| This Week's Topic: Transform Your Professional Life with Chris Gardner - The Pursuit of Happyness "Baby steps count, as long as you are going forward. You add them all up, and one day you look back and you'll be surprised at where you might get to." ~Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness During the month of May we are focused on transforming your life -- making changes that you never thought you could make. Now I'm not suggesting that your changes will be over night, but rather with some preparation and diligence changes will occur! This week we are going to look at your job and how you can transform your professional life. Who better for us to learn from than someone who did it himself? Chris Gardner, the man whose real life story inspired the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. Below are six key pieces of advice he offers. You Must Have a Strong Passion for the Work You Do When we don't love what we do our job becomes drudgery. If we have a passion for what we do it makes it easier to become an expert and therefore easier to be better. Those most successful in their field love spending free time researching, analyzing and learning more about what they do during the week. You Must Focus You can't be an expert on everything, but if you narrow your focus you can be an expert. Get clear on your focus. And once you get clear, focus your time and focus your energy. You Must Set Goals Without goals how do we know where we are going? The truth is we don't! Daily, weekly and monthly tasks lead us to annual goals. You can't accomplish everything you want in a day or even in a week, but with diligence many of your goals can be achieved in a year. Studies reveal we underestimate the compounding effect of daily activities. Do a little over a long period and you get big results! Career Change Means Sacrifice Nothing that is ever worth accomplishing comes without cost and sacrifice. If you want to make a change realize there will be sacrifice. Create a plan so that you know exactly what you are sacrificing and you can better manage it. Keep Asking Questions, Keep Learning Be curious, open and ask questions. Take classes, read books and magazines, befriend experts - do whatever it takes to learn as much as possible, from as many angles as possible. When we stay in a state of learning - opportunities and ideas have a way of finding us. Just Keep Moving Forward When Everything Looks Bad It difficult times it is easy to become like a dear in headlights and freeze. Resist that temptation - move forward powerfully. Remember, perserverence and character are built in the midst of challenges.
This week review Gardner's six ideas. Select one tip to focus on this week. Think about what you need to do to build this area of your life. Begin to create a plan to build the skills you need for success. May you be blessed, for you are a blessing! |
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