“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Computer, Pixar Animation Commencement Address – Stanford University, June 2005

Our yearnings are pretty much the same – even if what fulfills them is different. Each of us yearns to be successful and happier. Sounds right, doesn’t it? But, here’s the snag, many of us want increased success and happiness as long as we don’t have to change very much or to tolerate too much discomfort to achieve our desire. We want things to be better; we just don’t relish the price we may have to pay to get there.

While you earnestly want to experience more success, caring, self-worth or self-confidence, you also want to leapfrog over the messiness and awkwardness of creating something new in your life. You want it, they and them, to shape up and change – but not you. So, before we move on, I want to be really honest with you. To create the work, career, life and relationships you want, it’s you who must change first.

While this is more than possible, it is not for the faint-hearted, the self-absorbed or the self-righteous. Changing is a humbling experience. It is not all skyrockets in flight, it’s often shoveling, well – you know what I mean.

If you want your work and life to be more fulfilling, more exciting, more lucrative, and more meaningful then you must work to release your ways of being that get in the way of your success. You must become more response-able in your relationships with family, friends, work colleagues, customers and others.

Finding your Self is about discovering who you are and who you can become when you face your fears, fight the negative self-talk; open to not knowing and find your courage to go for the life you really crave.

Finding meaning only happens when we reach for compassion, gratitude, generosity, integrity and openness to learning from others. We also must become willing to consider the greater good over personal aggrandizement. Commit to discovering “what’s in it for all of us” and you can reap the rewards of the wonderful things that are in it for you.
Perhaps you want more to life – in your work. Do you suffer from symptoms as: work being leeched of its meaning; cloaked personal authenticity; integrity challenges; loss of caring and connection; purposelessness, or crippling anger and resentment?

Is there a Cure?

YOU ARE THE CURE!
You already possess the cure. Inside you resides the antidote. You must be willing to take the journey to re-claim your life. Are you ready for the journey to meaning?

Consider what it takes to be ready:
* It usually starts when your heart is telling you that it is hurting, or closed, or frightened and even so, finding the courage to ready yourself to face the unknown and keep on moving.
* A willingness to consider new thoughts, new ways of being
* Trying on new behaviors, fighting old beliefs, doing your homework, being uncomfortable and feeling “stupid” or awkward.
* Failing, coming up short, frustration and anger, yet coming back for more.
* Keeping your eyes firmly fixed on your vision of what you want in your life and let that act as a north star to guide you home.

This is not a journey of self-recrimination or self-flagellation. Those thoughts are self- defeating and actually serve as defenses against taking meaningful action and claiming responsibility. In other words, wearing the hair-shirt and uttering mea culpa or embracing victim hood is a substitute for change, rather than a catalyst of change.
This is a journey to changing life for the better from within. As you become more of the person you wish to be you will discover the success and happiness you seek. And, you will contribute to the good of “all” at the very same time.

Leslie Malin, copyright 2013 All rights protected. Reprint only with author’s credential and information found below.

Leslie Malin, LCSW-R
Psychotherapist, Life Transition Coach, Health Coach
www.LeslieMalin.com
www.JustThinkn.com
www.AlchemyofWellness.TSFL.com