[This is an Occupational Adventure Blast from the Past!]
Looking at my site stats today, I saw that someone had found this blog by doing a Google search on "setting adventure goals for yourself." I first saw that and thought, what a cool idea. We spend so much time setting and pursuing "productive" goals. What about goals for the adventure in our lives?
My brain immediately leapfrogged that question and thought, "and what about adventure goals for our careers?" After all, that's really what I'm talking about here. Creating a career that isn't just an empty, dry source of a paycheck, but a juicy, sumptuous adventure.
So why not think of it in terms of adventure goals? Not just "I want to have accomplished x, y, and z," but "I want to have had this, this, and that adventure." Could be big adventures, or could be little ones.
As long as I'm on a random stream of consciousness here, why don't I start?
[Visual aid: I just went to the whiteboard and started scribbling away at a mind map of sorts. My question was, what's going to feel like adventure for me?]
Here are the main ideas that felt like potential adventure sources for me:
* Travel
* Exploration
* Being on stage
* Creativity
* Connections with people
* Nature
This isn't about setting goals that define what I'm doing and where I'm going. It's not about trying to change my focus or my direction (I love what I'm doing now!). It's about looking for individual opportunities/adventures that will let me add even more energy and excitement to the mix.
Take travel, for example. The next question is how could I weave travel opportunities into what I do? I could go to relevant conferences elsewhere in the country. I could focus on getting speaking opportunities outside the Pacific Northwest. I could do an informal "like minds" summit in the San Juan Islands (north of Seattle) over a weekend. The list goes on.
When I turned my attention to exploration, I thought of both self-exploration and exploration of ideas with others (I see the idea exploration with others as some kind of a "primordial soup" for new ideas to evolve). Each of those things contains numerous adventures waiting to be had.
The possibilities are endless. Part of what this seems to be doing is creating an adventure menu for me to pick from as I move foreward. Bite-sized adventure nuggets, if you will. ;)
I like this idea. I love where stream of consciousness blogging takes me. This seems like it could be a valuable exercise whether you want to identify ways to squeeze more juice out of a career you already love, or add a little sizzle to a path that leaves something to be desired.
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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams
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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst
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