by Carol Talbot | Character, Personal Development
Taylor sits in her 6 x 8 cubicle waiting for the next IT ticket to come her way and suddenly feels the walls closing in around her. She feels like she’s suffocating.
She’s only a few seconds away from a panic attack, her third this month.
In her mind, it’s all because of her job. That belief makes Taylor like many other people who don’t like their jobs either.
A survey of 8,000 workers across three continents—North America, Europe and Asia—found that 15 percent of Americans hate their jobs. That number was nearly 5 percent higher than the next closest nation of job haters.
Taylor won’t deny that she would be part of that 15 percent. Although she has taken a leave of absence because of the stress she feels from her job, she and admits that her job has caused problems in her personal life, she feels stuck in a job she doesn’t like, with little hope of leaving it in the near future.
While Taylor is quick to blame co-workers, her workload, or what she sees as poor management, the answer to her problems might actually be closer than she thinks.
Most people don’t want to acknowledge responsibility for their life, their story and what is not working in their life.
Look inward to find the answer
People who are stuck in situations they don’t like should take a step back and ask themselves, “how did I create that?”
For those who are unhappy with their job situation, there are some questions they need to start asking themselves:
- Do I hate my job, or do I hate my field?
Those who are frustrated with their job situation shouldn’t be so quick to look for a career change. Often jobseekers will take a position just to get their foot in the door of a certain industry or company. Perhaps it’s time for you to examine other positions that more closely resemble that ideal job or have a discussion with management to evaluate which position in the company is the best fit.
- What kind of work would I do for free?
Perhaps music producer Quincy Jones summed it up best when he said: “The people who make it to the top, whether they’re musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos, are addicted to their calling. They’re the ones who’d be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren’t being paid.” People who are passionate about their work often feel as though they never worked a day in their life.
- Do I have the courage to act?
Plenty of people stuck in a job they don’t like know what they want but give up quickly after a few rejections. It takes courage to make a change, particularly when it comes to a career.
I encourage you to go beyond the boundaries of who you believe yourself to be. If you do, you’ll discover that you’re more than you think you are.
It is necessary…for a man to go away by himself, to sit on a rock and ask, ‘Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?’ ~Carl Sandburg
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Today’s LeadBIG contributor, Carol Talbot, is an author and keynote speaker who has delivered inspiring messages to corporations and conferences in more than 20 countries. She is a Certified Master Trainer of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and a Master Firewalk Instructor who fires up teams and gets them to walk across burning hot coals.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Carol Talbot | Power
Everyone falls into habits and routines—it’s the nature of being human.
But when you realize your behaviors are inhibiting you from achieving your goals, that doesn’t mean you can vow to change and all will be well.
Every single behavior that you demonstrate—good, bad or ugly—is run by your unconscious mind. So, if you want to change your behavior, you can’t do it by willpower alone.
You must get into your unconscious mind and change it there.
Why?
Because research tells us that the unconscious mind has you running on auto pilot 95 percent of the time.
The conscious mind provides 5 percent or less of our cognitive activity. So, even when we think we’re consciously deciding, we’re probably not. We’re operating on pre-existing programs running at the unconscious level.
The good news is that we can reprogram the “software” in our brain, but unlearning a lifetime worth of habits is no simple feat.
Many of our thoughts and attitudes were programmed during childhood, which means they’re out of date. It’s also likely that many of the beliefs that guide your life aren’t your own, having been adopted from your family, culture, or heritage.
Are some of your behaviors not serving you well? If they aren’t, when was the last time you examined your beliefs to see if they’re outdated or support a limited view of what’s possible for you?
3 ways to move from mindless to mindful
If it’s time for behavior change, where do you start in unbinding the ties to the past that aren’t serving you well today?
- Understand that belief creates experience. You make it happen.
People often think that experience is what leads to beliefs. However, it’s the other way around. Your beliefs shape your destiny. For example, if deep down you believe you’re not good enough to accomplish something, then that belief will create the self-fulfilling prophecy that proves you right.
- Be the cause for the effects in your life. Own it.
Life is a chain reaction of causes and effects. Everything that happens was caused by what happened before and is the effect for what will happen next. Some people get stuck on the ‘effect’ side of life and bemoan their bad luck. Other people habitually think on the ‘cause’ side of life, which leads to them doing and achieving.
- Your words say more than you realize. Walk the right talk.
The language we use to share our thoughts and beliefs makes a huge difference. If you change the language you use every day to label people, events, situations and circumstances in your life, your experience and perception of the person, the event, the situation or the circumstance will change.
You have the power
When you recognize that you are creating your life as you go along, you have the power to change.
You have the power: you can choose to pay attention to different things, to interpret experiences differently, to feel differently, and act differently.
Ready to get started?
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Today’s contributor, Carol Talbot, is an author and a keynote speaker who has delivered inspiring messages to corporations and conferences in more than 20 countries. She’s a Certified Master Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a Certified Trainer of hypnosis, a Certified Master Trainer of Time Line Therapy, and a Master Firewalk Instructor who fires up teams and groups to walk across burning coals.
Image source: Pixabay
