The Occupational Adventure (tm)

What relaxation type are you?

 

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Here's a question you may never have pondered. What relaxation type are you?

Huh?

This short article suggests that there are different approaches to relaxation that will work best for you, depending on how you are wired. It's one of those "makes sense when you think about it" ideas.

The relaxation types it outlines are:

Vision Oriented
"This might entail creating mental pictures of a relaxing situation, a changed circumstance or the body's healing energy."

Sound Oriented
"...listening to music, saying prayers, repeating affirmations and singing can all be used to help you balance your body and mind."

Body Oriented
"Massage, chiropractic, acupuncture and yoga help body-dominant people eliminate stress."

What relaxation type are you? What do you do to relax? Is there anything you do that helps you relax that doesn't fit into one of these categories? Are there categories you see that are missing?

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Audacious and achievable goals

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I recently read Pour Your Heart Into It, Howard Schultz' book about growing Starbucks into the success it is today.

At one point, he was talking about having audacious and achievable goals. That stuck in my head (not least because I jumped up and wrote it down on my whiteboard). I love the way that phrase balances two incredibly important pieces to getting the most you can out of life.

First, are you thinking big enough? And "big" in my mind doesn't mean are you aiming at building an empire. It means, are you really letting your reach extend to its fullest capacity?

Second, if you are thinking big, can you actually achieve it? And before you go ratcheting down your big thinking because you don't see an obvious way to make it happen, ask yourself if maybe the real issue is not that the dream is too big, but the vehicle that will get you there is too small.

What if you assumed that the dream was achievable? Your task then is not to figure out if it's possible, but how it's possible. What is the framework that needs to be in place? What are the variables you need to address? What steps do you need to take? What needs to happen first?

Make your dreams audacious, and then get to the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of bringing them down to earth.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

The Year of the Breakthrough Tour has begun

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Lisa Haneberg has begun her 10,000 mile Year of the Breakthrough motorcycle tour. Tied in with her new book, Two Weeks to a Breakthrough (see my post about it), Lisa will be speaking doing a circular tour of the US, stopping to speak along the way.

I absolutely love what she's doing. I've dreamed of doing something similar myself for a long time. It's very cool to see her actually doing it. I have two words for her...

Wheeee

Haaaaaaww!

Lisa is a great writer with great ideas. Keep watching her blog, as I'm sure her journey is going to be jam packed with insights and ideas.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Arguing with reality

mapmaker.curtrosengren.com

Dick Richards has a great post over on Syntax & Soul about arguing with reality. It was inspired by his experience with a delayed plane in the Nashville airport. As he watched people's less-than-cool ways of responding to the situation, he says...

A phrase from Byron Katie’s book, A Thousand Names For Joy, came to mind: arguing with reality. That is what all of the agitation in the gate area was about. The plane was late. That was reality.

Passenger: I’m supposed to be in Vegas tonight.
Reality: The plane is late.

Passenger: Why do things like this always happen to me?
Reality: The plane is late.

Passenger: Damned incompetent airlines!
Reality: The plane is late.

Passenger: We should have taken an earlier flight.
Reality: The plane is late.

And then comes the zinger. The paragraph that went - for me anyway - straight to the heart of it:

When you argue with reality, you just can’t win. Never. The attempt carries with it some measure of utterly avoidable unhappiness and stress.

How often do you find yourself arguing with reality? How much energy have you wasted railing against what is?

I know my own answers to those questions are, "Too often," and, "Too much."

As Dick points out, reality will always have the upper hand. You can't win an argument with it, and the energy you waste with frustration and anger could be put to infinitely better use.

When I accept reality, I can start putting the time and energy into asking, "OK, given this situation, what can I do? What steps can I take? Where can I go? How can I use my time?"

In short, it takes me out of victim mode and lets me put my energy into moving forward.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Maximizing potential through exponential ideas

mapmaker.curtrosengren.com

In a Life Optimizer post on generating ideas, Donald Latumahina wrote, "...ideas develop exponentially. The more ideas you have, the more ideas you will generate, both in term of quantity and quality."

That got me thinking about how I've seen that play out. One of the things I often see people do is limit themselves because they're afraid to be "wrong," or to look "stupid." In the interest of only letting their strokes of genius out into the light, they start to choke off their idea flow. Paradoxically, that makes it that much less likely that any strokes of genius will see the light of day.

Donald points out that there's actually a multiplier effect at work when it comes to letting the ideas fly:

If I have two ideas - A and B - I can only derive one new idea from those which is AB. If I have three ideas - A, B, and C - I can derive four new ideas which are AB, AC, BC, and ABC. If I have four ideas - A, B, C, and D - I can then derive eleven new ideas which are AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD, ABC, ABD, ACD, BCD, and ABCD.

To give you clearer picture of the exponential effect, here are the numbers above and some more:

• 2 ideas generate 1 new ideas.
• 3 ideas generate 4 new ideas.
• 4 ideas generate 11 new ideas.
• 5 ideas generate 26 new ideas.
• 6 ideas generate 57 new ideas.
• 7 ideas generate 120 new ideas.

He goes on to outline some suggestions for ratcheting up the volume on your ideas.

If you want to create the best life for yourself you can, opening yourself to the broadest expanse of ideas possible is vital. You can only act on what you know about, and if what you know about is limited, so is your potential.

There is so much potential swirling all around us, it's mind-boggling. Opening yourself to the exponential nature of ideas will help you discover that potential.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Career change quiz

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Are you a passion superstar, or is it time to abandon ship in your current career? Find out in my quick and easy career change quiz.

