1. business and industrial

I
LOVE
MY
WORK
How to Create The Work•Life
Balance That You Love
JEANNE MOREAU COUZENS
I
LOVE
MY
WORK
How to Create the
Work/Life Balance
You Love
Jeanne Moreau Couzens
Notice of Copyright
© Jeanne Moreau Couzens, 2009
All rights reserved. Contents of this book are protected by Canadian
copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the author.
If you would like to quote any material from this book please feel
free. Would you please make sure you give credit to Jeanne Moreau
Couzens and include her website: jeannemoreaucouzens.com
Horizon Publishing
100, 4603 Varsity Drive NW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada. T3A 2V7
( jeanne@jeannemoreaucouzens.com)
ISBN 978-0-9812619-0-4
Forward
“The challenge to find and fulfill one’s own calling in life is perhaps our most
important task.” R.A. Schuller “I have always had a keen sense of knowing that what I do today will have a
huge impact on my tomorrow. “ JMC
We all have a sense of life moving along and a
knowing that we need to use this gift of time
wisely and make every day count. We also have
a deep knowing that we need to live the life we
dream of, no matter what that dream may be.
The problem we all face however is not always
knowing how we go about making real our life
and work dreams. Living the life we love is a
tough act, especially during a nasty recession.
The good news is that even if we have been
badly hurt by these difficult times, we can still
live a very good life. No one or nothing can take
our good away from us. We are the only ones
standing in our way to living well.
For those of us who have lost our jobs
and feel like we are moving backwards, let me
reassure you that as long as you are trying
to keep things going and nurturing yourself
and your loved ones, you are making head way.
We need to make everyday count, whether we
are making great strides or moving sideways or
backwards. None of us have time to stand still.
In this book I will help coach you up to be
your best as you grow into your life and work
dream. From experience I have lived through
several tough economic downturns. At the time
I thought we would never recover and get back
on our feet, however as challenging as they have
been, we have always recovered and have slowly
but surely lived a very good life/work balance.
This recession hit like a bomb when we were
holidaying in Hawaii. From everything happening
around the world we could see that we were
in for a storm and I wanted to do something
positive as an antidote to the pain and destruction
which was coming down all around the world.
So it was in a moment of enthusiastic
exuberance that I decided to write a book to
help others create a meaningful life/work
balance no matter what is going on around us.
Working in recruitment, staffing and people
management for almost 30 years has given me
some insight into the intricate relationship
between our work and our life. Our work/life
balance is so delicate and like all meaningful
relationships, it can be a steep and treacherous
learning curve.
So it is my sincere hope that the insights and
passages I have written will help illuminate
some of the dark corners we all face as we
create our life and work dream. Let’s start
by lighting our own candle and pursue with a
passion the life and work we desire and deserve.
Never give up!
“Choose what’s really important because you will run out of time. It’s better to
live with gusto than to be afraid and watch life pass you by.” –Alexandra Stoddard
With love and my good wishes,
Jeanne Moreau Couzens
Table of Contents
It Is Possible To Do What You Love And
Love What You Do
1
Work At What You Love
2
Synergizing Our Life And Our Work
3
Do Something Great With Your Life
4
Become Something!
5
Hope For Hard Times
6
Be Flexible
7
Attitude
8
What Type Of Person Are You?
9
The Big Picture
12
Bounce
13
Work And Play
13
Dealing With All The Changes
14
Pushing Our Boundaries
15
Staying Positive
17
Big Jobs And Little Jobs
17
We All Want To Love Our Work
18
My Life •Work Dream
19
Facing Our First Recession In 1981
20
Recent Grads
20
We Need To Find Our Own Truth
21
Standing Our Ground
22
Finding Our Pioneering Spirit
23
Hard Earned Wisdom
24
On Really Tough Days
25
Tender Loving Care
26
Our Security
27
We Need To Find Our Own Way
29
The Big Question
30
I Want To Love My Life
31
Balance
32
Be Yourself
33
We Need To Love Ourselves
34
One Small Dream ....that Changes
Everything!!!
35
Facing The Fear Of The Unknown
36
Dreaming About What Our Life Can Be
Like
37
Time To Dream Again
39
Seize The Moment
39
Now Is A Great Time To Start
40
Finding Our Opportunities
41
Planning For Our Journey
41
Finding Our Dream
42
Taking Our First Step
43
Creating Our Life And Work Dreams In
Good Times, Bad Times And In Between
Times
44
Life And Work Dreams
45
Upgrading Our Dreams
46
Our Good Awaits Us
47
No One Can Make The Decision For Us
48
Have A Long Term Dream
49
Aspire To Something Greater Than Yourself
50
Young Dreams
51
Spending Our Resources
51
The Tough Times We All Face
53
Money Can’t Buy Me Love
54
Focusing On The Right Things
55
Meeting Our Challenges
56
Getting Prepared For Success
57
The Work That I Do
59
Our Mark Of Distinction
59
Career Coaching
60
Be Job Ready
61
Our Options
62
When We Choose Change
63
Let’s Check Our Realities
64
Have An Exit Plan
65
Changing Directions
66
We Need To Find Our Own Life And Work
Dream
68
Something To Consider
69
Finding Our True Passion
70
Bread And Butter Dreams
71
Sidelines
73
Keep Asking, Seeking And Knocking
74
Where Do We Start
75
We Need To Grow
76
Let The Journey Begin
77
Finding Our Work Style
78
Strong And Resilient
80
Let’s Drop Failure Out Of Our Vocab
81
Overcoming
82
Finding Solutions To Our Problems
83
Our Story Of (Barely) Surviving A Deep
Recession
84
Damage Control
85
No Time Wasted
87
Salvaging What We Can
88
The Constants In Our Life
90
Balance
91
Don’t Sweat It, Be Cool And Calm
92
Never Panic
92
Thriving In Recessions And Downturns
93
Figuring Out Life
95
Priming The Pump
96
Being Creative And Resourceful
97
The Waiting Game
97
There Is Always Some Work We Can Do
98
Being Our Own Boss
99
Starting Our Own Business
100
My Work Today
101
Doing Survival Work
102
Never Get Trapped
103
Earning Our Daily Bread
103
Moving Out Of Survival Work
105
We Need To Give Ourselves Permission To
Seek And Create Our Own Life And Work
Dreams
106
We Need Faith To Dream, We Need Faith
To Keep Our Dream Alive And We Need Big
Faith To Make Our Dreams Come True
107
Faith
108
Balancing Our Work And Our Private Life
110
Living Well
110
Combining My Work With My Personal Life
111
Threading It All Together Seamlessly
113
Think Of Ways That You Can Improve Your
Good Fortune
113
Feeling Lucky
114
Life Is Just Too Short To Be Wasted
115
Foreign Job-Seekers
116
Diversity
116
Let’s Nix All Prejudices
117
Let’s Create A Very Good Life....
118
Beware Of Toxic Attitudes
119
“Get Happy” Is The Best Medicine
121
Do What You Love
122
Finding The Artist In Ourself
122
Finding Our Self-confidence
124
Our Parents
124
English As A Second Language
126
The Boomer Generation
127
We Too Can Do It
128
Changing From The Inside Out
129
Our Journey Of Change
130
Often Life Makes Decisions For Us
131
It Was Always “Not Today”
132
Reframing
133
Changing The Way That I Work
134
Moving Homes
134
Closing One Chapter Of My Life
135
Our Life/work Balance
136
Back To A Home Office
137
My New Dream
138
Starting Somewhere
139
My Advice
140
Handling Rejection
141
Do Honorable Work
142
Flexible
143
Job Hunting
144
Re-charging
144
Damage Control
145
Healing After A Loss
146
Researching Our Possibilities
148
Opportunities Abound
149
Timelines
150
Divine Order
150
Relax
151
Putting The Pieces Together
152
Finding A Way
153
Caution
153
Take Time To Celebrate....
154
Lighten Up Buttercup
156
Desire Is Your Unlimited Potential
Seeking Expression
157
Helping Ourselves First
158
Dealing With The Delays
159
Our Future
160
Marking Our Time
161
Planting Our Victory Garden
162
Opportunity For Change
163
Less To Lose
164
Living Longer
165
Mark This Time As A Special Time
166
Finding Our Inner Energy and Strength
166
Being Our Own Advocates
167
There Is No Looking Back
168
It’s Not Easy
169
Creating Our Own Vision For Tomorrow
170
It Can Be Confusing
171
Test Drive Your Dreams
172
Modes Of Employment
173
Employee Or Employer
174
Preparing To Start Work
174
Our Resume
176
Our Cover Letter
177
How We Present Ourselves
178
Know Your Own Resume
178
Going For An Interview
180
Doing Mock Interviews
181
Be Enthusiastic
182
Having Good Manners
183
Keep Your Composure
183
First Impressions
184
Dressing For Success
185
Business Casual
186
Good Grooming
186
Do The Best You Can
187
Dealing With Rejection
188
Sometimes We Just Need More Practice
189
Know That You Will Find Your Dream Job
190
Move On
191
Don’t See This Challenge As A Problem
192
Knocking Down Barriers
193
Be A Happy Face
195
Stay Happy And Engaged in Life
196
Stay Connected
197
Remember The Sun Is Still Shinning
198
Managing Our Moods
199
Healing
200
Looking At The Big Picture
201
Overcoming Set-backs
202
High Expectations
203
Ease Up
204
It’s Never Too Late
205
You Are Your Own Boss
207
Working For Myself
207
We Are In Our Right Place
208
No Time To Waste
209
Time To Renew And Refocus
210
Dreaming Big Dreams
211
Living Our Dreams
212
Gratitude
212
Beyond Wonderful
213
Dream Zappers
213
Don’t Let People Label You
215
I Am Strong Willed
216
Wisdom That Comes With Experience
216
Reframe Your Labels
217
Focused and Determined
218
In Good Times And Bad Times
219
Little Dreams Within Big Dreams
220
Looking At The Big Picture
221
Compromise
222
Big Moments
223
Our Opportunities
224
Our Blessing
225
Wonder Of Wonders
225
Good News
226
No Time To Lose
227
Our Gift Of Time
227
Deferred Dreams
228
One Thing Leads To Another
229
Let’s Be Bold And Wise
230
Our Legacy
231
The Magic Of Life
231
Our Success Positively Impacts Others
232
Co-Creating A Miracle
233
Prioritize
234
Delegate
235
Getting Down To The Small Stuff
235
Making Our Choices
236
Beginning Our Journey
237
Overcoming
238
Documenting And Recording Our
Journey
239
Gratitude
240
Build Goodwill
241
Humble Thoughts
242
“Yes” Is A Big Word
243
Knowing Is Powerful
243
Pushing Back Fear
244
Believing Makes Things Happen
245
Claiming Our Greatness
245
Breaking Down Barriers
256
The Power Of Knowing
246
Take Time To Celebrate
247
Seek Your Blessings
247
Things That Never Go OUt Of Style
248
I Love My Life
250
I Love My Work
“IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE
AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO.”
Michael Toms from TRUE WORK
How many of us dream about living a life we
love and doing work we are passionate about?
At some point or other in our lives we think
seriously about this. For some of us, we
think about this everyday – well every other day
anyway.
I have been in career work for almost 30
years and it is a pleasure when I come
across someone who truly loves their work.
They smile broadly and their eyes shine with
enthusiasm as they describe what they do.
Their work never seems to tire them or get
them down. They are always up beat and eager
to share happy stories about their life and
work. It seems as though they and their work
are one satisfying and enriching life experience.
They have overtime grown into their life’s work,
and we might say they have truly found their
calling or as Michael Toms explains in his book
True Work, “they have found their true work.”
They have created the life and work dream
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which meets their expectations and deeply
fulfills them. They love their work and they love
their life. What a beautiful gift.
WORK AT WHAT YOU LOVE
Choose a profession which gives you great
pleasure and that you love.
Martha Stewart in her book The Martha Rules
says on page one: “It is great to love ones’ work.” Doing work that
you enjoy gives you energy. You are imbued with enthusiasm. Your senses
seem sharper. You wake up with new ideas every day and with solutions to
conquer the challenges that cropped up the day before. You are always
confident that goals are attainable, that creativity and ingenuity and hard
work and passion for the work will make ‘it’ all come together. This ‘passion’
for one’s work is just like an all-consuming love affair-something that all of
us crave to experience but encounter only once or twice in a lifetime if we are
lucky.”
Well said Martha, and Martha should know
about this all-consuming love affair with work.
We too want to know what it would feel like
to love our work, maybe we don’t want it to be
an all consuming love affair, but we certainly
would love work to be a true pleasure for us.
I Love My Work
SYNERGIZING OUR LIFE AND OUR
WORK
“ I’ve learned that making a living is not the same as making a life”
– Maya Angeloue
How many of us feel like we have stalled in
our lives. Our life is not in tune with our inner
hopes. How many of us have barely enough
energy to get us through our days, yet we go
on and on ‘doing same old’? How many of us
got pulled into doing the work we do because
we didn’t see any other options available to us?
We needed to earn and we were trying to please
others by just getting a job and now we are
stuck in a rut.
Maybe we started working at something we truly
enjoyed in the beginning, but after years of doing
the same thing and hitting walls whenever we try
to make changes, we are feeling under-valued,
invisible and tired of getting no where fast.
Soon our frustration at work spills over into
our home and personal life and we become in
desperate need of a positive change.
We see time progressing and it saddens us to
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see how our life is quickly passing us by and
we still haven’t really started living our dreams.
We go through the motions of putting one foot
in front of the other working in a ho-hum job
and living a life that does not meet our inner
desires or needs.
“Somewhere within us we know that the marriage between our life and our
work should be blissfully happy. It should be the perfect expression of our
heart and spirit. Our work should be a sharing of our very best gifts, talents
and interests and our lives should be the living expression of our deepest
dreams.”
DO SOMETHING GREAT WITH YOUR
LIFE
How many of us are willing to seriously look
at other possibilities and consider finding work
that we love? Finding work that is our true-life’s
calling and that will take us through each and
every season of the life experiences we encounter.
How many of us dream of changing the life we
are presently living and the work we do? Are
we ready to re-create our life and work into
something way beyond what we can imagine? How
many of us are willing to give it a try, see what
I Love My Work
we can do. If we are not in love with our life and
our work, what have we got to lose anyway?
BECOME SOMETHING!
Let’s consider doing something great with
our life. Let’s think about what possibilities,
options and opportunities are available to us.
Let’s consider living a life that will make us
feel so alive and vital. A good life that we will
enjoy. What if we could live our life and work
dreams? Just imagine what that would be like.
Let’s imagine loving our life, our work, and
ourselves.
First of all we have to know that we can
become the person we want to be, we can
live the life we imagine and we can do great
things with this time we have here on earth. I
encourage you to become something, to start an
amazing dream that will create a legacy.
Let’s open our spirit and allow an exciting new
dream to capture our heart and imagination.
Let’s do something marvelous with our one
good life.
“Be a great force for good in the world”
Jeanne Moreau Couzens
HOPE FOR HARD TIMES
Even when we do find our dream job, we need
to understand that we will have to live and
grow through many phases and changes in our
work and personal life. We’ll perhaps have to
renew our focus and re-invent ourselves many
times just to be employable as times and needs
change.
As with all good things nothing stays static,
everything shifts and changes so rapidly that
we have to keep working at adapting, continually
learning and growing just to stay current in our
own lives.
We also need to understand how quickly an
industry can go boom or bust. Even when times
are good we need to be prepared for downturns
and to always keep a reserve of funds just to
get us through tough times.
Our work and our global economic environment
as we have all come to know can change almost
overnight. Presently we are in a global recession
and many of us are without work, looking for a
job.
In this book I want to reassure everyone
I Love My Work
who is unemployed that this is a great time to
consider making changes in both our work and
our personal life. Contrary to what we may
think, there is no better time than the present
to start dreaming about what we would like to
do for work. Let’s spend some time deciding on
how we would like to spend our life’s energy
and what beautiful life dream we want to give
our best energy to. Now is the perfect time.
We need to do as Prince Charles says; Follow our
heart and ”Feel your way gently through life.”
BE FLEXIBLE
Always we can expect major ups and downs
in our work and in our lives and we need to
be very flexible to successfully ride out the
rough times. Regretfully no matter how well
we do our work, there are truly no guarantees
that we’ll always keep our job. Very often we
lose our jobs not because we were not doing a
good job but because the work we were doing
has dried up, or has been put on hold. The
only thing we can count on is how we handle
ourselves as we make our way through our
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life’s work journey. We need to be easy on
ourselves and others and to cooperate, gently
finding our way through life. And always we
need to have a ‘yes’ attitude when we set our
amazing goals and dreams.
ATTITUDE
“Attitude is everything. There are two ways to live life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
We need to have a positive attitude, to always
look for the best in everything that happens
to us. Our good comes to us in the most
unlikely ways imaginable. Know that divine energy
is all around us, no matter what part of the
world we find ourselves in and miracles are for
everyone, not just for the chosen few.
If we lose our work and find ourselves feeling
desperate and depressed, it is good to know that
no matter where we are, no matter what time
of year it is, no matter what is happening in our
global economy, no matter what is going on in
our personal life, there is still meaningful work
somewhere for us. Work is like money, it may
not be in our hand, but it is out there waiting
I Love My Work
for us to claim it.
Certainly it’s normal to have up and down days
when we are without work, but let’s never shut
down and turn bitter and negative. Let’s dig deep
into our soul and find a ray of hope, knowing
that our dreams are waiting for us to co-
create them. Let’s keep our attitude positive and
stay the course, knowing we will succeed. And
indeed we will.
WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU?
I have discovered there are two types of people
in this world. There are positive people and
there are negative people and a few well-intended
people in between. Which one do you believe you
are?
In our life and our work it is good to be able
to identify the positive and the negative people
in our lives. This helps us to understand why
we sometimes feel uncomfortable around some
people and happy and energized around others.
Identifying the positive and the negative people
in our life helps us to eliminate the energy we
waste second-guessing ourselves after time
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spent with negative people.
Positive people are those who are easy on
themselves and others and are always looking
for ways to make the world go round. These
good people look for the best in themselves
and others. They are not put on this earth to
destroy and put down, they are up-building,
positive and nurturing and we love to spend time
with them.
Negative people are toxic to be around and they
always see the cup half empty. They see what
is wrong with everyone and everything and they
have a strong need to bring people down. They
bring tension, stress, upheaval and disorder.
A quick and easy way to determine whether
you are in the company of a positive person or
a negative person is to determine your energy
level when you are with these people. Positive
people are on your team, they will encourage and
uplift you and celebrate your victories. Negative
people are toxic vapors, they will try to make
you look like a fool and you will feel uneasy and
drained after spending time with them. When we
want to build a healthy work life and a positive
personal life, let’s remember to steer clear of
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I Love My Work
negative situations and people as they will take
the sun out of our day. Remember they are
looking after themselves and are often fighting
with their own demons and issues and have no
intentions of bringing us any sunshine.
Negative and unhappy people allow their moods
to be controlled by what happens to them
everyday. Most often they are in a bad mood or
worked up because invariably something has not
gone the way they wanted it to. They mostly live
their life in fear and they venture little because
they (falsely) believe that life is out to get
them and they “wouldn’t succeed anyway, so
why bother trying.” Unfortunately they live as
they thinketh, so shall it be.”
Those who feel blessed and happy to be alive
are those who have a big dream. They have
experienced miracles and they believe life is what
they make of it. They have goals and plans and
wake up eager to work at making their vision a
reality. In their hearts they know that they can
make a positive difference with their lives. Life
is not left to what happens to them or what
others do to them or say about them. They are
creative and resourceful and knowing this gives
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them unbelievable power to build the life they
desire. They feel they have choices and options
and they get on with making a fantastic life for
themselves and others.
Humble note: Often happy people are not
perfectionist, they can live with a life that is
imperfect, in fact they see the art of life in it’s
quirks and imperfections.
“God is in the details” Mies van der Rohe
THE BIG PICTURE
We need to stop fighting life and to accept the
things that we can’t change overnight, always
we need to keep our eyes on the big picture. We
need to be ever mindful of all the opportunities
that are coming into our life and to have faith
that when we do our best, good things do
come to be. We need to reach out and co-
create harmony and peace within ourselves and
with all others. We need to look for the best,
hope for the best and make the best of all
circumstances. And always we need to make the
most of ourselves, our circumstances and to
understand that our life is what we make of it.
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I Love My Work
Like Jay Abraham says, “we need to get everything we can out
of all we’ve got.”
BOUNCE
We also need to understand that everything
takes much longer than we think it will, so
let’s not lose heart. We need to always be
innovative and self-reliant, not giving up easily and
always looking for solutions to the problems
that will surely come along. We need to have big
BOUNCE to come back after the difficulties
we face. We need to see all the opportunities
during the good times and the not so good
times. We need to be wise and level headed, be a
cool reactor, stay the course, be steadfast and
push on until we meet success.
“Find the strength to bounce back from everything and anything”
WORK AND PLAY
Most of us work too hard and hardly take
time to enjoy life. We keep our heads down
and barely come up for air, let alone take time
to rest, rejuvenate and live well. We go from
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extremes, it’s all work and no play and then
when we retire, we have little work and too
much idle time on our hands.
Often our lives are feast or fast, too full
or too empty, earning but having no time to
spend and live a little and vice-versa. When we
work too hard or when we give up on life and
moon about we lose our right balance and as a
consequence we and others suffer for it.
Let’s not be workaholics and let’s not be
slackers, let’s get into a good healthy rhythm
with our work and play.
Play is what keeps us young and refreshed
whereas work keeps us engaged and growing.
Synergized together work and play balances
us out, giving our lives meaning, purpose and
stability.
“Let’s create a great work/life balance”
DEALING WITH ALL THE CHANGES
We may be unemployed at the moment, we may
have been laid off, we may have been fired, we
may be entering the work force, we may be re-
entering the work force after a leave or we may
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I Love My Work
be in a work situation that we know we want to
leave to change up for better work.
I know leaving a job we have held onto for dear
life can be scary and that’s why we stay stuck
in jobs that put us to sleep in the daytime and
keeps us awake at night.
I know that finding work can be very difficult
and it always requires mindful energy. It
involves change and challenges and that usually
brings on anxiety, confusion, uncertainty and
moves us way out of our comfort zone.
Let’s not allow fear to keep us from exploring
our great possibilities. Let’s see change as the
necessary steps we need to take to move us
closer to realizing our goals.
“Let’s not be intimidated by the challenge of change”
PUSHING OUR BOUNDARIES
How many times have we heard that we need
to try something which takes us out of our
comfort zone everyday to use up our ‘driving
force’ energy. We all have momentum energy,
kinetic energy, building energy that keeps us
wanting to move forward. It’s this forward
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drive that keeps us on the go, discovering and
experiencing our world.
Too often in our work lives, we need learn how
to be calm in order to sit stationary at a desk
and do our work and this can throw off our
energies. We need to be able to switch up our
energies – have computing time and the moving
forward and gaining ground time. Certainly we
need to do our background work but we also
need to push our boundaries everyday, in some
way big or small so we don’t lose our driving
edge and momentum. It is true to say that if
we don’t use this positive driving energy, we will
lose it, and we don’t want to lose it as this is
our creative force. We keep our edge by learning,
growing and doing great things.
So everyday let’s do something that moves us
out of our comfort zone, let’s move the walls
of fear and lethargy back as far as we can
tolerate. Let’s push back all the negative and
let’s work on creating a positive life and work
change.
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I Love My Work
STAYING POSITIVE
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Always we have to strive to stay positive, we
need to think positive thoughts and engage in
life- affirming behavior.
The good news is when we believe that positive
change in our life is not only possible but
probable, it helps us to manage the inevitable
‘ups and downs’ we experience in our job
search. For whatever reason we are wanting to
find work we love and are passionate about, we
need to know that our dream work is out there
waiting for us to co-create.
Whether we have been fired, have lost our job
due to a nasty recession, whatever the reason
we are looking for work, we need to believe that
we deserve to find the work we love and we owe
it to ourselves to pursue our life and work
dreams.
BIG JOBS AND LITTLE JOBS
Sometimes we may need to pick up a job or
jobs that is ‘in between’ work, meaning it pays
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the bills and gets us through the rough times,
but always we want to keep in mind that this
is not our life’s work. We don’t want to give
up our personal work dream and stay in this
filler job for life. Certainly we want to do our
best and have an attitude of gratitude for this
humble work because it is helping us, but we
need to keep believing that we will find a way to
create our true work. Most of us in life will
have big jobs and little jobs and depending on the
time and the circumstances and let’s remember
that these serve us well.
“all work serves a purpose”
WE ALL WANT TO LOVE OUR WORK
We all desire to find good work that is
meaningful and makes the best use of our
resources. We want to spend our time doing
interesting and purposeful work. Work that we
can grow and it will grow us in return. Even if
we don’t openly express this, the truth is: We
all want to love our work and we all want to
love our lives.
We want to have fun, share our best and enjoy
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what we do. We want to contribute to our
world. We want to make our lives stand for
something. We want to be capable and able. We
want to be learning, growing and doing great and
wonderful things with our lives. None of us
has time and talent to waste.
“None of us has time to waste”
MY LIFE•WORK DREAM
It is in this same spirit that I came to write
this little book on finding our life’s work dream.
Recently with the world economy coming apart
at the seams and a deep recession coming at us
like a tsunami, I knew I had to do something
to add one small drop of goodness to this
huge wave of incredible difficulties we all face.
Having survived a few of these economic down
turns has given me some insight and during this
difficult time, writing a message of hope that
can improve your personal life and your career
is one way I can help out.
“Giving is a gift in itself”
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FACING OUR FIRST RECESSION IN
1981
My husband and business partner Gary and I
have owned a staffing firm for thirty-some
years. Horizon was started in 1978 when our
Canadian economy was booming. Pierre Trudeau
was our Prime Minister at the time and in our
first year of business we made 60 thousand
dollars profit. Wow! This was just incredible
and over the top. And what did we do with this
windfall, well we spent it all and even more. We
thought the recessions and depressions our
parents talked about were a thing of the past.
From our naive perspective and due to our lack
of experience we could see no clouds brewing
on our horizons.
We were living the good life of prosperity when
we collided with our first global economic
downturn. What a lesson we learned and very
quickly.
RECENT GRADS
Gary and I had both recently graduated from
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the University and found ourselves earning big
money after being poor students. Big money that
we thought, like many others, would have no
end and would take us to the end of our days.
Our parents had cautioned us about hanging
on to our hard earned cash, they had warned
us that it was not how much we earned that
counted, but how much we could hang on to.
Having lived through the Great Depression where
banks had collapsed and they had experienced
massive unemployment (of 25%), endured
droughts, seen homeless people, hobos, street
urchins and long bread lines, they encouraged us
to be wise with our money.
Understandably, after having barely survived the
tough times, they warned us to be sensible
with our money, and like loving parents they
cautioned us to always “save for a rainy day”.
WE NEED TO FIND OUR OWN TRUTH
But how many of us listen to our parents?
I think I started telling our sons this same
story from the day they started earning. My own
story had a few different date lines and tales of
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hardship, but basically hard times whether they
are recessions or depressions are much the
same.
Often we stand to lose not only our jobs,
investments, our homes and our assets
but many times it adversely affects our
relationships with those we love. Like any
investments, when things go bad, it often
compounds in the negatives, leaving us feeling
discouraged, depressed in spirit and totally
exhausted. The bottom line here is that hard
times, what ever they may be, really test our
metal. All global recessions and economic
downturns create their own havoc. Often the
best thing we can do is just to survive them
and trust me surviving them is really getting
ahead.
STANDING OUR GROUND
First off we need to take good care of
ourselves, not over work or over stress
ourselves about making money. We need to
do damage control and never panic. Panic just
gobbles up our energy and is counter productive.
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Let’s stay calm and steady. Always look for the
positives.
We can never let the negatives have the last
word. We have to keep in mind that our good is
still there waiting for us, regardless of how
deep the troubles we find ourselves in. There is
still abundant good and every kind of wonderful
opportunity for us to grow our dreams on. We
have a choice; we can curl up in pain and die
or we can move inch by inch, seeking to find
everything we can to co-create our piece of
paradise, right here on earth. We need to know
that we are neo-pioneers blazing our own trail
through uncharted and often perilous territory.
We just need to do the best we can do and
that’s all we can do.
FINDING OUR PIONEERING SPIRIT
When I was young I didn’t always appreciate
or fully understand the hard-earned wisdom my
grandmother and parents tried to instill in me.
My family came from a pioneering generation,
immigrating from Belgium to Canada where they
had to create a good life from scratch and
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when death, war and droughts wiped them out,
they had to start all over again, without wasting
much down-time licking their wounds. They
were a hardy stock, good people with a positive
spirit and a love of living well. Their strength
came from their hope and faith. My guess is
many of us have similar backgrounds.
“We too are hardy, good people”
HARD EARNED WISDOM
Today I realize more fully the true gift their
amazing stories were in that they still give
me the energy, courage and inspiration I need
when creating my own good life dream. We all
need our own wonderful story of strength and
overcoming when we face our goliaths. We need
to remember the long and arduous journey of
our people who came before us, encouraged to
know that they didn’t parish on the trail and nor
will we.
With pride and commitment we too need to
stand our ground and face our big challenges.
We need to find a new spirit of faith and hope
when faced with a potential disaster, whether it
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be personal, financial or otherwise. When we are
struggling with a potential calamity, battered by
the storms, betrayals and disasters of life, we
need to put one foot in front of the other and
just keep moving, trusting that we will find our
way.
On really tough days, when I am facing super
hard times, I have my little cry, then get on
with it.
“We need to know that life will not always be a bed or roses, but we always
have the seeds to plant our own garden so keep planting and keep growing.”
ON REALLY TOUGH DAYS
Sometimes we just need to take a breather on
days when life seems to cut us to the quick
and we feel like crying and giving up. When we
hit hard times and it seems like our life sucks
on every level and things are coming apart faster
than we can find the fixes, we need to check
our options and cut ourselves some slack.
Take time to catch our breath and collect our
thoughts. Time for us to regroup and find our
quiet corner. Time to center ourselves and to
find our inner balance and strength.
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We need time to do damage control and to find
healthy ways to let off some steam. We need
to release the anger, pain and pressure we battle
with and to seek ways to heal and recharge and
re-build.
We just need to do what we need to do to get
us back to our whole strong selves again.
“Retreat to a sea of calm, away from the hustle and bustle of life”
TENDER LOVING CARE
Always and not only in tough times, we need to
be our own best friends and to give ourselves
tender loving care. Take time to re-balance and
heal. Whether we need to cry, sleep it off,
read, go for a run, exercise, dance, sing, do yoga,
meditate, enjoy a massage, do retail therapy,
share our heart-ache, read positive affirmations,
pray, walk, sit in the sun, enjoy chocolate, sip
our coffee, let’s find whatever it is that will
help us to detox and de-stress.
In tough times we need to take better care of
ourselves than usual, find all the things that
will nurture and restore us and that will give us
hope and energy. We need to believe that there
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is still plenty of goodness for us to enjoy. To
believe that a whole and beautiful life is waiting
for us to claim. We must never give in and give
up. Somehow we need to connect with our
inner spirit and energy source to keep going, to
keep dreaming, and to keep growing.
OUR SECURITY
The best insurance we have is to embrace
reality and to know that our life is a long
journey with many winding roads. It is never all
good and it’s never all bad, just a long distance
we need to travel from our starting point to our
goal.
And when we know for certain that we are
heading in the right direction of our dreams,
we’ll no longer get so personally upset and
involved with all the stops and starts we
experience along the way, because we know
come what may, we will keep pressing on even
if our way is dark and difficult. We know
without a doubt that we are on the right path.
It makes it easier to deal with all the changes
when we come to understand that in life there
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will always be many quick stops and slow
starts. There will be times when we will be
making great strides and gaining ground and then
boom there will be times when our lives and
our work will slow down to a trickle.
It can be a very rough and bumpy ride, but
when we feel assured that we will overcome no
matter what challenges and obstacles we face,
we waste less down time fretting and fussing
and can use our energy in positive ways to make
our dream happen.
Always we need to keep adding to our reserves
of emotional energy. Emotional well-being is
determined by the state of our overall health,
our attitudes, spiritual beliefs, relationships,
our work, passions, dreams and goals.
Every time we refresh ourselves, we are
up-building our emotional resources. We
absolutely need to continually replenish our
inner resources to make sure we have plenty of
energy to get us through tough times and to
enjoy our work and life journey.
“Our security and happiness has to come from within, loving the life we have
no matter what is happening on the outside. We need to hug our dreams and
hopes. Keep a little song in our heart and above all always love ourselves.”
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WE NEED TO FIND OUR OWN WAY
We all enjoy the delicious times of celebrations and
major victories, when we feel successful and just
on top of the world. And we all live through the
rough and dark down times when we seem to fail and
fall (or so it seems,) out of this world.
We need to expect that life is never a freeway from
here to where we want to go.
“It has many winding roads and even more detours and dead ends, but we
have the power within us to still make the journey a beautiful one. ”
Certainly life keeps us on our toes, and we need to
stay engaged and focused at all times to maneuver
the constant changes and curves. Over all we need
to be grateful for all the good things that come
into our life unbidden. We need to hold fast to our
vision of what lies beyond the hurdles we face.
We need to live fully every moment and be thankful
for all the big and small miracles that we enjoy
everyday.
And best of all we need to know that when we
follow our own dreams, when we press on in the
face of all odds, we will surely find our way. Hang
on for the ride of your life. Know that:
“We will create our own good life.”
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THE BIG QUESTION
What is ‘our own good life?’ What is our own
big dream or dreams? What is our own work of
art? What is our ‘magnum opus’?
What do we want to do with the rest of
our life? What motivates, inspires and gives
us energy? What is our life’s work? What
is our incredible life’s journey? What are we
passionate about? How can we make our life
a gift to ourselves and others? What can we
make of our gifts and talents? How can we
maximize the good in our life?
Once we have an idea as to what we want to
do with our one good life, we need to ask
ourselves how do we co-create our big life?
How do we make real our dreams? What do
we need to do to prepare for our sacred life
journey? What do we need to take along?
How do we find our way? In a deep and
committed way we need to come up with some
answers to these important questions.
The good news is that when we have a vision of
how we want to live, when we have a big dream
humming in our heart, it opens up resources
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that will help us overcome the difficulties we
face. When we know where we are headed in
life, we will always find a way to get around the
obstacles on our path.
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project,
all you thoughts break their bonds.” Pantajali
I WANT TO LOVE MY LIFE
I know without a doubt that I want to love
my life. I also know for sure that I want
to love myself and others and I want to do
something wonderful with my life. I want to
give it my best, I want to make a difference and
I want to enjoy myself and have fun while I am
at it.
And you know what, we all want to love our
life. No one was born to hate oneself, others
or this precious life. We are all here eager to
participate and enjoy our big life journey, to
love ourselves and each other, and to make a
difference any way we can.
It’s just that sometimes we don’t always know
how to go about it. We don’t know how to find
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our way. I for one can get lost at times in the
jungle of deadlines, schedules, expectations,
commitments, responsibilities and busywork.
We all try hard to meet the needs and demands
placed upon us and more often than not, we all
work too hard. We lose our much needed life
work balance. This makes us out of sync and
out of balance. We become stressed and out of
sorts. Not good.
“How did we get to be such beasts of burden, all hard work and no play?”
BALANCE
We need to find a healthy balance, find the time
to enjoy the many good things in our life. Work
is important but let’s remember that it is just
one aspect of our life and we need to be vigilant
that it doesn’t take over and obliterate everything
else.
We need to find joy again in all that we do. We
need to do the things we love doing, we need to
cut ourselves some slack and just live for the
joy of living. Be more in the moment as we move
our dreams. Let’s invite happiness to be our
constant companion. Let happiness blossom.
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Having more fun and play time will produce
better results in our work. Balance is finding
the right measure of work and play.
“People who have a healthy life/work balance usually live longer, happier
lives”
BE YOURSELF
“Self actualization is just learning to be independent of the good opinion of
other people.” – Abraham Maslow
Let’s enjoy being our best selves. Let’s focus
on our positives. Let’s learn to love ourselves
unconditionally. Let’s not concern ourselves so
deeply with what others think of us. We need
to remember that everyone is entitled to their
own opinions and everyone will have different
opinion of what we should be doing. So let’s
chose to be our own boss and just be content
to be ourselves.
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WE NEED TO LOVE OURSELVES
We are so much more than most of us
realize. We are so talented, so wise, so loving,
so creative, so tenacious, so strong and
resourceful and have incredible dreams, desires
and gifts we need to explore and enjoy.
Let’s start by knowing that we need to
understand who we are and what we can do.
We need to get to know ourselves better.
We need to respect and care for ourselves.
We need to listen to our needs and wants
and to invest in ourselves. We need to stay
in touch with ourselves, update our dreams
and look with hope ahead to our future. But
most importantly we need to love, love , love
ourselves and others no matter where we find
ourselves on our journey. Most important of all
we need to be our best selves and to truly enjoy
being ourselves.
And of course we always need to have a dream,
even one small dream that can change everything.
Always we want to love ourselves and love our
one good life.
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ONE SMALL DREAM ....THAT CHANGES
EVERYTHING!!!
Claiming Our Dreams.
If we were granted one dream that we knew
would come true, what would it be? Let’s
think about this, what would it be?
Can you think of ten dreams or more that you
would LOVE to come true? Well keep counting
because DREAMS DO COME TRUE.
Regretfully too few of us dare to dream
because we are so bruised and jaded by life.
Many things have not worked out for us in the
past and we’re so afraid to try again. Do we even
know what we would love in our lives, or have
we come to love what we know? Moving out
of our comfort zone can be daunting, but it
forces us to consider all of our options.
Often we cling to a work lifestyle that is
so beneath our capabilities and yet we resist
change. If we are in a recessive time, this
can make our decision even more complicated.
Change at any time is difficult on many levels
and usually it is the fear of the unknown that
gives us the most trouble.
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FACING THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
When we choose to make a change it can
bring us a sense of peace and yet we can also
experience strong anxiety about the work
ahead. We both fear and anticipate what is on
the other side. Change involves many layers of
growing and most of all it means a leap of faith
and getting over our fear of the unknown.
As we venture into our future it takes great
determination and courage to move our dreams.
We need to replenish our inner resources of
energy, faith, hope, courage, determination, and
creative energy everyday. We can do this by
reading uplifting words and prayers, by listening
to positive motivational speakers and up-beat
music, looking at beautiful and inspiring visual
imagery, finding our positive self talk, enjoying
creative movement and seeking whatever else that
recharges and encourages us.
So let’s start somewhere, let’s find one small
dream that can change everything.
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DREAMING ABOUT WHAT OUR LIFE
CAN BE LIKE
One of the best ways I know to take this leap
of faith and to change our life•work situation
is to start by dreaming and thinking about what
our life could be like if we dared to begin our
journey of change.
Let’s fantasize, visualize and imagine how
amazing life could be. We want to create in
our mind the way we would love our work to
be and visualize the way we would like to live.
This dream should be positive and get us all
jazzed up, making us feel excited and looking
forward to our future. When life moves from
being mediocre to sublime, the drawing force is
greater than the perceived challenges we face.
Of course ‘going for it’ was all so much easier
for us when we were young, just think of all
the leaps of faith and challenges we took on.
We moved from one heady experience to another
with hardly a backward glance. For most of us,
it wasn’t until our middle years that we started
reflecting and mulling over our choices, often
second-guessing ourselves and this is because
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now we believe we have more on the line and so
more to lose. But the truth is we also have
more to gain.
My experience with big changes has always
been that when I move up in life, the whole
transition of change is less of a challenge
than what I anticipated it would be. The more
positive the change, the greater my enthusiasm
and motivation thus making the move easier all
the way around.
TIME TO DREAM AGAIN
But now it’s time to dream again, to reconnect
with our creative selves, and to make decisions
that will alter our lives in a meaningful way.
We need to create a new dream from the inside
out, which is more attuned with who we are
today. We change as we grow along with our
lives and the dreams and needs we had before
sometimes no longer fits our spirit or our life
today.
So let’s give ourselves permission to change and
find our inner courage to reach for a new life.
There is no better time to start than now. We
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don’t need to rush ourselves into making a life/
work decision today, but we do need to make a
start, even a small start ….someway, somehow,
somewhere.
“Do one small thing that moves your spirit everyday”
SEIZE THE MOMENT
And now is as good a time as any. The longer we
delay and defer working and thinking about our
future, the dimmer our prospects of making
our life what we wish it could be. We need to
ask ourselves “what can we make of this one good life opportunity
we have?”
Sometimes we defer starting on something we
love because we feel we have to have everything
looked after and in perfect order before we can
spend time or money on our dreams.
I am the biggest offender of sabotaging my own
dreams. I love to write and paint, but always
I feel I must take care of business first,
make sure there’s food in the fridge and so on,
before I can sit down to do my own thing. By
the time I get things somewhat settled, my
creative mood has passed and I have put in just
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another day and days can go by before I get
back to my creative projects. And we all know
very well that time waits for no one to be ready.
“Everything does not have to be perfect in our lives before we can work on
our own dreams.”
NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO START
We need to ask ourselves, “What do I want to
do with my one good life?” “What do I want
to do with the rest of my life?” Think of being
in your last days here on earth and looking back
over your life. How do you want to have spent
your time and resources here on earth? How
do you want to be remembered? What is your
mission in life, what work is yours to do?
What legacy do you want to leave behind? What
positive change do you want to set in motion?
How did you make life better for yourself and
others? What gifts did you leave behind for
others to enjoy and remember you by. What
seed dreams did you plant, what dreams did you
make come true? What did you enjoy and share?
We need to think deeply to come up with the
answers to these important questions as they
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will serve as directional guideposts in our life. We
need to live our lives with a divine plan in mind. We
simply cannot just go with the flow and take what
comes along. We need to be pro-active and mindful
as we consider our future. We need to find our
mission and most importantly we need to get to
know ourselves, to bring out our best selves and
to move with faith in the direction of our dreams.
Let’s live our life with gusto, and enjoy each day
as if it were our last.
“Let’s pull out all stops and live our one good life to the hilt.”
“How many seeds of joy did you plant today?”
FINDING OUR OPPORTUNITY
Sometimes old adages say it best. We have all
heard “success happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Well
our opportunity to succeed is here so let’s start
preparing!
It’s time we began our great life’s journey.
“Let’s make the most of our wonderful opportunities”
PLANNING FOR OUR JOURNEY
Before we set out to find our way in life, we need
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to do some deep thinking and make a plan for
our journey. Before we even take our first step
of many, we need to feel comfortable about
the course we are about to take. We need to
prepare ourselves for the changes we want to
make.
We need to feel good about what we want to
create with our one good life. We need to feel
this is so right for us and for others and we
need to ask ourselves why we want to do this?
Does it serve a need in our life? Are we
enthusiastic about building this life work
dream? Is it meaningful for us? Will it make
this world a better place? Will it use our
resources of time, money and energy in a
positive way? Is this how we want to invest
our valuable time here on earth? Are we making
the most of this beautiful gift of life? Are
we standing up for goodness? Will this make
us proud of ourselves? Is this what we really
want to do with our precious life’s energy?
“When something is important, look out”
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FINDING OUR DREAM
We need to do this re-birthing of our dreams
for ourselves first, then for others. It has to
be what we really want to do and believe we can
do. I say this because I meet so many people
who spend a great deal of their lives people
pleasing. I too am a big people pleaser and
that’s O.K. as long as we know where to draw
the line and what is ours in life to do.
We know ourselves best, and we’re the only
ones who can give ourselves permission to
try something new. We’ll stunt our growth
unless we keep moving towards what inspires
and interests us in life. When we see something
better that we can achieve, let’s go for it
and not look back. Our true dreams have this
incredible energy which draws us in.
“Great dreams break us out of bondage”
TAKING OUR FIRST STEP
Divine Dreams that are meant for us will give
us amazing energy. Taking our first step is
both daunting and exhilarating. We’re energized
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to change our life and our work, and yet we
feel the fear of failure nagging at us. We so
badly want to succeed. We so want our life to
match the dreams and visions we have. We have
seen in our minds eye what we can do and we
want to be there, now, today.
CREATING OUR LIFE AND WORK
DREAMS IN GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES
AND IN BETWEEN TIMES
Today we are facing the grips of a global
recession. No one really knows how deep or
how long this downturn in our world economy
will take before we see positive signs of growth
and recovery, but rest assured, we will all
survive this.
Although this has slowed our progress, those
of us who are job seeking should know that
there are still many good jobs to be found.
It may not be the dream job we are all hoping
for and for sure it is not the robust economy
we previously enjoyed but let’s be confident in
knowing that there is work if we look for it.
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Unfortunately an employers’ market makes
job finding more difficult as there are more
unemployed candidates looking for work then
there are available jobs, but if we are willing
to be creative and flexible in our thinking, we
can find work. Patience and persistence are of
paramount importance.
Recessions can definitely affect our choices
in regards to our life and work dreams in that
we may have to just get a job, any job to keep
paying our bills, but I want to assure you that
this recession will lift and our economy will
return to it’s normal buoyant state of affairs.
The point I want to make is don’t give up
thinking and moving towards your life and work
dreams. Certainly we may have to make some
adjustments and compromises, but remember
that our dreams are still our personal blueprint
for our life and work.
“Our progress may be slowed, but let’s keep moving our dream”
LIFE AND WORK DREAMS
No matter what the times may bring we want to
make our life and work dreams come to be our
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delightful reality. In fact I find when times are
tough, more that ever I want to stay focused
on my dreams and goals. I chomp at the bit
trying in every way to keep my goals moving
forward, even if it’s inch by inch.
It’s very natural to want to be enjoying our
good life right now and it takes great discipline
and patience to stay the course when we hit
storms and challenges which really slow our
progress. It’s good to know that nothing can
stand in the way of achieving our goals, if we
continue to pursue them with a passion. Let’s
always keep in mind that we are the only ones
who can quit on ourselves and we’re not going
to quit.
Even when things are moving along, it’s good to
know that dreams can take a lifetime. The bigger
the dream the longer it takes and having a dream
that takes us a lifetime to realize is a good
thing too.
“Keep moving inch by inch”
UPGRADING OUR DREAMS
Always before some goal becomes a reality in
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my life, I go through a deeply unsettled stage
where I am no longer totally happy to live on
yesterdays’ dreams and accomplishments. I get
impatient and I want to bring in the new... today.
The dreams and goals I was passionate about
five or ten years ago no longer hold my attention,
they have lost their shine. I have changed and
my dreams have changed. Often this is because
I have realized many of these dreams, but
mostly it’s because I have grown on many levels
and see things differently today.
My vision of goodness is constant but my needs
and circumstances change with time and insight.
Certainly I am grateful for all the blessings
I’ve enjoyed in the past, but I am looking up at
another hill to climb and it is looking very good.
I want to move on and stay in tandem with my
vision, upgrade my dreams and keep my creative
energy flowing.
“Always follow your passion”
OUR GOOD AWAITS US
Although we may love the good life we have
created thus far, we may find ourselves
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restless to start on another journey. We can
see the good that is awaiting us and it looks
soooooo good. But we may also see the good
situation we are presently in and this can create
some uncertainty as to what we should do.
The unsettling feeling is not knowing whether
to stay and make the most of what we have,
or should we put ourselves on the line again
and start climbing. The new dream stirs our
emotions and give us a rush of enthusiasm.
“A new dream buzzes me with irrepressible energy and enthusiasm and I can’t
seem to let it go. Thinking about it gives me such a great feeling. What a rush! “
I hear people enthusiastically express this
same sentiment when they dream of doing
something new and exciting with their lives.
This rush of enthusiasm is a great motivator,
an unbelievable force which can help create a
dream.
NO ONE CAN MAKE THE DECISION
FOR US
The ‘should I stay or should I go’ is for
us to decide, but I strongly advise that we
get honest input from those whom we trust.
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Often when a choice is good for us either way,
both the should I go or should I stay is a
win-win. Either staying with what we have or
making our move to a new goal will not set us
back. Both are winners.
When there is no right or wrong, when both
choices stack up evenly, this means that we
can confidently choose either paths and they
will take us to the destination we want to go.
“The biggest decision we face is to follow our passion”
HAVE A LONG TERM DREAM
“All major achievers in any field of involvement are long term goals setters.
That is not to say that they do not set short term goals—they do, but only as
a filling or progressive step toward the ultimate goal.” – Peter Daniels
“ I have long term goals, short term goals and everyday goals.”
We all need to have small, medium and big
dreams to enjoy as we need to have long, short
and medium length goals to work on.
The only way I know how to stay motivated
under all and any circumstance is to have a
long- term goal that I am constantly working
on. Many of my dreams I have had since I was
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about twelve years of age. I wanted to make a
positive difference in life then as I do now. As
my sister says, I have a prosperity mentality and
I take that as a compliment. I want to make
everything I am involved with more fun, more
meaningful, more beautiful, filled with love, joy,
healing, hope and every goodness imaginable.
Simply put “I am a cheerleader in life.”
I try hard not to do the negatives as I see how
destructive this can be. It takes the sunshine
out of life and destroys the goodness we need
to succeed so let’s always strive to build up
everything we possibly can, always doing the
best we can for ourself and others.
ASPIRE TO SOMETHING GREATER
THAN YOURSELF
“Find a purposeful dream that is greater than yourself. “
We must look for a goal that will benefit
ourselves and others. Let’s aspire to do
something GREAT. Always look for a vision
of what we can build on for the rest of our
life. We need to find a dream big enough that
we will need others to share in it’s building
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as this will share the fun and create a legacy.
Having a magnificent dream greatly reduces the
trivial dilemmas we all face in life and certainly
we’ve all wasted time on things that were
not worth our while, but on the bright side
these experiences have redirected us. So let’s
spend our divine life’s energy on creating every
goodness imaginable.
YOUNG DREAMS
Years ago when I was a young girl of 19 I
competed in beauty pageants. This was kind of
a cool thing to do back in the early 70’s and at
the time I thoroughly enjoyed myself. But as I
grew up and matured I realized that no amount
of make up, nor the right designer fashion, hairdo or primping could make me feel as good as
having a big dream I loved working on. Certainly
taking care of ourselves is perfect and we do
want to look our very best, but feeling good
inside about what we are doing with our lives
makes us look and feel fabulous.
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SPENDING OUR RESOURCES
Cleaning our home and making sure we look
great is very good but let’s remember that these
things will not outlive us. Our dreams and
achievements will.
If we love doing this and it’s one of our
passions, then that’s the right thing for us to
do. But we have to be mindful on how and what
we spend our precious life on. Time is truly
one of our most valuable assets.
I caution us all to watch closely where and
how we spend our life’s best resources.
Let’s consider achieving something that will
have a positive impact and permanence in life.
Let’s minimize how much time and money we
spend on things that don’t really count in the
whole scheme of things. Now I am not saying
that keeping a clean home and taking good care
of ourselves is a waste of time. It is very
important – but it is the stage setting for our
big life.
Let’s always separate what is our big goal in
life and what is background. We want to work
on something big, something with residual value,
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something that will stay evergreen over time. We
want to move some good dream that will never
go out of style. Do something that will bless
us and others.
We all need to have a long-term view of our
future and what goals we aspire to bring into
our lives. We need to find our own legacy dream
that will live on long after we are gone.
THE TOUGH TIMES WE ALL FACE
Over the past thirty-five years that I have
been in the work force, there have been many
corrections, reversals, recessions, booms and
busts. The good thing I have learned from
these is that they do come and go and always
when a recovery comes, we find that there is a
great pent-up demand for almost every type of
goods and services.
The jobs, the money, the homes and the
possessions we lose during the downturns, we
can always replace as long as we don’t lose our
faith and give up.
When we have a life dream of goodness and
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greatness, we come to know that our energy
and focus is best directed towards constantly
moving our dreams. We know that moving
our dreams is the best investment of our
resources. Material things depreciate and over a
lifetime they come and go.
For example if we consider how many homes
we’ve had, all the cars we’ve enjoyed, and all the
other material goods that have come and gone
in our lives, although they have all been a great
blessing, we know that these were the props in
our lives and not the main event.
It was all the love, the amazing relationships,
the incredible experiences, the learning and
growing, the victories and successes that we
remember best and that still lives on in our
heart.
Let’s look for the real things that will build
an incredible life, not the filler things that just
gobble our time, money and energy and give us
angst.
“It’s the goodness that lives on”
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“MONEY CAN’T BUY ME LOVE”
– The Beatles
If we are going through a very hard time
emotionally and financially, let’s remember to
keep up our relationships, with our significant
other, our children, family, friends and
coworkers. Yes it is very distressing to say the
least to lose our material things and to have to
watch every penny we spend. I have been there
done that and many times.
But let’s focus on trying our best to make life
as good as we possibly can with whatever we
have and not waste our precious time doing the
negatives. Let’s know that the times will change
and money and good times will come around
again. Hurrah! We will not starve. We will
survive and we will find work and abundance. But
if we lose precious time with those we love, if
we waste time in doom and gloom, truly this is
a loss that we can never recoup.
“Always do damage control, stay focused on what’s important”
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FOCUSING ON THE RIGHT THINGS
“We continually have to make ourselves aware on the incredible power we have
within.”
I know of a sure way to live life well in spite
of all reversals, depressions, recessions and the
ups and downs we encounter in life. First of all
we need to take responsibility for our own life.
If we don’t take responsibility for ourselves,
we feel like victims and feel helpless and
downtrodden. This weakens us and takes us out
of the drivers’ seat. Let’s remember that we are
our best asset.
We need to believe in ourselves and to get to
know ourselves well. We need to know that we
have the resources to do something positive
when troubles befalls us. We can survive, we
can thrive when we look for all and every way to
make a go of the tough situations we all find
ourselves in from time to time.
Keep in mind that there is always a solution,
some way around the potential calamities that
come our way. The power is within us, not
outside of us. We can and need to take care of
ourselves. We can always make a good life for
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ourselves and others. Let’s always remember:
“We are not victims. We are victors”.
MEETING OUR CHALLENGES
When we face challenges let’s know that deep
within us we have the strength and the smarts
to find a successful way to overcome our
difficulties. We have more resources than
we even know until we need to come up with
solutions to our problems.
When I ask people who have overcome great
odds and incredible adversity how they managed,
they tell me how they just used good common
sense, they simply did what they had to do and
pressed on until the tides turned. Very often
they say there was nothing else to do but to
hold on and survive their disaster as best as
they could. And succeed they did as we can
too.
GETTING PREPARED FOR SUCCESS
We always need to work on getting ready for
success before our opportunity appears.
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Everyday let’s work on preparing ourselves as
we grow comfortable with our big dreams.
Let’s find something we can do to improve our
chances for succeeding in what we want to do
with our lives. Let’s never miss an opportunity
to work on our dreams everyday. This is called
growing into our greatness.
We can do visualization, reading, brushing up
our skills, finding a mentor, checking out a work
environment we would like to work in, doing
internet or library browsing and networking with
people who can help us move our dreams. The
sky is the limit as to what we can work at to
prepare ourselves for accepting our big dream
into our lives. We can never over-prepare for
our success.
Most often it is not comfortable when we
zoom up or down in our life and work status.
It is always best to move step by small step
because we need to grow and shape ourselves
as we create our big life and our big work
dream.
It’s important that we feel comfortable with
our life and with ourselves and that our life
always reflects who we are on the inside.
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Our lives and our work should be a synergized
partnership and in balance with one another.
Slow personal growth is often permanent and
well rooted.
“Be solid, stable and sustainable.”
THE WORK THAT I DO
In the work that I do, I meet with people
looking for work all the time. Many of them
want to find work that not only pays well but
is work they enjoy and expresses who they
really are. They hope to find a way to grow into
careers that will keep them interested, growing
and going for a lifetime. Most people don’t want
stops and starts, a hit and miss work history.
Most often I spend as much time careercoaching people that I meet with as I do
helping them find a job. It’s very important to
find work that fits us well on many levels. Life
is just too short to put in time waiting to find
the work we love and that’s why we need to
co-create our own opportunities.
“Participate in your life choices”
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OUR MARK OF DISTINCTION
I encourage job seekers to explore their inner
resources so they can see what assets and
qualities they possess that make them stand
out.
We need to claim and be comfortable with
the raw materials we are working with. We
need to discover and tap into our aptitudes,
talents, gifts, interests, experiences, education,
inner wisdom, personality, successes, awards,
accomplishments, beliefs, goals, strengths and
needs. We need to do an inventory of all our
assets and inner-resources and last but not
least we need to develop self-confidence and
pride in our own abilities.
CAREER COACHING
Certainly I do my best to help my job seekers
prepare a good resume and help them prepare
to successfully find work. I coach them up
on how to present themselves in an interview, I
work to remove barriers they may be facing, I
give them tips of where to look for work and
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most importantly I try to help them build up
their self-confidence. In other words, I am on
their side and pulling for them, and I really want
them to succeed.
“Sometimes without even knowing or intending to do this, we are the ones who
get in the way of our success.”
BE JOB READY
Unfortunately many times these good people
keep coming back to me still looking for work.
My girlfriend laughingly asked me “is it because
you’re not doing a good job?”
I wish it were that simple.
What I’m finding is that most of these good
people that are still looking for work one year
later are still looking for work because they
are not fully job ready. Often they are very
frustrated and don’t understand why it is that
they are still unemployed when they believe that
they are engaging their best efforts and yet they
are still not connecting with work.
Unfortunately more often than not they are
sabotaging their own chances of success by
not being fully prepared for their job search.
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Their resume, interview style, attitude, dress and
behavior often needs a little tweaking. There are
as many reasons as there are excuses why we
can’t seem to connect with work we love and
we need to soul search to find what barriers
we need to overcome.
There is no shame in having difficulty finding
work, but we need to use our best effort to
prepare and present ourselves in a professional
way. We need to learn how to put our best
foot forward and we can learn this through
reading and participating in career workshops and
career coaching.
Preparing a good resume, knowing how to sell
ourselves, being polished and prepared, having a
positive attitude and knowing how to interview
well will truly make a world of difference.
“Give it your best”
OUR OPTIONS
If you are having problems finding work, I can
suggest one of three options.
The first option is to get someone who is
knowledgeable to help coach you up in resume
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writing and who will coach you right through
the whole process of the job search. At the
very least read all the material you can on
this subject. If you find you are stuck and
don’t know what needs to be changed, get a
professional opinion. It will be well worth it.
Secondly do volunteer work or work part-
time in the area you are wanting to find work
in and this will give you more experience and
confidence when you apply for a job in this
area. You will learn the corporate culture
and the language plus build more skills and
contacts.
If you can’t find someone to hire you- ‘Hire
yourself’. Be your own boss. Do your own
thing. Start up your own business in your home
and grow it to fit your needs. Be an entrepreneur
and don’t wait for someone else to offer you a
job. Create your own work and enjoy being selfemployed.
“Action has it’s own reward”
WHEN WE CHOOSE CHANGE
The best way to guard ourselves from failure is
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to be as prepared as we can be for our journey
of change, whether we work as an employee
or choose to be self-employed. We need to
consider all our options, go back to our original
dream and look closely at the map of how we
plan to get there and see if we are staying on
course.
It is a good idea before we take that first step
of our long journey to visualize and test-drive
our life-work dream.
“Remember our dream will be the root from which our good will grow .”
We need to make sure our dream is close to
our heart and is our truest wish for our life.
We need to do due diligence, consider all our
opportunities and choices, imagine how we will
move step by step to make this big adventure
work.
LET’S CHECK OUR REALITIES
When we are making a big change in our work
and life style we need to carefully consider how
our resources match up with the big dreams
we have. We need to be aware of what we can
do and what we will need to get help with to
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move our dreams. The bigger our dreams the
more help we will need.
We will need to check and recheck our
resources as we move our dream along. We
need to ask ourselves how much time do we
have here on earth, how much money, energy,
emotional and physical health do we enjoy,
what is our risk tolerance, the strength in our
relationships, what is our learning capability,
how strong is our tenacity and what are we
prepared to do and risk to move our dream. How
motivated are we? How much support can we
expect from our family, community and/or the
financial institutions.
“The bigger our dream, the bigger our investment”
HAVE AN EXIT PLAN
Most important of all is the strength and depth
of the interest and enthusiasm we have to
create our big life and work dream. Trust me we
can move mountains when we have a deep inner
passion and desire for what we want to do. We
have to have a big heart.
One note here is that we do need to continually
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check our resources and our enthusiasm levels
as things do change quickly as we go along. We
need to make sure that we are still on target
and that we still have the resources we need to
build our life and work dream.
If for some reason we see changes in our
resources, perhaps we find our desire and
interest has waned, maybe our circumstances
have drastically changed, whatever the shift is,
we need to alter our course accordingly. We
need to make the necessary adjustments, be in
tune with our life and work dream. So let’s
always stay current and up to date with our
needs.
“Sometimes we may even need to abandon the dream altogether.”
Although this may be a tough decision and
an even tougher thing to do, we have to
be reasonable and do what we have to do.
Sometimes we need to cut our losses. That’s
life. Never hang on to a dream that is no longer
a deep passion. Find a graceful EXIT plan, take a
breather and then start working on a new dream.
“Dreams make our life worth living. Lose your dream and you lose a vital piece
of yourself”
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CHANGING DIRECTIONS
In the career work we do, we often have people
come to us with a desire to move in a different
direction in their careers than where they have
been. We have Career Coached Olympic athletes
who were craving normal and wanted to settle
into day to day office work. Bank personnel
wanting to go into management, an MBA wanting
to go into movie making. This is all good but
after some discussions we realized this was
just a wish and not really a passion.
Certainly they had some desire to do something
new, but after some conversation with them
we mutually agreed it was not really their true
work, their main dream. In our work we call
this surface grazing.
They’re wanting to settle too quickly into
some gainful employment but have not given
themselves the time to check their options
and come up with a big work dream that is the
perfect fit for them.
Students often settle for less too, just to
ease the pressure put on them to make a
choice, but unfortunately very often this just
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does not work in the end.
“We need to look at all the possibilities and opportunities available to us.”
We need to be open to everything. Explore every
option, every dream and desire and not jump into
something which will move us farther away
from our true work and the life we desire. We
need to give ourselves time to unearth our big
dream.
“Remember all good things take time.”
WE NEED TO FIND OUR OWN LIFE
AND WORK DREAM.
We need to start slow and small and to build
a work life we absolutely adore. We need
to build a dream that is what we wish for
everyday. We need to create work which is
meaningful and expresses our beautiful inner
selves. We cannot rush this vital work. It
takes time to discover our deepest passions and
our heart’s desire and even more time to make
our dreams a reality. We need to give ourselves
plenty of time and our best resources to
unearth and create our amazing destiny.
I strongly recommend that we make a list of
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all the core needs we require in the work we do.
Include everything that is indigenous to our spirit.
Let’s make up a ‘must have’ list of our deepest
desires. These things are respect, professionalism,
using our best interests and talents, growth
potential…each and everything that will make us
truly love our life.
Much too often we will happily spend our time,
money and energy on others but are so frugal
when it comes to investing in ourselves. Let’s
always remember that we are the ‘golden goose’
so we need to invest in ourselves too. The less
we spend on ourselves the more we fall into
disrepair and worse of all our spirits follow suit.
The good news is when we take good care of
ourselves, we build ourselves up: in mind, body and
spirit and it sends a positive message to everyone
we come into contact with. Overall we are
happier, more successful and have a vibrant and
enthusiastic energy about us. We are positive and
believe that all things are possible. Life is good.
Taking good care of ourselves not only blesses
us but others. It is the foundation for our
success.
“Our health is vital”
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SOMETHING TO CONSIDER
It’s a reality check to know that we spend
approximately one quarter of our life at work,
plus another huge chunk of our time preparing
and thinking about our work, so I think it’s
safe to say we better love our work as we give
an enormous amount of our precious life’s
energy to the way we earn our living.
I think it’s also fair to say that sometimes
most of us give every ounce of our energy to
our work. Too often when I talk with people
they tell me how they give ‘their all’ at work
and go home exhausted and need to recoup.
Sounds familiar? So let’s think long and hard
about what we want to do with our life’s
vibrant creative energy. Let’s plan to give our
best when we are at work, but to save plenty to
fully enjoy our personal life.
“It is important to create a comfortable work life balance.”
FINDING OUR TRUE PASSION
To find our true passion in our work and in our
life we need to start by doing mindful thinking
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about what we want and can do with the power
of our divine life’s energy. With pen and paper
we start writing all the little insights which
come to mind. Keep searching and thinking until
you find your true passion, no matter what it
may be. Think about all the needs you must
have fulfilled in your work in order for it to
be positive and meaningful. Remember you are
designing your dream life. Have fun with your
choices. Design in colors, add music and dance.
“Mix things up and create your own beautiful masterpiece.” Enjoy!
“It is not uncommon to try a number of different things before your passion
becomes clear. Experimentation is the only way to figure it out.” – Martha
stewart.
BREAD AND BUTTER DREAMS
“Sometimes we have to accept less to get more.”
When I graduated from University as a teacher
I was disappointed when I didn’t get a job in
teaching. I was needing the income and had
planned on earning, but unfortunately it didn’t
quite work out like I had planned.
Gary was studying at this time at the University
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and we had our young son Dustin, so recognizing
that I needed to earn I applied for a teacher’s
aide position and got it. It wasn’t teaching but
it turned out to be a great position, possibly
one of the jobs I have enjoyed the most.
I had to accept less to keep moving towards my
big goal of teaching. I didn’t have the luxury of
time to wait for my dream job to come along. I
had to take responsibility and find a way to earn
our bread and butter and I had to choose my
options and make the best of the situation.
Fortunately a few months later, I was offered
a full-time teaching position in my area of
expertise. Being already employed with the
school board gave me a great reference from the
inside. The teacher’s aide position set me up
for success.
“Just get a job, don’t worry about your career now”
– Suzi Orman
Most often in life we don’t have the luxury to
take our time to think about what work we
would like to do, nor have the financial freedom
to try different jobs to see what we like.
Usually we need to work right now. We need to
get earning to pay the bills. We just need to find
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work and do our best to get along.
I would say this is true for most of us.
However as we do our bread and butter work,
let’s keep dreaming about our big life and our
work dream as this is our destiny. Let’s keep
our dream alive, by not giving up on ourselves.
The time will come when we will pull out our
deferred dreams, brush off the dust and start
working on making them real.
SIDELINES
Keeping our big dreams alive makes us aware that
working at our bread and butter jobs is just
one of the side roads on our life’s journey.
Let’s work these little dreams with enthusiasm
and gratitude because we never know where they
will take us. Certainly they will bring us one
step closer to our goal and we will surely get
there if we stay the course and always give it
our best effort.
Guaranteed it will be well worth it.
I am quite certain that most of us have
worked at jobs that are much smaller than our
spirit and that only a few of us work doing
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entirely what we love. But always it is better to
work at something than to wait around for our
dream job to come knocking at our door as we
may be left waiting for a long time.
And while we do our little jobs, let’s always
put our backs into doing a fabulous job. This
will pay off spades in the long run.
“Let’s learn to be content and happy no matter what circumstances we find
ourselves in.”
KEEP ASKING, SEEKING AND
KNOCKING
Getting out and finding work we can do whether it
be in a corporation or starting our own business
gets us out there, coming across people and ideas
that usually lead us to our next step.
Never just sit at home frustrated and waiting for
the big opportunity. Just keep Asking, Seeking and
Knocking. Work at something even if it only fits
into your short-term plans. Waiting for the big
Kahuna is like waiting to win the lottery and that’s
not likely.
“It all adds up”
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WHERE DO WE START
We need long and short-term plans and we need
to consider how we are going to get from where
we are to where we want to go. We need a life
map to give us direction and to have a blue print
of how we can confidently move step by step
towards our desired destination. We need to
think deeply about what our passions are, what
gives us energy and what it is we absolutely love
to do.
I love walking on the beach, sun-tanning and
people watching, sitting in beautiful nature,
having great conversations, I love people of every
kind, writing, painting, teaching and … on and on
it goes. We all need to think through all the
things that gives us energy and come up with
our own list of what WE LOVE to do.
Think about what makes the time fly by and
gives you a feeling like you love your life, like
life is superb. What gives your life meaning and
purpose, what could you share with others
and it would bless both you, the giver and the
receiver?
We need to do an inventory of our resources,
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our ideas, our gifts, our talents, our abilities,
even our limitations and come up with an idea of
what gives us the most joy and pleasure.
Maybe you already know what you want to do,
you have found your life’s dream but you find
that something is still holding you back from
launching it.
“Listen to your heart”
WE NEED TO GROW
If you are hesitant, you may need to do more
growing into your dream, work out more of
the details, do more preparation and wait for an
opportune time.
I found myself in this position with publishing
my books when my children were younger and we
were building up our firm. There was so little
time to get what needed to be done in a day, let
alone to write and publish books. Certainly it
has been done, but I chose to do one thing at
a time and leave the writing for later, when I
could have more time to savor and enjoy it.
At the time I didn’t want it to be one more
commitment added on to my hectic schedule.
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What I needed most then was free time to take
a breath and balance my life.
By nature I am not a fast-paced type of
person, sleep deprived and giving on empty. I
need order, calm, beauty and to take the time to
do what I need to do. I want to savor and enjoy
every delicious moment. I don’t want life to go
by in a frenzied blur. I believe we all need time,
peace and calm just to stay sane. We all want
to enjoy every moment we can and live our best
dream of abundance.
LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN
Let’s not look at this experience of finding our
life/work dream as a hardship or as difficult
work. Rather let’s see it as a gift, a great
opportunity, a fun and rewarding adventure we
have so looked forward to our whole life. The
time has come for us to pursue our own
dreams. WOW! It’s time to do the dance of
joy for sure. ENJOY!!
My passion is to write as I travel around the
world meeting new people and seeing amazing
places, helping where ever I can. I want to
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walk the beach and sit pool side to work. I
don’t want to do day to day work as in a job
box and have my time directed by someone
else. If I seem to encourage you to be an
entrepreneur it is because this has worked so
well for me for the past 28 years. I am so
grateful that I have been able to flex my time
and be my own boss.
“The trend today is to ditch the airless cubicles and become a digital nomad,
working pool side.”
FINDING OUR WORK STYLE
Certainly being my own boss has not always
been a bed of roses, but it has suited my needs.
I know however that being an entrepreneur
is not for everyone. Certainly this is not
one size fits all. We are all so different and
have different wants and needs so I will
enthusiastically present different modes of
work.
“How we choose to live everyday is the heaven or hell we make of our lives”
We must understand that the present situation
we find ourselves in today has a lot to do with
the choices we’ve made in the past and are still
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making. We are our own boss, even if we let
someone else decide for us. Whether we work
for ourselves or for someone else, we have to
work like we own the company. That will make
the day fly and give us more satisfaction.
When we want to change we have to get in the
driver’s seat of our lives and be responsible
for our own life journey. We have to lose our
victim mentality and stand up for ourselves. We
need to act in a fair, focused and purposeful
way. Stick our necks out a bit and take
measurable risk. We need to get on it. Consider
all our opportunities great and small and get
started. We alone know what will work best for
us.
We need the attitude that; “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”
– Dr. R.H. Schuller
“Be responsible for your own life. No one can make you feel anything or any
way without your permission.”
– James Arthur Ray
We are our own boss. No one and nobody has
the power to change our lives like we do. We
know what we love and we are the ones who
can change our lives. Our lives are the reality of
what we think and dream of.
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“We are so much more than what we see. We are more than what we believe we
are and we are certainly greater than the problems we face.”
STRONG AND RESILIENT
We human beings are remarkably resilient when
faced with set-backs and challenges. We are
so much stronger, smarter, capable and able to
do great things than we know. When we face
adversity and trauma, we have inner resources
that help us to stabilize, rebound and recover.
Our inner instinct of survival clicks in and helps
to restore our equilibrium. It’s amazing the
strength and power we have when we need it.
This incredible energy is what we tap into when
we struggle and push hard to make our good
life.
In my work, I meet with people of all ages and
backgrounds and I hear incredible chicken soup
stories about their recovery and overcoming in
horrendously adverse and difficult situations.
Their stories, which they share so freely
always energize me and keep me working and
motivated to try my best to help them.
It is for all these good people who I meet
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and work with that I want to share this book.
They have inspired me and I hope I can inspire
them.
Vicariously I have learned so much about
human strength and how determination and hard
work is the fuel that drives our dreams. I have
come to see that there is very little in life that
cannot be accomplished or improved upon, if
we set our mind to make a positive difference.
We leave our indelible mark when we strive to
create goodness and our success is everyone’s
success. When we build a big beautiful dream,
we often leave our wonderful legacy for others
to continue working on. One thing for sure is
that when we bravely create a successful and
inspiring dream, it works it magic moving people
to greatness for years way beyond ours.
LET’S DROP FAILURE OUT OF OUR VOCAB
It’s always inspiring to read about people in our
own family or in history that have succeeded.
Brave and courageous ordinary people who just
refused to quit and did extraordinary things
with their lives. Somehow they found a way.
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Truly success never seems to come easily
because we need to grow on many levels to be
successful. Only where there is a will and a
strong one at that, is there a way. Success is
hard earned, it is not surface stuff. It takes
digging deep and giving it all we’ve got. It is using
our mind, body, heart and spirit to come up
with solutions to problems. It is working on
our challenges until we overcome our problems.
It is eliminating failure from our minds and
placing our focus on achieving success no
matter how long it takes.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work.” – Thomas Edison
OVERCOMING
Time, diligent effort, mindfulness and faith will
help us survive and overcome the barriers and
difficulties we face. Cheerfully we need to do
the things we need to do in order to move our
dreams. The tougher the challenges the deeper
we need to stand our ground and hold our own,
believing in our heart that anything is possible.
Crisis management means using gifts we never
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knew we had until we needed them. And most
of us never know how deep our reservoir of
resources is until we need to start drawing on
these reserves. When times are dark and scary,
we need to push forward motivated by an inner
knowing that our goodness awaits us at the end
of the tunnel. Thankfully we will overcome.
FINDING SOLUTIONS TO OUR
PROBLEMS
“Please don’t wait for the solutions to your problems to magically appear.”
– Dr. R. H. Schuller
Truly something magical seems to happen to us
when we are forced to move out of our comfy
corner and we need to come up with creative
and resourceful ways to deal with big problems.
There are times when we simply cannot retreat,
when the stakes are just too high and we have
to quickly come up with good ideas. We need
holding power, we need to stay calm and we need
to come up with the best solutions to our
problems.
Never ever panic and don’t retreat.
“Suffice to say we lose ground fast when we retreat.”
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OUR STORY OF (barely) SURVIVING
A DEEP RECESSION
I will share a personal story of finding our
good during a very bad time. In 1981 my husband
Gary’s business had four successful years and
seemed to be established and doing well so I
decided it was time to quit full-time teaching,
have a baby and be a stay at home mom to our
older son and the new baby on the way.
So I left my work, we bought our first home,
bought a new piano, got a little kitty cat,
decorated our baby’s room, put in a garden and
settled into our new home. We were living our
big happy family dream.
I clearly remember finishing painting the new
fence around our front courtyard and after
enjoying a baby shower with my new neighbors,
gave birth to our baby son on Thanksgiving
weekend. Oh MY! We had so much to be
thankful for. We were living our dream come
true. This was our heaven on earth.
“A few months later the deep recession of 1981 set in with a vengeance and
it seems like over night our booming economy and our little piece of heaven
disappeared.”
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What a harsh and deep recession we found
ourselves in. What a struggle to stay afloat.
We were not alone, everyone (well it seemed
like everyone) was struggling too. We had never
experienced anything like this before. We were
like fish out of water, not knowing where to
turn or what to do. Oh My! Was it ever, ever a
difficult experience!
DAMAGE CONTROL
We soon realized that we could not sit on our
hands and wail like banshees. We needed to do
damage control and to get going on something
and fast. First off we both tried to get jobs
as our business was on the ropes. Immediately
I thought of going back to full-time teaching,
as this would solve a lot of our problems. But
due to the mass exodus we were experiencing
in our city as Corporations were closing
their doors, I was told that they were laying
off teachers and not hiring due to a declining
enrollment. Yikes.
But fortunately Gary did better than I and
found some bits and pieces of contract work
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doing drafting and graphics projects. This earning
was still not enough to keep our home fires
burning so we looked at all our other options
and as both Gary and I have an Art education
we decided to start Evergreen Workshops
teaching art classes to children in our
community. It didn’t pay the mortgage but at
least it kept us in grocery money and we enjoyed
thinking of something as timeless as Art, as
our corporate and financial life was a Major
stressor. So everyday we needed to look for
healing and healthy ways to detox and unwind.
We often went camping and hiking in the
country. We did our art and lots of gardening
and we stayed connected to our family, friends
and community.
No matter how hard it got, we always had
a celebration dinner on Thursday nights.
Thursdays because it gave us something midweek to look forward to. This special meal
was an inexpensive home-made feast and the
table was always dressed up with wild flowers
or branches in the winter. We continued this
tradition for many years and as our cheeky sons
grew up, they called the center pieces ‘mom’s
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forests.’
The good thing is that Gary painted many of
those delightful bouquets from our garden
and walks in nature. Many of these we sold to
generate income, but fortunately we still have
at least a dozen of these ‘hard times’ paintings.
They are beautiful, happy, bright and colorful
works of art in home-made frames and today
they have become a special part of our history.
Now almost thirty years later, many seasons
have come and gone and we still have family
art to warm up our home and our office. We
all paint, Gary paints and does sculpture and
our youngest son Jonah blows beautiful and
colorful glass art pieces. My! How history
repeats itself!
“We need interests, passions, loves and hobbies to make life worth living
when times are tough. “
NO TIME WASTED
Like all recessions, times were tough but
fortunately we knew that we had no time to
waste. Our babies were growing and we couldn’t
miss any opportunity to make a happy childhood
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for them. We fully understood that time never
stands still, patiently waiting for us to have
everything right in our life. We did our best to
home-grow our good times and created many
wonderful memories that we still cherish
today. One thing I know for sure, “ Don’t wait for the
right moment to come, later is often too late.”
SALVAGING WHAT WE CAN
I can tell you that we very narrowly escaped
losing our home and business, but we did
survive and gratefully came out of it albeit with
years of debts to pay off.
But this set back set us up for life because
we learned in our early thirties to be very
careful with our money. ‘Always save for a
rainy day’ was one of the lessons we took to
heart.
Truly we never know what twists and turns
life has in store for us. Forever since, we have
never spent our last dime and that helps us to
manage when things get tough.
This was a good lesson well learned that has
saved our bacon countless times as we have
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experienced several other nasty recessions.
I think so far we have survived at least five
corrections in almost thirty years. I guess
it keeps our survival skills tuned up and each
downturn has certainly grown and shaped us in
a positive way.
“You never want to waste all the opportunities that come with a crisis.”
Reversals I’ve found are great opportunities
for learning and growing and this is something
we all need to do. But the gift for us was that
this near disaster made us so much wiser on
a multitude of levels. I shudder to think how
my life would be like today if I had never had
a reversal before now. For certain I would not
be prepared for the realities of life. The 1981
recession, painful as it was, made us so down
to earth and grateful for every good little thing
that comes into our lives. It was a good reality
check.
“We truly appreciate every little morsel of goodness. Blessings bring
sunshine”
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THE CONSTANTS IN OUR LIFE
Our work life has been re-shaped and re-invented
more times than I can count. Each economic
downturn has brought different strategies and plans.
There has been Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and on infinitum
and all have been put into practice and changed up
as things have shifted. The learning curves have been
tremendous and the new lingo and buzz words have
come and gone.
Fortunately interest and energy to keep growing and
learning has never waned. In fact we keep getting
a second wind after every storm and this is good
because there is always a major re-building after
every recession.
Personally we too have had to constantly reinvent and
re-tool ourselves just to keep pace with the ever
changing needs.
Change will always be a constant in our work and
in our lives and we have to be flexible and quick to
adjust or we’ll be left behind. Each change certainly
brings a new learning curve but it also brings
indescribable opportunities and possibilities for a
better life. That’s the exciting part. The new dreams
that come are amazing. We never stand still.
“There is always something to be excited about”
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BALANCE
How we keep our sanity and balance is to know
what energizes us and to make sure we make
room in our busy lives to do what we enjoy
and to spend quality time with those we love.
I suggest we all make a list of the ‘must dos’
we want to make time for everyday.
To give you an example, mine are: get fresh air
everyday, enjoy some sunshine, exercise, eat
well, pray/mediate, rest properly, connect with
those I love and enjoy, and generally be positive
and in tune with life…
Of course this is just the overlay to my day
as I work and play. It helps me to stay more
healthy and balanced no matter what comes in
and out of my life.
Always we need to find a way to make our
work and our life more meaningful and fun.
Having a keen sense of humor is paramount to
maintaining sanity in a fast-paced, and changing
environment and being cheerful and positive is
like putting sunshine in life. It warms our
hearts and those we come into contact with.
It’s amazing how much better we all feel
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when we look for the light side and not let
everything upset us. The best thing to do in all
circumstances is to be kind to ourselves and
others. Try not to get riled by the big and petty
things.
“ Keep growing and enjoying the many facets of your lives. I believe that
when we fully realize how short and precious life is, we manage balance much
better”.
DON’T SWEAT IT, BE COOL AND CALM
We must practice being cool reactors, taking
the high road and playing down potential drama
and calamities. We need to stay out of office
politics, remain centered and keep our focus.
We need to have a life work dream that we are
following step by step. We need to look for
ways to enjoy every little thing, to take the best
from every situation and to leave the rest which
is usually unimportant anyway.
“We need to be our own best friends first.”
NEVER PANIC
We need to really believe that worry and panic is
useless and a total waste of our energies and
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often we need to read the Serenity Prayer. It
goes like this:
“God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change; courage
to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Help me
live one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
Fortunately for us we own our own business
and can flex our time so that when we need a
break, if we’re not busy we can do our own
thing. We can go for a walk, have a coffee,
read, exercise, have a chat, whatever it takes to
refresh and restore.
Always we try to balance work with play. This
is a healthy attitude that is a priority for us.
We try to stay fresh and recharged so that we
can enjoy as much of our life as possible.
“How we live our life is very important to us. We know we can make a positive
difference. We all can.”
THRIVING IN RECESSIONS AND
DOWNTURNS
When we come into reversals in our economy
that negatively affects our business and
consequently our cash flow, we always have
to look for ways to positively mark our time
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for something good, while we wait out the
downturn.
After surviving the 1981/82 recession which
was deep and nasty, we have never considered
retreating and giving up. Now we know there is
always a way to find our good and so we look
for every way to still move our dream, no matter
how dismal the future looks.
We spend our time writing, painting, sculpting,
and doing home renovations. From the lessons
we have learned in previous downturns, we know
that keeping our dreams alive in some way is the
best antidote to surviving difficult times. It
keeps the time waiting from being a waste land.
The time we spend waiting for our economy
to bounce back is always well spent. Like a
sabbatical, we learn, grow and work on new
projects. It has always been a fruitful time.
By necessity we are creative, resourceful and
prudent. We know that time is our greatest
asset so we try to use it well and get at
the things which moves our big dream in life.
Certainly it makes for an amazingly interesting
life.
“How do you want to spend your gift of time
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FIGURING OUT LIFE
There is always an ebb and flow to life, and
we are learning to accept the ups and downs
much better as we go along. Certainly we are
always on a learning curve as it is never easy
maneuvering the downs but we are getting better
equipped as we go along to find resourceful and
productive ways to manage these slumps. . It
helps to remember that good things take time.
That things go forward, backwards and sideways
and that we are forever walking on the shifting
sands of time.
We all need to have a forward thinking plan,
the ‘make hay while the sun shines’ attitude
to take advantage of the boom times so we
can put a little extra aside for the lean times.
And we need good survival skills to cope when
the foundation collapses, as well as a lot of
holding power for all the in- between times.
Internally we need to live well in all times, never
to let all the drama around us dictate who we
are and how we live out our amazing life. We
need to know and respect who we are and to
find creative ways to fill our need to feel loved,
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happy, fulfilled and loving our life. Over all we
need to know and appreciate that we are humans
and we too are changing and evolving and this is a
good thing. “When one door closes, another wider one opens.”
PRIMING THE PUMP
And last of all Gary and I know that we always
need to hold something back to prime the pump
for the dry times when we find ourselves in
a desert. Certainly it’s important to share
and give generously to others, but we need to
keep a reserve of energy and resources to keep
ourselves going and doing our thing. We never
want to run ourselves dry.
We all need to develop the attitude that “if it’s going
to be, it’s up to me.” – Dr. R.H. Schuller
We should also know that we cannot expect
life or others to make us happy and to take
care of us. We need to be responsible for
ourselves. No matter how incapable, weak or
lacking in skills we may feel, let’s never give up
the opportunity to build our skills and self-
esteem and to find our own way in life. Relying
on outside sources to bring us our good gives
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away our power and makes us feel helpless. We
want to feel strong, capable and self-assured.
“It is up to us how we choose to use our creative energies and resources”.
BEING CREATIVE AND RESOURCEFUL
When we need to work and we are desperately
looking for a job, it will move things along more
quickly if we research where there is work and
look for what needs to be done. We may not
find work that is tailor made for us, but often
when we give it our best, this work turns out
to be a blessing for us. We need to really use
all our resources and be innovative in creating
work for ourselves. It’s always best to keep
working at something whether we need to retrain or try a completely new industry.
THE WAITING GAME
Waiting out a recession or waiting for the
perfect job is not a good idea. It breaks our
momentum and leaves a gap in our resume. The
waiting and uncertainty I’m often told can be
very deflating and keeps us on edge wondering
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when our work opportunity is going to come
along. It is best to go find a need, anything that
we can do and work it with gratitude. We just
can’t give up, we have to try hard. We have to
give job finding our best.
THERE IS ALWAYS SOME WORK WE
CAN DO
Yesterday I interviewed a vibrant young lady who
was a business woman at the early age of 19.
When she couldn’t find a job, because of a
slow down in the markets, she started her own
little painting company. Her previous summer
work with College Pro Painters had given her
the skills and experience she needed to do her
own start up. She had learned how to quote a
paint job, do the buying, the equipment rental
and most of all how to please the clients.
So she and her four employees found clients
and worked all summer painting and enjoying
themselves. I was so impressed.
She made a bundle of money that summer,
enough to travel to the South Pacific and now
she was back from her world travels and looking
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for gainful employment with our firm. Her new
goal now is to save enough to study nursing
and I have no doubts that she will achieve her
heart’s desire.
“Use your imagination”
BEING OUR OWN BOSS
“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” – Tiger Woods
We too can create our own work, simply by
looking for a need and filling it. There is always
work, no matter how dire the times are. It may
not be our dream job, or a high paying full-time
job, but we need to know that there is always
work and goodness to be found.
We can do our own start up, we can work
more than one job, we can do several small
jobs, we can work part-time, we can always find
something to do that will pay the bills.
Let’s think of all the different things we can
do to earn our living. What skills and services
can we offer for hire that we can profit from?
Let’s think of ourselves as our own little
company doing what we can do working the
hours we have. What would be possible for us
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to do? Think of what service or business you
can run without a start up cost or overhead.
Think hard how you can generate some income
and go do it.
“We can’t do everything, but we can always do something”
STARTING OUR OWN BUSINESS
I started doing staffing when my youngest son
was a baby and our oldest son was in grade two
at our community school. I had a desk and
telephone in my laundry room as this happened
to be the only place we had room for my little
office. When baby was asleep and all was quiet,
I made cold calls and did my recruiting and
staffing from home. I got child-care when I
needed to do interviews and appointments. It
was the best of both worlds and fortunately it
worked out very well for me.
I chose to be at home so I could do a load
of laundry, prepare meals but most of all enjoy
quality time with my growing children. I don’t
think my sons knew I really worked because
I was not stressed out about my work/life
balance. My priority was my children first and
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whatever work I was able to do I was grateful
for. I had realistic expectations and that
helped.
REALITY CHECK: Some days were long and
busy, but truly overall it all balanced out.
MY WORK TODAY
Today our staffing company has grown, my
children have grown, I have grown too and now
I enjoy working in a beautiful office (which my
husband and sons have built) but I still don’t
mind working from home. I find that it balances
my energy and often I can get more done. Most
days, not always, I am able to balance my life
and work as it suits me. I have less stress and
less need to retire as I love my life. What a
gift!
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DOING SURVIVAL WORK
“It is time to try our wings, gain some altitude and see the world from above,
get a different perspective of things. Perhaps we have followed others’ advice
and wishes for our lives, tried to be a people pleaser, kept the peace, took
the back seat or simply needed to work two jobs just to keep a roof over our
head.”
Whatever our situation is, we can always
change it if we choose to. I can’t tell you all
the changes and rearrangements and growing I
have experienced in my life as my life and my
work have morphed along.
My partner Gary and I have both worked two
jobs, owned several companies, have had many
investments in a variety of things and have asked,
seeked and knocked on many, many doors looking
for our good.
I would be lying if I said we have always loved
our work but whatever we worked at was a
stepping- stone to where we needed to go. Many
times we did survival work just to keep money
coming in and everything going.
Most of us have worked at jobs we didn’t enjoy
just to survive and to keep the cash flowing in
and certainly working two jobs doing work that
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is beneath our skills and expectations has been
trying - to say the least. But we do the best
we can to create a better life for ourselves and
those we love. Remember we are getting ahead.
Slowing but surely.
Again most of us need to earn and are willing
to do what it takes to bring home the bacon
but always we need to keep our personal life
work dreams alive while we are doing survival
work.
NEVER GET TRAPPED
Time quickly flies by and we need to stay
mindful of what we want to be doing at what
stages in our lives. We need to coordinate our
personal lives with our work life as these are
closely inter-related. And we need to resist the
temptation of getting trapped in doing survival
work all of our lives if we can possibly help it.
EARNING OUR DAILY BREAD
I have often worked doing survival jobs in the
past. Gary and I did office cleaning at night to
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pay for our university education. Fortunately
when we graduated we worked in our careers,
although for extra cash we have often resorted
back to survival work. For anyone who
doesn’t know what survival work is, it is doing
something which is not our cup of tea but it
helps pay the bills, and there is nothing to be
ashamed of for doing an honest days’ work in an
effort to earn our living.
But we need to keep in mind that we don’t really
want to do survival work for our entire life if
we can help it. It’s great when we need to just
get any type of work to get the cash flowing.
But let’s remind ourselves often, that we are
doing what we have to do, to get one step
closer to the work and life we love.
Humble note: I know many people who enjoy
working survival jobs so they can live the
lifestyle they love. Many musicians, artists,
aspiring athletes, pensioned retirees... work at
jobs that fill whatever needs they have. Whether
it be financial, social, flexible hours, the list
goes on.
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MOVING OUT OF SURVIVAL WORK
Assuming we are presently doing survival work
that is a stepping stone for us, we need to look
for our next move towards our dream.
As soon as we can see our way clear, we need
to move our lives beyond survival mode. I know
that it takes plenty of energy and risking again to
move out and on, but this is what we need to
do. Let’s not lose our nerve.
We need to create heaven on earth for
ourselves and others. We need to co-create
our highest dreams. We need to set new goals
for ourselves. We need to get inspired again. We
need to discover and work towards building our
magnum opus, our own beautiful work of art.
We need to have a plan, a dream that makes us
want to bound out of bed in the morning. It’s
so important that we love our life.
We need our own little piece of heaven on earth
to enjoy. We need to have faith and hope again.
We need to make time to find our life work
dreams again. Carefully we need to determine
at what point we can move out of survival
mode and into living the life we love. But most
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importantly we need to give ourselves the
opportunity to do what we love.
“Every minute counts’
WE NEED TO GIVE OURSELVES
PERMISSION TO SEEK AND CREATE
OUR OWN LIFE AND WORK DREAMS.
Every New Year I write in a work journal I’ve
had going since year 2000 what my highest
goals and dreams are. I list what I would
LOVE to see come true in my personal life, in
my family life and in my work life.
I list dreams that I hope to realize in one
year, two years, five years and whenever they
can materialize in my lifetime. What I find truly
amazing is that when I go back to read these
over, almost always my dreams have materialized.
This is my best motivation to write down my
dreams and to work for them. Honestly dreams
do come true.
Maybe not always in the time frame that I
had hoped for, but at some point, unless I
change my mind on some dream, step by step
good things happen. So I go back and write
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by my goal when it came to be. I have a long
collection of amazing dreams and goals that have
come true for me. Truly unbelievable things
that I am willing to share with anyone who will
listen.
“I have to tell you how sweet the joy of gratitude is, how encouraging it is
to experience prayers answered and how over the top it is to realize a big
dream.”
It puts me on an incredible high of natural
endorphins. Now these are big dreams, even
miracles happening in my life and little dreams
too that I have worked to make real. I find it
difficult to talk about dreams without talking
about the faith we have to keep alive along with
our dreams.
WE NEED FAITH TO DREAM, WE NEED
FAITH TO KEEP OUR DREAM ALIVE,
AND WE NEED BIG FAITH TO MAKE
OUR DREAMS COME TRUE.
A dream without faith is like a car without gas,
a kite without a breeze and life without love and
sunshine.
“Without faith our dreams never move forward, never lift off to the sky and
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wither on the vine”.
We need faith in a spiritual power to move our
big dreams. This will put us in favor with all of
life. It gives us go-power and the wisdom to
hold on and to keep going when things get tough.
Our dreams need to be moved by our mind, our
heart, our body, our spirit and our faith.
FAITH
“Faith can help us move mountains, build the incredible and achieve the
impossible.”
It plugs us into a divine power source that
never runs out, is available to all and connects
us with every goodness in life. The strength
of one becomes unlimited when we tap into the
force of the whole universe, because we work
in synergy with a multitude of resources. The
good thing is we always have this faith and
synergy available to us, but the problem is we
don’t always include it in our day to day life.
Most often we stubbornly try to go it alone and
end up fighting with ourselves and all of life.
Truly it is close to impossible to create
a fabulous life and work dream that we
absolutely love without using all of our
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resources. WE NEED MIND, HEART, BODY AND
SPIRIT working together in balance and perfect
harmony to live the life we were destined to
enjoy.
Humble note: Some people may find it strange
how a book about finding our life and work
dream would venture into the realm of faith.
I can assure you that the people I meet who
succeed in living a well adjusted and beautiful
life/work reality most often are people who
have big faith. They know they can’t control
everything in their lives and have an easier time
letting go and trusting that their good will find
them.
We can only do our best and we have to believe
in the goodness of life to cover for us and to
take over where we leave off. Faith is believing
in a greater power than ourselves. Faith builds
up our resources and give us incredible holding
power. Faith give us vision and the belief that
we can do it. Never go it alone!
“Even a little faith goes a long way.”
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BALANCING OUR WORK AND OUR
PRIVATE LIFE
We shortchange ourselves and get out of
balance when we work only in one dimension.
It can be done, but it is not a satisfying and
fulfilling life. Often we burn out early. It
makes us very one sided, and puts all our eggs
in one basket and this is not good.
We need to move with our biorhythms, engaging
mind, body and spirit and doing work that we
are passionate about and living the life of our
dreams. The secret to a good life and work
dream is to balance out as best we can all of
our energy sources.
“Get in harmony with your life”
LIVING WELL
Living a good life means balancing and blending
all aspects of our life, always looking for
ways our work can fit in seamlessly with our
personal life. I fondly remember a book I read
many years ago about the life of Bernard and
Laura Ashley. Now we know how successful
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they were at balancing their private life with
their big work life. They never pretended to be
all business to gain credibility. They were proud
to say they blended both their work and home
life.
At the time I was a public school junior high
Art Teacher working and I mean this in a nice
way, in a job box. It was a good job, one of
my big dreams come true. I loved my students,
I loved the creative aspect of my work, but
I found the rigid work schedule difficult to
balance with raising our infant son. I wanted
to spend more time with my little fellow and I
wanted to teach too, plus I needed to earn a
full income as my husband was starting out in
business and I was the steady income earner.
Reading about Laura and Bernard started me
thinking more seriously about finding a way to
enjoy a better life/work balance.
“Make it art’
COMBINING MY WORK LIFE WITH MY
PERSONAL LIFE
Something I read about Laura Ashley started
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me dreaming of perhaps one day combining my
work life with my private life so they didn’t
compete for the same energies and resources
but complimented each other.
In my own words the book said that Laura
and Bernard Ashley felt so fortunate that they
could work together and create a successful
business life by doing what they loved and
were passionate about. Their business was
intertwined with what they believed in, what
they both loved and what they were passionate
about. It was difficult to separate their life
from their work. It all flowed, fed each other
and flew.
This little “ah ha” moment planted a seed
dream in me that remains strong to this day.
I suspect Ralph Lauren, Martha Stewart,
and April Cornell to name a few creative
entrepreneurs have enjoyed working on balancing
their life and work dreams.
Creating a satisfying and successful work and
private life does not happen automatically. It
takes time, work, careful planning and a measure
of artfulness. To this day I am still trying to
get it right, as the balance always shifts.
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THREADING IT ALL TOGETHER
SEAMLESSLY
After thirty five years of working in Teaching,
Recruiting, Staffing and Career work, I firmly
believe that we need to carefully balance our
life and work journey so they seamlessly
fit together. Our life and our work should
compliment each other and use our best gifts
and talents. To successfully live our life and
work dream is in my opinion such a huge gift.
Like Martha Stewart said – “it’s an experience that we
encounter once or twice in our lifetime, if we are lucky”. Well we are
lucky and if we don’t feel lucky, we want to
feel lucky.
Let’s work incrementally on finding balance and
joy in our lives and on feeling lucky and blessed.
THINK OF WAYS THAT YOU CAN
IMPROVE YOUR GOOD FORTUNE
We will make our own good luck, like the
pioneers who had vision and tenacity, we will
look for our good and pursue it with a passion.
We have the same visionary and steadfast spirit
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that our grandparents and parents had. We have
the same hard working habits, motivation and
desire to create a wonderful life. The same
faith and hope is in us and we have the added
luxury of technology which connects us in a
heart-beat to the whole world.
“We will make our good fortune”.
FEELING LUCKY
One quick story. I grew up in a small town and
on Saturday night everyone cleaned up and went
downtown to the movies, to pick up groceries,
go to play bingo but most of all to socialize.
It was a ‘big night out on the town.’
My mom always went to play bingo and
sometimes I went to be with her. We all know
how bingo players like their good luck charms,
well my mom always said I was her good luck
charm. Actually mom won a sizable sum when
I was with her, but truth be told mom often
won because she bought tickets to support
good causes. She made her own good luck as
we all need to do.
We all need to be our own good luck charms,
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to be a gift to ourselves and to others. To
really believe we’ve got what it takes within us
to be anything we want to be. “Let’s be tenacious.”
LIFE IS JUST TOO SHORT TO BE
WASTED.
“..time is the least thing we have” – Ernest Hemingway
Whatever age we are, whatever our past
experiences have been, whatever our passions
and dreams are, whatever our talents and short
comings are, it is never too late or too early
to create the good life and work experience we
so love and believe in. Let’s make the best use
of our time here on earth and resolve never to
waste a moment on doing the negatives.
Let’s break any bad thoughts and habits we
have which demoralizes us and keeps us in the
bondage of low self-esteem and fear and let’s
replace these negatives with uplifting and life
affirming thoughts and actions.
Let’s fully grasp how precious and fleeting life
is and let’s go for the gold. And if times are
difficult, let’s know that there are still plenty
of good opportunities to be found. Let’s always
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make the most of what we have by honoring
ourselves and respecting the time we are given.
Foreign Job-Seekers
For the past ten years I have had the good
pleasure of working with many foreign job
seekers, and sometimes they have been here for
just 3 days before I meet with them. Honestly
I have yet to meet a dead beat. Their strength
and enthusiasm gives me so much energy. They
are so humble and yet so determined to find
their dreams in this new country.
Truly they have given me a new vision of how
important work is and a deep appreciation of my
home country and how fortunate we are.
DIVERSITY
I had the good fortune of growing up in a
multi-cultural home where English was our
second language so it feels so natural for
me to connect with each of these wonderful
immigrants. I know first hand how much harder
we have to work to prove ourselves when
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English is our second language. Hope, faith, hard
work and enthusiasm for a new opportunity is
what keeps us moving along towards our new
dreams.
I am delighted to see that in my children’s
generation and with the arrival of technology,
these good young people have less prejudices
and limitations than our boomer generation.
Today we have the amazing ability of easily
connecting and working with our whole world.
Truly the world is our oyster and we all benefit
in so many wonderful ways from this incredible
experience of working with each other across
continents. We are more connected to each
other and belong to the whole world. What a
dream come true!
“Being connected globally is beyond amazing”
LET’S NIX ALL PREJUDICES
No matter what our age, background, skill sets,
set backs, set ups, whatever, life is just too
short and precious to waste on prejudices,
such as age, racial, religious, class, educational,
social status and sexual discrimination. Have I
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missed any?
Let’s rise above regrets, grudges, bad attitudes,
big egos, ignorance, fear, toxic people and avoid
office and family politics and pettiness. Let’s
look for every morsel of good and nix the
negatives. They only bring us all down. Remember
we were not put here on earth to judge,
keep score and set people straight and thank
goodness for that.
Let’s do onto others as we would have others
do onto us. This is a golden rule.
LET’S CREATE A GOOD LIFE, A
BETTER LIFE THAN WE HAVE.
Let’s build a good work life for ourselves.
If we work as an employee, let’s give it our
absolute best, diligently doing what is ours to
do so we can peacefully leave work behind us
at the end of the day knowing that we have done
our very best.
Our work life is important, as are our other
relationships. If we are unhappy at work
unfortunately it usually negatively affects
everything at home. Conversely if we are unhappy
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at home and in our relationships with our
family and friends, it too negatively affects our
work. We have to be careful that we don’t get
into a sinkhole of negative relationships both
at home and at work. Unhappiness breeds and
spreads like germs. Be forewarned negativity can
contaminate and infect a whole work team or
family.
BEWARE OF TOXIC ATTITUDES
Let’s be aware of what is a life-affirming
attitude and what is destructive thinking and
behavior. If we find ourselves in daily contact
with any negatives let’s find ways to detox
ourselves. Walking, praying, meditating, resting,
sharing our hardships and enjoying time out
from being in a difficult situation will help us
to cope, heal and recoup from the stress of
our day.
We just simply have to let go of toxic things.
When we hit glitches let’s just say OKAY,
ENOUGH and move on, the quicker the better.
We can’t take everything to heart or our heart
will wear out.
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Every single day we have to dump all the
negatives from our consciousness. We need to
scrub ourselves clean from all the garbage we
collect in a day. If we let it fester within us,
it will infect us with all kinds of diseases.
Our primary goal is to look for all the ways
we can stay healthy in mind, body and spirit.
We want to detox and make room for happy and
healing thoughts. Forgive and forget. Move on.
Let’s always try our best to stay focused on
all the good things going on in our lives. We
want to always take good care of our health.
We want to stay rested, get our proper sleep,
try to always eat well, exercise daily and make
time to enjoy our friends, interests and hobbies.
We want to bless our work and our
relationships as they in turn will bless us.
We want to stay in love with life and to keep
dreaming. We want to constantly work on
building a better life for ourselves and others.
We always want to have happy goals and dreams
to strive for. Let’s commit to co-creating a
better life for ourselves and others.
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“GET HAPPY” IS THE BEST MEDICINE
We all deserve a better life. We are not here
on earth to be miserable. Life is meant to be
enjoyed, but we do have to participate in creating
our joy. We are given the seeds, but we have to
plant and grow our own gardens.
So let’s get happy. It’s been proven that happy
people have longevity plus it is an easier way
to make the world go round. We all know the
grouches, the victims, the toxic, the energy
drainers, the bored and boring, the whiners, the
downers, the abusers, the difficult, the prickly
personalities, the tough cookies, the needy and
the greedy.
Let’s resolve not be one of them. Let’s be
happy, vibrant, healthy, helpful, optimistic,
hopeful, kind, caring, gentle, forgiving, up-
building, positive, easy on ourselves and others
and the very best we can be. Trust me we will
find our way, we will live better lives and we
will make a huge difference. Live a life worth
living. Get happy and leave a beautiful legacy.
Always be kind, warm and fuzzy.
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DO WHAT YOU LOVE
I have worked in the business of putting people
to work for many years and I always tell these
good people to do what it is that they love.
Now we all know what we love to do. It’s just
that we don’t always feel comfortable just
doing what we love. How can it be more simple.
I can think of a thousand ways to say this. It
is the truth. We just need to do what we love
in life and our goodness will find us.
FINDING THE ARTIST IN OURSELF
I’ll be the first to admit that I am allergic to
Math. I don’t know why, but it never appealed
to me. I suppose it has something to do with
limiting conversation and just doing the numbers,
and all who know me know that I LOVE
conversation with others. I learn so much in
conversations and people are always so good to
share.
My education after high school was a B.Ed.
with a major in Art and Psychology. Now I love
both of these subjects and they have served me
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well in my work and in my life, but I always try
to include my challenge subjects so I am more
well-rounded. Oh My! What a chore that is.
For both teacher and student.
To my delight I discovered over the years of
working with countless job seekers from
every discipline that within all of us there is
a creative spirit in our soul that is alive and
thriving. No matter what our major was in the
school of life, we are all artists. Unfortunately
many of us were not encouraged to express
this special gift within us but believe me, it is
there and waiting to be tapped and enjoyed.
When we combine creativity with our math
or science or technology skills, we have just
turbo boosted our output. Let’s always look at
the many areas we can find interest and potential
in. Let’s keep all our options open.
Remember it is never too late to learn
something new, to challenge ourselves to pick
up new skills and knowledge in an area we have
previously avoided. I admit that some abilities
and talent come more easily to us than others,
but let’s not restrict ourselves. When we are
searching for our life and work passion, let’s
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explore everything. Leave no stone unturned. Very
often, we never know what will bless us until
we try it.
FINDING OUR SELF-CONFIDENCE
Finding our self-confidence is about as
difficult as believing that we are all artists.
Probably more difficult, but very possible. Here
again not many of us growing up were told that
we were good, we were special, we were loved,
we were talented, we were so cute or pretty
or handsome or the best in the world. And if
we were told this, often our life experiences
quickly told us otherwise and soon we started
believing the negatives and our self-esteem has
taken a beating.
OUR PARENTS
Our good parents, at least mine, focused their
love and attention on making sure we were fed,
doing our homework, were polite and clean and
home safe in bed at night and truly I am very
grateful for that.
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I was raised in a Euro household where English
was our second language and my parents and
family struggled to be accepted in our English-
speaking community. We were trying to learn the
language and to fit in on many levels.
My parents encouraged us to keep our opinions
to ourselves, to always be polite and clean and
to stay out of trouble.
Self-confidence and good self-esteem was not
a word in my parents’ vocabulary. I often heard
‘just work hard and things will work out’. Now
these are good basic lessons that will take us
far, but I’ve found that positive self-esteem
gives us an incredible boost in our life’s journey
and helps build up our self-confidence.
It is never too late to build up and honor
our self-respect and self-worth as these are
the tap roots of our self-esteem and self-
confidence. Everyday we need to replenish our
need for self-confidence as it seems to wax
and wane with the ins and outs of life.
We need to find ways to generate within
ourselves positive feelings affirming that we
are good, we are healthy, and we are talented,
lovable and worthwhile people, even when we
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make mistakes and fail. Let’s always look for
ways to regenerate good self-esteem and self-
confidence within ourselves and others. Make it
a daily practice.
“Like happiness, love and sunny days, we can never have enough.”
ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Many of my dear ESL job seekers present
themselves in an interview very eager to please
and desperate for work.
They are not showy or bold, they are more
polite and let little of their special personalities
shine through. Often they are desperate for
work in their chosen field and don’t want to
risk losing a job opportunity by saying the wrong
thing. Many times if I feel it will help, I try
to engage them in personal conversation to help
them relax. I encourage them to just be their
best selves, to feel comfortable, to smile and
to be more self-assured about their abilities.
I wish I could spend more time helping to
boast up the many people I see who lack
self-confidence. Lack of self-esteem and self
confidence makes life so much more difficult
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and complicated than it needs to be. Truly it
holds us back from living fully. Lacking selfconfidence is often mixed in with fear of
failure, and other nasty little scoundrels.
My entire adult life I have had a fascination
with knowing more about finding direct ways
to build self-confidence in ourselves and
others, and to help unearth the extraordinary
and amazingly good and beautiful resources and
talents we all possess.
“I love unleashing a captive spirit eager to live a good life.”
THE BOOMER GENERATION
I think we the boomer generation have tried
hard to give our children all the things we didn’t
get as children ourselves. I admit we have gone
a bit overboard on some things, but it is a
pleasure to see how much more confident and
open-minded our young people are.
Our new millennium children are so global
thinking, have technological savvy, are eco-
friendly, have less prejudices, they are much
more self-confident, are well travelled and
better connected with their world. They love
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themselves more easily than we boomers did
and it carries over to loving others and their big
green world.
“Oh my! This is such a good thing”
Some may argue that they have deferred growing
up because in comparison, we certainly rushed
growing up, but I think they are just taking
the time they need to mature and find their own
way in life. I love them dearly and think it is
wonderful how confident they are in expressing
themselves. They don’t have the same need to
be perfect in every way that we boomers felt
we had to be. Most of them have been loved
unconditionally and it shows.
“Take your time”
WE TOO CAN DO IT!
Now boomers, we too are learning to love
ourselves and this has created more self-
esteem and confidence in ourselves. This is
such a good thing. But unlike our children
who were told they were good, they were cute
and honey YOU CAN DO IT, and if you need
coaching we will get that for you, we have had
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to parent ourselves into believing in ourselves.
We have had to often detox and heal from the
things of our childhood and coach ourselves in
feeling good about who we are and from time to
time we need to give our self-confidence a huge
BOOST. This is not second nature to us, and
it does not come easy. It seems to me we are
always in remission and like managing our weight
and staying fit, we have to keep at it.
“Let’s work on it”
CHANGING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
When we consider changing our work life, or
our personal lifestyle, we have to start small
and grow in increments. The ‘go hard or go
home’ does not work here. Why? Because we
are changing something very close and personal
to us and we want to get it right and make it
last.
We have to understand that changing is VERY
stressful. Of course it helps if we have
instigated the change and it is a move up, but
still it is difficult to love every minute of
change. Why? Because we have a fear of the
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unknown and we are afraid of what lies ahead
of us. We question whether we will be able to
handle it and whether we will be successful.
We all hate moving backwards in life, we always
strive to get ahead, to find work we love and a
life that is meaningful and wonderful.
“We never know what is around the corner, but let’s not let that hold us back.”
OUR JOURNEY OF CHANGE
When we are looking for work, we can expect to
have days when we question whether we will ever
find the work we love.
The longer it takes for us to find work, the more
we will be nagged by worries and doubts about
our future. Our fear is expressed in thoughts
like “how will I make a go of it? Can I connect
with my good or am I going to be overlooked and
side-lined. What if I don’t find work? What if
I am making a big mistake? What if I don’t have
what it takes? Do I want another disappointment
in my life and on it goes.”
Often when we begin our journey of change we
will find ourselves on an emotional roller coaster.
We will vacillate between elation and fear. This
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will spike and fluctuate our thoughts, emotions
and energy levels.
From my experience I have found there are some
things in life that we just have to do without
second guessing ourselves or we’ll talk ourselves
out of it. We just have to override our fears and
move on with hope-filled faith.
“Just Do It! Don’t be driven by the emotion of fear.”
OFTEN LIFE MAKES DECISIONS FOR US
For many years I knew I wanted to change my day
to day work experience. It was high stress, fastpaced and labor intensive, but it paid well. I kept
at it and on difficult days I would set a date in
the future when I planned to move on, but today
never seemed like the right day to call it quits.
Continuously I would make myself a promise
that I would work until a certain date, usually
two or five years away, depending on how tough a
day I was having.
Twice the dates I’d set came to be, but I just
kept on working and again I would set another
date sometime in the future.
“Postponing is delaying what we need to do”
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IT WAS ALWAYS “NOT TODAY”
For some reason it was always two to five
years away. As time went on my family started
to tune out when I talked about changing my
work, they had heard it all before. Worst of all
I started to tune out too as I had heard it all
before as well and nothing ever really changed.
Then when I turned fifty-five, one of the target
dates I had hoped to make a big work change
in my life, life made the change for me. I was
diagnosed with an illness that required surgery.
After surgery I had to stay home to recoup
with my leg up so I would not get blood clots
going to my heart. For two weeks I had to stay
healing flat on my back in my bed upstairs barely
able to manage the stairs.
I was in pain, but what was more painful was
waiting for the pathology to come back. I’d
been told they could not get all the growths
out of my ankle and the doctors were unsure
if it was cancer or not. The tumors had
leached into my blood source so it could be
bad news. I went back and forth between fear
and faith. It was a very trying time but the good
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news came that it was not cancer. Hurrah!
This whole ordeal was such a huge learning
experience for me and the best news is that
this gave me a whole new lease on life, the
gift of time to think and work on my dreams. I
began to live in Today.
“Many positive changes are fuelled by adversity”
RE-FRAMING
While I spent six weeks healing I thought
about a lot of things in my life. I knew full
well that I needed to change the way I worked.
My work was all consuming and that was not
good for me. I needed to re-frame and change
up how I thought of work and how I did my
work. I knew I wanted to have more “me” time
to paint, write and just smell the roses.
I felt so grateful that I had been richly gifted
with a second chance to redesign the life I
dream of. Today I have a new lease on life.
“Instead of trying to get to my destination in a hurry, I know that I have many
years to work out my dreams.”
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CHANGING THE WAY I WORK
What did I change? Well first of all my
attitude towards my work and my life. Now
I am more relaxed and I know on a bad day
‘THAT THIS TOO WILL PASS.’ I don’t take
everything so seriously. I understand that there
will always be screamers and difficult times.
This is life. I know that I can only do my best
in each moment I have and I am very O.K. with
not being perfect myself. I am human and I
am allowed to make mistakes as we all are. I
am more tolerant and have mellowed. I know I
can change the way I work and this has made a
tremendous difference. I now love my work.
MOVING HOMES
Secondly I moved homes. For seven years my
good husband tried to light a fire under me
to move me out of our present home, but I
always resisted. I loved my neighborhood, I
liked my home and most important I loved the
good memories shared with our children. Always
there were excuses.
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When I lay recouping I thought about living in
a community like we live in now that has every
amenity within walking distance. I reasoned that
it made sense to move while I was still young,
healthy and able. In my positive moments I
thought I could make new friends, create new
memories and find all my new sacred places.
In other words I could make myself at home,
warm up the new place.
CLOSING ONE CHAPTER OF MY LIFE
One thing which had previously held me back,
was that I knew I had to sort through thirty
years of living memorabilia and accumulated junk
and start bailing out. I am a pack rat so moving
was going to be an enormous job going through
all the years of memories. The other reason
I stayed is because moving out of our family
home was like closing a chapter in my life. Here
we had raised our active boys into manhood and
there was still a strong link to my parenting
days. The same kitchen table we’d sat around
and had shared meals, great conversations,
helping with their homework, ...many golden
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moments filled with good memories that still
warmed my heart.
But I did it, I moved and I am happy I did. And
I love my new lifestyle. Now I live closer to
my work so I can walk to work, come home
for lunch and it makes me feel like a kid in
school again. I walk through beautiful nature
and through parks and past schools and it
brings me back to my most basic childhood
memories of living a good simple life.
OUR LIFE/WORK BALANCE
I spend less time in and out of office elevators
and driving in downtown traffic. Mind you I
still enjoy the energy of my vibrant city, but I
am getting healthier from my peaceful walks
in nature. I have the good fortune of living in
an old community with huge backyards, mature
trees and amazing wildlife.
For years I had dreamed of moving to this
community I so love – and here I am. Thirty
five years ago we lived in this community when
we were university students and now we have
moved from the burbs where we raised our
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children and live more inner city.
Life is so good and getting better all the time.
Our dreams do come true if we never give up on
them or ourselves.
BACK TO A HOME OFFICE
Last but not least, I have set up a complete
home office and can work from home when I
am not with clients. I love this and this too I
had dreamed of doing for years. Best of all I
can paint and write when I have time in between
my day to day work. It just balances out my
personal and work life and I can make better
use of my time as I move from one task to
another. I am loving it.
Every week I take one morning or one afternoon
to follow my spirit. I don’t have that guilty
feeling of always having to work away as I did
before and slowly I am preparing to transition
into less day to day work and a more balanced
life.
Little by little I am growing into living my life
and work dream and I’m finding I love my work
more when I have the ability to enjoy personal
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time too. Today I have a better balance between
work and my personal life. Continually I am
working on a good work/life balance that is
tailor made for me. This is something we all
need to work towards. Life is just too short
to be all one or the other.
“It is so important to find the right life/work balance.”
MY NEW DREAM
Nowadays I am telling everyone and anyone who
will listen that I want to work in a warmer
climate, pool side or walking the beach. I have
no doubt it will come to be. I just don’t know
when.
For the present I know that I am doing what I
am suppose to be doing right now. I enjoy my
work and there is still more learning, giving and
growing for me to do here.
Now I understand there is a flow and order to
life and being patient always makes our growing
time more productive and enjoyable.
We all need to find our place in life and we need
to be at peace about what step we are on, never
comparing ourselves with others.
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We need to be patient and to know that we are
where we should be and doing what we should
be doing at this time. When the time is right and
we are truly ready for our next adventure, we
will move on.
It helps to remember that some learning curves
take us longer than others and we can’t rush
to get to our dream destination. We need to
understand that there is so much learning,
growing and sharing that we need to do each
step of the way. So let’s relax and enjoy the
journey. Think positive.
“If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you
think.” – Oprah Winfrey
STARTING SOMEWHERE
At some point we find ourselves ready to take
the next step towards our new life and work
dreams. We come to the point of no return,
we are ready and we need to make a start...
somewhere. The reasons we are seeking to make
a positive change in our work life varies from
person to person.
Some of us have been laid off or fired from
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our work, some of us are planning to leave
our present work and some of us are re-
entering the work force after taking time off,
or perhaps we are seeking our first ever job.
Perhaps we are retiring and looking for an
interesting and meaningful life/work balance.
All these various situations certainly bring
different needs and expectations but finding
work we love is pretty much the same for
someone who has been fired or for someone
wanting to enter or re-enter the job market.
We all have the same fears and concerns about
finding suitable work and making a good choice
with our life’s resources. We all want to get
it right. We want to find the work we LOVE
and will use our best talents and bless us and
others.
“We all have great expectations”
MY ADVICE
We need to seriously consider all our options.
Never burn our bridges. Let’s never be an ‘all or
nothing’ person. Look for every stepping stone
to build a path to our dream work. Look for
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all the great possibilities available. We need to
always take our time to make good choices.
I strongly advocate to take more courses
if you must. Take a cut in pay if it means
getting the job you love. Do volunteer work in
your field of interest if you have the financial
means as this experience will build your self-
confidence and will better prepare you for your
dream work.
HANDLING REJECTION
Always be creative, resourceful, innovative and
resilient with the many delays and rejections we
all face. Be persistent, cheerful and confident
that you will find your way to your desired
work life.
Look for ways to do damage control and detox
from the disappointment and frustration that
comes with a reversal. Let’s never allow setbacks to stop us from pursuing our deepest
dreams and desires. We need to look for
positive solutions when we are struggling with
a potential calamity. Persevere in the face of all
odds.
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DO HONORABLE WORK
When you have an offer for work don’t put on
the blinders if it compromises your values or
if it is not something you want or can do. And
always do due diligence before you sign on for
a job. Make sure you feel comfortable with the
terms of work offered to you. Walk away from
a job that raises red flags of concern within
you. Look for work that you can be proud of.
Never be pressured by anyone or outside forces
to go against your better judgment. Make sure
the work offered to you is honest, honorable
and respects you – the valued worker.
Never work in an abusive environment, even if the
job pays big bucks and has plenty of perks.
Make sure the work is suitable for you and
gets you excited and energized. Always find
healthy and safe work, something good that
expresses your best self and fills the basic
need of every human being for respect and
dignity.
“The work we do should honor our spirit.”
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FLEXIBLE
Sometimes it is better to just do something
rather that wait for exactly what we want. We
always have to be flexible and cooperative. Earlier
I suggested that we think seriously about
accepting a job offer but conversely I also
believe we need to think long and hard before
we say no to a job. Before we say no to a job
offer, let’s mull it over to see if there is any
way this work can move our dream in the long
run, even if it is survival work that barely pays
the bills.
Most importantly keep in mind that you can
always move on to something else, as this is
not a life sentence. There is no crime in trying
out something, giving it a test drive to see first
hand if it can work for us. Remember we are
not getting married to our job. We can change
up as we see fit and when better opportunities
present themselves.
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JOB HUNTING
Everyone agrees that job hunting is a stressful
and uncertain time as well as very hard work.
This is true. We have to stay organized and
continue our search no matter how many
rejections we have. We have to pull our spirits
up and keep going, knowing there is work out
there and we will be successful in finding it if
we keep looking.
It’s a good idea to get a coach or a buddy to
help keep up our morale. Look for someone
who is supportive and has your best interest
at heart. Someone you trust so you can do
constructive whining and venting when you need
to detox.
“SMILE, our best days are still ahead of us”
RECHARGING
Certainly we do need to take breaks and to get
away to refresh and recharge ourselves. We
need to take our minds off of the challenges
we face everyday in finding work. Overdoing it is
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not a good thing and we have to stay balanced
between work and play, always seeking enjoyable
ways to be healthy and sensible and most of all
making the best of our situation.
The best advice I can give is to try your hardest
to keep your sense of hope and faith up. Keep
your sense of humor and look for every way to
lighten up and have fun. Be sensible and go easy
on yourself and others. Walk off frustration
and impatience when you hit rejection and delays,
know that good things take time. Always keep
your deepest dreams alive, know it will all work
out if you pursue your passion without getting
discouraged and giving up.
Hang in there! Never, Ever quit on yourself.
Look for every way imaginable to keep your
dreams alive.
“Do the job hunting well, then take a break and take it easy.”
DAMAGE CONTROL
“This is the best time and the worst time of my life.” – A job seeker.
When we fall on bad times and encounter
difficult situations that we had little or no
control over, it’s very normal to feel shock,
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denial, anger, fear, confusion, depression,
fatigue, isolated, restless and very anxious
about our future.
If we have been laid-off or fired from our
work we need to know that we will probably
experience some difficult emotional and financial
times. Even if we didn’t love our work, it was
still keeping us afloat and giving us the dignity
of paying our bills.
Losing our work for whatever reasons often
brings on pain and grieving before we come to
acceptance of our loss and are able to move on.
We will need to take our time to sort through
the stages and to heal. The good news is we
will overcome our pain and despair and the
sooner we can move on, the better.
HEALING AFTER A LOSS
If you find yourself in this position, look for
someone who is warm-hearted and understanding
to help you focus on what plans you can make
for the future.
Don’t feel bad if you are not feeling on top of
the world. You have suffered a major loss and
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need time to heal and regain your balance, time
to recreate a positive outlook and a healthy
perspective. When faced with a colossal shift,
we need to allow ourselves the time we need to
grieve and heal a painful loss, a setback, a heart
break and overall any difficult life changes.
May it be balm to our wounds to know that
good things are waiting in the wings for us to
claim. However we need to do damage control
and believe we will have our day in the sun again
and hopefully soon. So let’s try our best not
to drag our pain around with us for too long.
We don’t want to make this tough time a new
normal for us. We want to deal with our set
back and move on asap.
We have to look for all the things which gives
us energy and a feeling of wellness. We need to
make every effort to positively connect with
ourselves and life again.
“Discovering the ways in which you are exceptional, the particular path you
are meant to follow, is your business on this earth.” – Bernie S, Siegel
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RESEARCHING OUR POSSIBILITIES
How many of us really don’t know what we
want to do with our one good life? Not having
a clue does not mean there isn’t a better life
waiting for us, it just means we need to spend
more time researching our possibilities. Many
of us struggle to find our way out of the
house in the morning, let alone know the career
and life path we want to take and this is all
fine.
I too have had many false starts and that is
part of the learning curve. We all know what
we love but it’s not always so easy knowing
what our life and work dreams are. So let’s
just relax and enjoy the process and the
metamorphing we experience as we research our
incredible possibilities.
“When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to
something else.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s good to know that each chapter in our life
brings with it new dreams, new opportunities,
all kinds of great possibilities, and different
exciting paths to explore.
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OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
There is no right or wrong way and there
are many, many roads that lead us to our
dream destination. I strongly believe that we
never miss the boat, we never have only one
opportunity, there are always other means to
get us to where we want to go.
I often hear how frustrated and impatient my
job-finders are in getting the job they want.
Often I hear them lament how they missed
their opportunity of a lifetime. Wrong, so
wrong.
We never miss an opportunity of our lifetime.
We have opportunities every single day of our
lives. When we miss one, well often it wasn’t
meant for us. Maybe we wouldn’t have been
ready for this big break and we would have
bombed. Lots of maybe’s but one thing I know
for sure is our good will always find us if we
remain open and receptive to receiving it. For
certain we have to ‘ASK, SEEK AND KNOCK, and
it will be given to us. I promise.
We have to find what we love, what we are
excellent at, perhaps even exceptional at doing.
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Like Bernie Siegel says “pursue it with a passion and never quit
until we are living our dream.”
“Let’s always count our opportunities and not our losses”
TIME LINES
My dream of changing up my day to day work
and moving homes took me three years to do and
years and years of dreaming and planning.
DIVINE ORDER
Don’t’ get discouraged if it takes time to make
your dream come true. When the time is right,
it all comes together and even more beautifully
than we could have ever imagined.
Trust that there is always a very good reason
why we are not doing the ‘big thing’ we are in a
hurry to do. Truly there is a divine order to life
and everything is working out perfectly, whether
we see it this way or not. Hindsight will vouch
for this.
“Enjoy the moment”
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RELAX
Oh My! How we stress and fret over things
taking too long, not turning out the way we had
hoped for, not getting what we wanted, feeling
like we are going no where fast, and all the
thousand things which can really whip us up.
I read that as we grow older we become calmer
and less easily upset. WOW! Now that is good
news. Especially for me as I am a ‘now’ girl.
The other great news is that we are better
able to stand up to the chaos in our lives
and not let stress and uncertainty pummel us
into mush. How do we do this? We need to
take the much needed time out to walk, pray,
meditate, sleep, rest, do yoga, do sports, sing,
dance, laugh, cry, vent, center ourselves and do
whatever it takes to unwind us and make us
feel whole again. Nix anxiety and stress, don’t
ever let it grow into a terrible habit, detox,
recharge and RELAX!
“Never let negative emotions run your life.”
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PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
Every day is a good day to work on our life and
work dreams, just as everyday is a great day to
think about how we can make the good things in
life come to be. We need to dream, like we need
to eat and sleep.
Many of us have a good idea of how we want
our work and life to look and feel like. We just
don’t always know how to make it all come
together.
Money is often a big factor, but you know
what, the good news is, we can get around that
too.
We cannot and should not let money push us
around forcing us to live a life that we don’t
feel is right for us. When we know in our
heart of hearts that we are fully equipped
with everything we need to live a happy and
successful life, we should confidently make
our move towards living this vision. Happiness
and goodness finds us wherever we are.
I am not overlooking the fact that money is
important, certainly it greases the wheels, but
there are so many ways of getting around it if
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it creates a barrier for us. I know many people
who live exceptionally beautiful lives on a
limited budget. They live large on less. Trust me
there is a way.
FINDING A WAY
Recently I met an old friend and as we talked
she told me that she was finally going to
graduate with her Bachelor’s degree, a long
sought after dream come true for her. It took
her ten years to do her B.Ed degree. She is
raising her two children and spreading the work
and the financial burden over the years. She
started with a good idea of what she wanted to
do and found a way to make it work all around.
Now she is going to do a Master’s degree and
when her children are grown, she is going to
start her teaching career.
‘Where there is a will there is always a way’.
CAUTION
Spreading ourselves too thinly can often slow
our progress. It never feels good when we are
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not doing a good job of something because we
are doing too much. We need to prioritize our
goals, duties and responsibilities and take our
time to do what we need to do well.
It is difficult and unwise to push every aspect
of our life to the max and still expect to excel.
There is only so much we can focus our
resources of time, money, energy and attention
on. We need to always plan for overruns and
delays and to have some surplus to meet
unexpected demands on our limited resources.
We need to be mature and reasonable when we
begin implementing change. It’s best to grow
into our greatness slowly, giving ourselves the
time to do what we need to do everyday. We
need to give ourselves the time and space to
adjust and feel comfortable with the changes
we desire. This way we can savor the journey
and celebrate our victories.
“We can’t expect to do everything all at once and do it well.”
TAKE TIME TO CELEBRATE… TAKE
TIME TO ENJOY YOUR LIFE
There are some things we have to do today,
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now. Some things we just cannot postpone,
as there is no second chance. Some things we
can’t defer until later when we have the time,
the resources or the inclination. It’s now or
never.
For example we need to be there for our
children as they are growing up or when
someone is ailing and need our help. We need to
take care of our health now, not later when
we are worn down and sick. We need to keep
building on our relationships with others.
We need to keep growing as human beings and
we need to celebrate every day of our great
adventure in life.
No matter how busy we are or what is
preoccupying us, we have to make the time to
look and create all the good things we want
to experience and enjoy. We can’t defer living
well, always putting things on the back burner,
waiting to have the time, money, or whatever it
is that keeps holding us back.
Today, no matter what is going on in our
hectic lives we need to seize the moment and
create beautiful memories with our growing or
(grown) children, our grandchildren, our aging
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parents, our better half and last but not least
ourselves. Only we can make time for ourselves,
for our dreams and all that we love in life.
“We need to glean the good from our past, make sense of our todays and
create a magnificent vision for our tomorrows.”
Often we need to take the time to do the dance
of joy and gratitude.
“Recycle your dreams, waste not the tailings of your days, find a way to
create a new master piece of art from the bits and pieces of your life. There
is goodness in everything. Celebrate!”
