START; Punch Fear In The Face; Escape Average;
Do Work That Matters, by Jon Acuff
The path through the land of learning may feel like a maiden voyage, but we've hidden clues along this road. The clues are about what we really love doing. Clues can come from strange places...like post-it notes, on the back of envelopes or scraps of paper! Pay attention! They're hiding in plain sight.
Instead of asking "What would I love to start doing?", ask "What can I not stop doing?"
Be a student of you! Don't walk down the road to awesome as if you've never been awesome before. You've succeeded at something. Something came naturally and something worked. How old are you? You have that many years of experience.
The way you pass through the land of learning, is that you try a bunch of things. Fear would love for you to try just one, get discouraged, and then march right back to average. Give yourself some room to make mistakes and to mess up. That is what learning is all about. Do "it" once, then twice, then thrice, and then ten times, and before you know it, you're out of the land of learning. Every journey has a first step. Every dream has its first destination.
Experiment. That's the action you have to embrace in the land of learning. Everyone who succeeds, learns from experimentation.
No matter what fear and doubt tell you, your identity is not at stake with the decisions you make and the actions you take as you learn. You were you from the start and you will still be you when you're at the end....only more awesome.
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Personal Notes:I guess this calls for self-reflection and self-examination.
I posted on a hometown Facebook page, the question "Are there any former candystripers out there?" What's a candystriper? A young teen-age girl who volunteers for about 3 hours a week, in a hospital. The details may be different today, but that's what it involved during my time doing this. I enjoyed being a candystriper, and I often volunteered for extra shifts.
It was during that time in my life that I realized that I was drawn to caring for and helping people. Unfortunately I was too immature back then, to follow the path that this experience provided. I made it to the "door", but I never ventured into the awesome territory.
I got distracted and chose to stay in the average territory. I didn't invest fully into my college classes after high-school. I didn't pursue the health care career. I threw away a good paying job that offered a future. Wasn't my dream job, but it was a good one. Instead, I fooled around, got pregnant, got married, and took the harder road in life, the one disguised as easy and comfortable. I ended up working in a lot of dead-end jobs (Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Bakers Square, Casey's). I banked on the belief (misconception) that I had plenty of time and could "get serious" later.
Here I am, about 30-32 years after my time as a candystriper, and I still have that same interest I had back then. It would be so much easier today, if I had invested in awesome and gotten the college degree and opened the door to potential.
So the question asks "What can I not stop doing?" and I am going to expand that question into "What can I not stop thinking about? What is it that I really wanted to do, all along?"
I want that job in the health care field! I'm working on the degree that I need, to do that.
I want my own house! I'm working on cleaning up my credit, so I can have that.
I enjoy working on genealogy, but I do not feel that this is the career direction for me.
I enjoy scrapbooking, but that is not where my path leads.
I enjoy music, but I am not talented in this subject.
I enjoy reading, but that is not something to build a career on.
I would love to be an elementary education teacher, but that's not possible right now.
It was when I learned that I cannot pursue the elementary education teaching career, that I learned where my true passion had been all along. I need and want to follow the Health Care path.
I've already STARTed. I'm going thru the learning stage right now, in my path to get there.
I think the other things, like genealogy, scrapbooking, reading and music, will be nice hobbies.
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