I first blogged about this quiz on New Year's Day last year. After nearly a year and a half, I figure it's probably time to spread the word about it again.

Enjoy!

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Two Weeks to a Breakthrough

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Lisa Haneberg has declared 2007 the Year of the Breakthrough. I've long been a fan of her 2Weeks2aBreakthrough blog. Now she has a book by the same name - Two Weeks to a Breakthrough: How to Zoom Toward Your Goal in 14 Days or Less.

I'm typically not a fan of the fast food genre of success literature. "Achieve (fill in the blank) in three easy steps!" But Lisa's book isn't the run of the mill fast food recipe. It's more of a program you can incorporate to inject some momentum into your journey.

The program has several different components:

The daily practice: "...a combination of sharing your goal, taking action, and making requests"

Focusing practices: "...perform tasks that improve your focus"

Action practices: "...perform tasks that increase the velocity of action in support of your goal"

Obliterating resistance: "...examine various sources of resistance and employ techniques that reduce or remove barriers to success"

For me, what's golden about what Lisa lays out here isn't that it's a magic potion for automatic breakthroughs in two weeks (I'm a bit too cynical to believe there is such a thing). It's that she's created a framework to work with, coming at it from multiple perspectives. It's not just a "power of positive thinking" book. It's a power of positive action book. And positive dreaming. And positive support. And positive planning. And positive...well, you get the idea.

Whether your breakthrough takes two weeks or two months (or more), Lisa's book gives you a great set of tools to increase the likelihood that it will actually happen.

Lisa outlines a different focus for each of fourteen days...

Day One. Launch: Wearing Your Goal and Defining Success

Day Two. Conversations for Change

Day Three. Discovery

Day Four. Connecting - The Share Blitz

Day Five. Fresh Eyes

Day Six. What If?

Day Seven. Analysis

Day Eight. Wild Ideas

Day Nine. Requests Blitz

Day Ten. Playing and Planning

Day Eleven. Action Blitz

Day Twelve. Giving Back

Day Thirteen. Being It Today

Day Fourteen. Thanks and Reflection

If you're in the US, you might have an opportunity to catch Lisa in action. She is headed out soon for a 10,000 mile Year of the Breakthrough tour motorcycle journey, where she will be stopping in cities around the US to spread the breakthrough gospel.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Reel Life Wisdom

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I've been enjoying a blog I discovered recently called Reel Life Wisdom. It's written by Doug Manning, author of a book by the same name.

The whole thing uses movie quotes as a point of departure for thoughts on various aspects of life. Manning breaks it down into three main categories:

SELF: Define Your Character - Reel Life movie quote reviews about proactive personal development.

LIFE: Build Your Story - Reel Life movie quote reviews about choosing a  meaningful life.

LOVE: Connect to Your Supporting Cast - Reel Life movie quote reviews about developing meaningful relationships.

I like Manning's fresh approach. And if you're a movie buff, it's even better.

Download The Occupational Adventure Guide


Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Are you as happy as your dog?

mapmaker.curtrosengren.com

Could your life benefit from a little canine wisdom? Here's a fun article outlining how to be as happy as your dog, excerpted from the book, Are You As Happy As Your Dog? 

The author offers several lessons learned from observing his little dog, Munchie. Here are a couple of my favorites...

5. Entertain yourself. When I am not home Munchie finds plenty of other amusements. He chases cats, sniffs dead critters, naps, and visits neighbors. He is not codependent. The world, through his eyes, is a big playground. There is always someone or something to entertain him.

8. Let yourself be loved. When Munchie looks tired during long walks with me, sometimes I pick him up and carry him for a while (probably more for myself than him.) The moment he's in my arms, he rolls over and lets me carry him like the King of the Canines. Harboring no sense of guilt or unworthiness, he does not protest, "Oh, you really don't need to do this." or "I will carry you tomorrow." He just lays there and soaks it in. He knows he is worth it, and he receives it with a full heart and body.

9. Relax. Munchie is not a slave to the Puritan Work Ethic. He is closer to the Pure Tan Play Ethic. He doesn't have a job, doesn't lay awake at night wondering if God exists, and doesn't try to hide his little dogie erections when they spontaneously arise. He knows that he deserves love without having to earn it. Munchie is clear that his purpose in life is to enjoy every new day, and he is happy to have the Universe continually take care of him.

What life lessons have you learned from your pets?

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Study: Careers helping others are among the happiest

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Want to up your happiness and satisfaction with your career, and life in general? How about a career focused on helping people? According to a new study out of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, "workers who spend their days improving the lives of others are among the most satisfied in the country."

The new report links people’s jobs to how satisfied they are in their careers as well as to their general happiness. “Work…is one’s main source of social standing, helps to define who a person is, and affects one’s health both physically and mentally,” wrote Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey (GSS) at the University-affiliated National Opinion Research Center, in the report.

“We found that occupations that involved a high degree of prestige, particularly those involving caring for others…were the highest in job satisfaction,” Smith said in a telephone interview. Clergy ranked the highest, with 87.2 percent saying they were “very satisfied” in their careers. Firefighters (80.1 percent) and physical therapists (78.1 percent) were close runners-up. Rounding out the top 10 were education administrators, painters and sculptors, teachers, authors, psychologists, special education instructors, and operating engineers.

The results are drawn from over 27,000 face to face interviews with people across the US done between 1988 to 2006.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM