. Focus on making the idea happen, not planning every detail.

The idea might be perceived as shocking. But it isn't if we clarify one point. No detail digging is needed unles the whole structure is vague. Sometimes it is ok just to have the idea outline and the digging is unnecessary. And the digging itself without directions may be a waste of time.

todo

Just added two feed at my netvibes and now I'm full of todo lists and thrilled to find an answer how to stop worrying and start implementing all my plans.

One more article from John Baldoni To Lead More Effectively, Increase Your Self-Confidence.

From time to time I need to ask myself a couple of questions to boost my self-confidence. Here they are from the mentioned article.

What do you do well?
What have you done to earn the trust of others?

I omit the second question from the article (Why should people follow you?) cause I'm rarely thinking for the whole team, concentrating on personal issues. May be the ability to create the followership defines a leader? Anyway, I decided to concentrate on processes I'm managing. Well, human resources are the part of the process, so are the clients, that makes followership being vital for me.

#100 post

...is full of quotes from articles mentioned in previous post.

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning.

It's hard to do because maybe, just maybe, that next piece of information will be the key to our success. But our success actually hinges on the opposite: on our willingness to risk missing some information. Because trying to focus on it all is a risk in itself. We'll exhaust ourselves.

The world is changing fast and if we don't stay focused on the road ahead, resisting the distractions that, while tempting, are, well, distracting, then we increase the chances of a crash.

Now is a good time to pause, prioritize, and focus. Make two lists:

List 1: Your Focus List (the road ahead)

What are you trying to achieve? What makes you happy? What's important to you? Design your time around those things. Because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can't work 25/8.

List 2: Your Ignore List (the distractions)

To succeed in using your time wisely, you have to ask the equally important but often avoided complementary questions: what are you willing not to achieve? What doesn't make you happy? What's not important to you? What gets in the way?

An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day
Ritual is a secret power to manage one's life.

Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That's not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful.
Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

Make Your Place Proud of You.

"Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do." The words are those of John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. When attempting to do anything new, voices inside us will whisper "No, don't do it." Those who give up listen to such voices; those who persevere pay them no heed. When it comes to making big and bold changes, either in our lives or our careers, there will always be those around us telling us no; it is up to us to heed our own inner yes.

"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives," said Abraham Lincoln. "I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him."

love it

I've discovered a wonderful source of knowledge recently. It has started with Managerial tip of a day from HBR and now I'm in blogs, reading all the stuff I need to read in order to calm myself.

Here are the links to articles I've just gone through and I'm about to enjoy by reading thourougly:
- Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning.
- An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day
- Make Your Place Proud of You.

These are topics I've been thinking for a while recently. Hoping to find some hints.

PS. Good sign that I've started thinking in English again.

HBR's

I love the way Harvard Business Review promotes its products - The management tip of the day with all the lnks to related topic's products.

I've got this thru twitter's @ManagementTip which is an extremely simple way to get info.