LIGHTEN UP BUTTERCUP
Too often we work with our heads down
missing so much fun and all the amazing happy
things that are going on around us. We have no
time for play, for laughter or for being light-
hearted. Certainly no time for frivolous things
like fun. We have a hard time taking time off
from our work just to relax and to enjoy
ourselves.
I hate to admit this but I too am often guilty
of being stretched out thinly and it is not good
at all. But I am getting better.
We need to make time for fun and laughter and
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to try to enjoy the sweet song and dance of
life. We need to make a little piece of paradise
for ourselves and others, especially during a
chaotic time. We need to create as many joyful
and exciting experiences as we can imagine. We
need to lighten up buttercup. Take it easy and
just savor all the delicious little moments.
“Let’s not allow ourselves to get too cynical and sober about life. Happiness
should be one of the main events of our lives.”
‘‘DESIRE IS YOUR UNLIMITED
POTENTIAL SEEKING EXPRESSION’’
– James Arthur Ray
Today I had a lively conversation with one of
my favorite clients. We talked freely about
our dreams and passions and how we can move
forward and what choices we need to make in
this difficult recession we are finding ourselves
in.
He had planned to retire in one years’ time but
due to a downturn in our economy he is not
sure whether to take a retirement package or
not. He is not alone as many of the boomers
who have retired are not as rich as they had
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thought they were because of the erosion of
their hard-earned assets.
Both stocks and real estate investments have
taken huge roll backs and for some of us who
thought we had a cushy nest egg, well we’re
finding it is not as cushy nor as secure as we
had anticipated. And even those of us who have
secured some measure of financial freedom, we
have to be cautious that we stay in a financial
position to help ourselves and our children in
the event of losing our jobs and earnings. As
my client said, he is ‘not about to stand by and
see his kids lose their home’.
Of course we will all try our best to help out
where we can or perhaps our kids will need
to help us out. This is life, always full of
surprises, fortunately we always find some
wiggle room to make it work out.
HELPING OURSELVES FIRST
Yet we need to help ourselves too. Like we are
told every time we board a plane, we need to
put on our air masks first before we can help
others. In other words we need to keep moving
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our own dreams and passions.
Time is quickly running out for us boomers to
realize our dreams and desires. Yes we have had
the pleasure of realizing many of our dreams
such as graduating, buying our first homes and
eventually paying off our mortgages, buying our
first cars and raising our family.
Still we have big and small personal dreams and
desires that we want to enjoy. I call these
‘our freedom dreams.’ For most of us boomers
the time has come to pursue the lifestyle of
our dreams and we all deserve it. Yes!
DEALING WITH DELAYS
Most of us of all ages have worked so hard to
get to where we are today. We have scrimped
and saved and we used our precious private
time to spend with our family building great
relationships. Many many times over we have
painfully re-invented ourselves and our lives,
giving our best and often leaving little for
ourselves.
Changes have been a constant for us and few
of us have had the luxury of doing our own
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thing. Over the course of our careers we have
survived several other recessions and now we
are facing yet another new twist on our life’s
path.
It’s not like we know from experience how
to handle recessions as each downturn always
involves a whole a new set of changes and
challenges. One thing for certain is it sure has
kept us on our toes. We are survivors.
Like one business man said, “it’s the dance of
life, five steps forward and three steps back.”
Wonders never cease.
“The good news is that this is just a delay and life will go on again when our
global economy sorts itself out.”
OUR FUTURE
As I talk with many people of all ages and
backgrounds, I find some people are very
distraught and discouraged about their
prospects for the future. They are not sure
they have the energy or the desire to ride
through another storm and build up again. They
are not sure if they can even survive the ravages
of the storms of this recession.
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No one knows how deep and wide the
destruction will be. Sounds like hurricane
season. EXCEPT OUR LIVES ARE NOT AT
STAKE. Our problems today are money problems
and we must always remember that, and money
problems are something that can always be
fixed.
Now I know how important money is to live
but we can always make up the money we’ve
lost. We need to try to keep a perspective on
things. Definitely it is hard to be without work,
to lose our job and home, and to not have the
money to buy the things we need.
Yes, it is very tough on everyone, but we must
do our best to thrive in these difficult times.
Look for ways to mark these hard times
for something good, knowing no matter what
country we live in, we are all in this together.
Above all we must always remember ‘THIS
TOO WILL PASS, there is an end to hard
times.’ Yeah!!!
MARKING OUR TIME
I try to offer hope to everyone but I too am
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sailing in the same ship, and these times are very
rough and tough, but I am determined that I
will not quit and I encourage you not to quit
on yourself either. I want to make the best
of these hard times. I know we will make it
through someway, somehow.
We sure don’t want to sit on our hands and
fret. Life is just too short and precious to
waste any of it. There are still so many good
opportunities for all of us. Still so many
amazing things to see and do. We are still the
same wonderful people, with all our gifts and
talents and experiences and there are still so
many good and exciting things for us to do.
We are alive, we will survive and even thrive. So
let’s keep our dreams and desires as real and as
strong as ever.
“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As
your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”
– Hindu Spiritual Scriptures
PLANTING OUR VICTORY GARDEN
Let’s plant our garden of hope, let’s take
a neglected and rough piece of ground and
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plant our seed dreams and enjoy the fruits
of our labor. Let’s cook up feasts and enjoy
celebration dinners with those we love, let’s
paint art just for the fun of it, let’s write the
book we’ve always wanted to write, let’s go
back and finish that degree we so want. Let’s
plan our new life’s journey and think seriously
this time about the work we would love to
do.
Let’s look for every way we can to make
a difficult time not wasted time, but a time we
can look back and say: Oh My! I am SO happy
I did this!
“See this as a sabbatical.”
OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE
Sometimes when things are uncertain and up in
the air, it’s the perfect time to take matters in
hand and make our own dreams and desires come
true. We have to create our own opportunities
and good fortune. We simply can’t wait for
everything to work out for us. We have to make
the most of things as they are and make the
best of the situations we find ourselves in.
Somewhere, somehow we have to make a start
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and keep going until we cross the finish line.
Being without work can be an excellent starting
point, in that we can plan to move more into the
life and work dreams we desire.
“What have we got to lose?”
LESS TO LOSE
The good thing about being without work is
that we have less to lose. We are not quitting
or leaving something, and because we have less
to lose it gives us an open road to find our
path. The risks go way down. It’s a blank page
for us to write our own history. Being without
committed work frees us up to try something
new. What have we got to lose? This is our
time to shine.
I have a good neighbor and friend who when her
husband lost his job as an engineer, they packed
up their family and went and lived on an island.
I know it was a great life for them. They both
found whatever work they needed to get by and
everyone loved their life.
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LIVING LONGER
Recently over dinner our son’s asked us if we
were affected by the recession and we sighed
and said “yes, it affects everyone. Both our sons
know that I had planned to go back and study
and write more books in the near future and so
to sugar coat things our oldest son said: “well
mom, you know that the sixties today are the new
fifties.” I LOVE THAT! I’ll buy that. I may
need some Botox and some other little help to get
me to retirement. But as I said to my husband
and business partner “Oh well, we’ll see more
people in their seventies and eighties wearing bikinis
on the beaches and driving their convertibles with
the music blaring. We’ll all be living our deferred
dreams.
Our generation has always been unique. We’ve been
known as characters, earthy, creative, resourceful
and always chasing our dreams. Why should we
change now? We’ll just have to live longer to
realize all our dreams and goals. Truly we will live
a better life if we can stretch our dreams into
our nineties and beyond.
“Why not?”
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MARK THIS TIME AS A SPECIAL TIME
TO DO SOMETHING WONDERFUL
AND POSITIVE IN YOUR GOOD LIFE.
Don’t get discouraged and down in the dumps
about this difficult life experience we are all
facing during this global recession. Know that
things will improve and the sun will come out
again.
If you are a junior looking for your first job,
don’t let all this negative talk keep you from
enthusiastically looking for work. Please know
that there is still plenty of good work to be
found and this is true for all of us looking for
work.
“Abundance abides”
FINDING OUR INNER ENERGY AND
STRENGTH
It is amazing how energy comes when we need
it. Ideas flow and we just move and do what
we have to do. Things get done. We move on and
metamorph into something else. We change and
continue growing.
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One of the worst things we can do to our
mind, body and spirit is to sit and fret. This is
fighting ourselves and unfortunately we usually
end up the losers.
I know some talented people who have never
got going again once they were laid off or let
go unceremoniously. Whatever the reasons
were, they stopped dead in their tracks and keep
reliving their last job and how disappointed they
are that they no longer do “what they loved.”
I hear often “If only, it’s too late now, not
much that I can do about it, I’ll never get
a job like that again, it’s so unfair, there’s
nothing I can do now, I’m ruined.” GARBAGE.
No matter who we are there is someone,
somewhere who can surely use our skills.
Never get into a cycle of negative thinking. It is
a downward spiral which will take us nowhere.
BEING OUR OWN ADVOCATES
I agree whole heartedly that life is unfair at
times, people ride us sometimes, situations can
be challenging and close to impossible, and we
have our backs against the wall more often then
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we like, but that is no excuse to give up and
treat ourselves badly.
We have to have some fight in us, we have to
believe in ourselves, we have to be our own
advocates and we have to find our own good
inner energy and strength. We have to be our
own best friends and look for ways to help
ourselves. We have to live the lives we so desire
and love. We have to have a vision for our own
future and make our way step by step in the
direction we want to go.
We just need to be self-motivated and
enthusiastic about our plans. And if we can’t
muster the enthusiasm, we simply have to put
one foot in front of the other and keep going!
THERE IS NO LOOKING BACK.
No one or nothing can stand in the way of our
dream, unless we allow this. We are the ones
who create our dreams and give them meaning.
Dreams are our guiding stars and we find our
way when we patiently focus our energy and
strength in the direction we want our life and
work to go.
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Let’s not worry about feeling enthusiastic and
energetic and certain we will succeed before we
start. Let’s just do it and trust that the rest
will fall into place, which it does.
When we feel we have lost everything and our
spirit is at a low ebb, let’s just hold on to even
a speck of faith and keep moving in the direction
of our dreams.
“Look up!”
IT’S NOT EASY
Being without work is sure not easy. In fact
it is very tough. When we are laid off, fired,
or job hunting for whatever reason, our whole
system is thrown into trying to regain our
balance and direction. We may find ourselves at
home with too much time on our hands. We are
bored and lonely and short of cash, we’ve lost
our routines, our social connections and often
some of our self-esteem.
Interestingly this is often a time when our
rivals will take cheap shots at us. They like to
rub our noses in the fact that we no longer
have our ‘big deal’ job. It hurts our already
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beaten up ego – but let’s remind ourselves not
to step into this petty fray of egos. Let’s take
the high way and never let them see us sweat.
Let’s remind ourselves that we will find our
way and it will be very, very good.
When our detractors say hurting things, let’s
not allow their cruel words to harden our
spirits, instead let’s harden our resolve to do
extremely well.
Let’s remember: “We are not victims but victors” – Jack Canfield
CREATING OUR VISION FOR
TOMORROW
No matter where we are coming from or what
direction we hope to go in, truly there are so
many fabulous choices for us to consider.
Only we can make the ultimate decision of what
will work best for us.
Presently I have several individuals who are
trying hard to decide what they want to do for
work and with their lives. One person is in her
twenties, one in her forties and two males in
their fifties. All have different backgrounds
and needs, but the one barrier they all need to
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overcome is learning to trust their instincts to
start moving confidently towards building their
vision of how they want to live their lives.
“They have to trust in themselves and give themselves permission to do what
they love.”
IT CAN BE CONFUSING
I believe there is something like six thousand
possible careers options listed, so there is
definitely plenty to choose from. I have not
found a lack of choices to be the problem,
quite the opposite, it is like being in the candy
store and not knowing what to choose.
I cannot overstate the wisdom of doing what
you love to do and are passionate about. This is
where we start and finish. Perhaps like myself
and many others you love so many things that
you can’t decide. Well mix and match the three
things you like best and are good at. Distill
your list of things you love down to the very
essence of who you are and what you can
become.
Write down the vision you have for your
future. What is yours to do before you leave
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this world? Take your time and consider all
your choices and options carefully. What do
you love to do. What can you do?
“Follow your heart.” “Ask yourself what would you do if you knew you would
succeed?”
TEST DRIVE YOUR DREAMS
Start small, take your time and weave in what
you love while doing your day job. Don’t go “all
or nothing.” Keep your eyes and heart on your
vision. Keep working on it inch by inch. Find the
time to work your dream every day if possible.
Do one little thing even if it is just thinking
about your vision for tomorrow.
Imagine living your dream. Meditate on it and
make your dream as real as possible. We don’t
want to just fantasize, we want to consider the
realities of committing to this opportunity for
change that we are considering. Hold that dream
close to your heart and see if it gives you that
warm and fuzzy feeling. Go with your instincts.
“Dare to fly.”
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MODES OF EMPLOYMENT
Along with choosing our one passionate dream
we need to consider our mode of employment.
Are we going to work for a large corporation, a
small company or for ourselves? Are we going
to be an employee, a self-employed contractor
for another company, a temporary worker or
our own limited company?
Does our dream fit best working as an employee
of a company or do we have an entrepreneurial
spirit and believe that we can best realize our
dream working for ourselves.
Do we have the resources to work for
ourselves, meaning are we willing to wear many
hats and feel that we can take the heat when
the pressure is on?
I have found that not everyone is cut out to be
an entrepreneur managing their own work life and
finances but certainly being our own boss has
it’s own perks and rewards.
“Try before you buy.”
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EMPLOYEE OR EMPLOYER
Both working in our own business or working
as an employee have huge benefits and we have
to decide for ourselves what is the best fit for
us. We need to do our homework and consider
everything that is involved in our work mode
choices. We can talk to other entrepreneurs and
do our research on line as to what is involved
when we set up our own company.
I would never rush setting up a company
without being absolutely sure I was willing to
work at it until I succeed.
Owning our own company can mean lean years
and hard work to get going and to stay going. It
can be feast or fast and we need to continually
find work to keep us going. Certainly it can be
done and it is very rewarding, if it is our ‘cup of
tea’.
“Never rush a big decision”
PREPARING TO START WORK.
“My definition of finding work is like learning how to walk and chew gum at the
same time.”
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If we choose to work as an employee we will
need to prepare ourselves differently than if we
are going to be self-employed.
First of all we will need to decide what we
want to do and secondly we will need to prepare
ourselves for our job search.
We start of course with a great resume that
will put our best foot forward. We also need
to look at all the industries and companies
that are a perfect match for our interests,
skills and talents. We need to research what
these companies are all about, their corporate
culture and determine whether they are a good
match for us and if so understand how we
can add value to them. Being prepared makes us
better informed and over all makes us feel more
confident.
When I prepare my job seekers to go for an
interview, I try to build their confidence by
telling them about the company they will be
meeting with. It is important to have as much
background information as we can about our
prospective employer. It is also important to
know the position we are interviewing for and
most importantly how we match up with the
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profile, needs and expectations of the employer.
“let’s do our home work”
OUR RESUME
Over the years I have interviewed many candidates
looking for work and the ones I find who are not
job ready are the ones who come unprepared. I
always ask job seekers to bring with them a copy
of their resume for me to use in the interview and
most often I receive good professional resumes.
The disappointing ones are when people looking
for work hand me a crumpled and messy resume
which is poorly written and hard to follow. This
is not a good thing.
So suffice to say we need a great resume to
start with. A great resume is one that is crisp
and fresh on white paper without art or graphics
on it. I know most of us want to be creative
individuals with our own unique flair, but honestly
this makes resumes more difficult to read for
the interviewer.
A resume should to be no more than two to
three pages in length and to the point. It is very
important that they are up to date with courses,
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affiliations, education and work experience. Also
always put in the dates in chronological order
for your work history, courses and educational
degrees and diplomas. This is very important as it
helps the interviewer to know how current your
experience and education is.
OUR COVER LETTER
A cover letter is a nice touch as it highlights our
skills and work history. In a cover letter we can
be more personal and point out the name of who
referred us to the job opening.
Always it should be professional and well written.
Watch out for errors and sloppy writing as all
jobs require us to pay attention to detail.
If you have problems writing your own resume
and cover letter, for goodness sake get help. Find
someone you can trust to write a good resume
and cover letter for you, whether it be a friend
or a paid service. It is worth the investment
as a resume and cover letter is going to make a
first and often lasting impression and so will the
interview.
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HOW WE PRESENT OURSELVES
The manner in which we conduct and present
ourselves in an interview is what will seal the
deal. For starters find out as much as you can
about the position and the company you are
hoping to work for.
Learn about the industry they’re in and research
the latest trends, cycles, challenges and their
future potential.
I caution that you make sure you get your
information from a reliable source and try to
focus only on the positives of the company.
Prepare yourself for any questions they
may ask. Do a sheet of what their needs are
and how you can fill those needs. Consider
objectively any short comings you may have and
prepare how you will respond to their concerns.
This will make you feel more confident but
more importantly it will show your prospective
employer that your are really interested and
motivated to work with their organization.
“Be prepared”
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KNOW YOUR OWN RESUME
Also review your resume well so you know
your own history. Know the length of time and
dates you spent at previous work positions,
volunteer work and your education. Have your
references and contact information ready. Know
in advance when you are able to start work, how
long you plan to stay with the company and
what remuneration you are expecting.
Be quick, decisive and well-informed about your
resume and your past experience and know what
your work expectations are.
Do not however discuss salary and benefits
until the employer has indicated what they
are willing to pay for the position. If the
interviewer asks you what you are expecting for
a salary rate, try to go win-win by asking what
is being offered. Tread carefully and don’t make
it seem like money is your only motivation.
Above all be friendly, professional, positive,
accommodating and flexible, showing your
eagerness to make it work with your future
employer.
“ Start off on a positive note”
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GOING FOR AN INTERVIEW
Before you go to an interview, try to get
information about the person or persons you
will be interviewing with and what you can
expect the meeting to be like. Consider your
answers to possible questions the client will
be asking.
Write down the company name, interviewers’
name, address and the time and date so you can
be sure to make it to the right appointment.
Write down any questions you want answers to
about the nature of the work you will be doing
and the work environment you will be working in.
Make sure if you do get hired to write down
the start date, the money you will be paid
(including benefits), the work mode or status,
whether it will be full-time or part-time, the
expected length of the work term and the work
schedules. Ask about keys or access cards you
will need to enter your work and who you will
be reporting to.
Also find out what to wear so it will meet
with the company dress code and will make you
feel more comfortable working.
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This is all vital information which we need to
know. It will help us in the long run.
When we have the good fortune of having an
interview for work, let’s do our best to be
prepared, let’s dress appropriately and present
our very best self. The same is true when we
show up for work everyday.
“let’s give it our best”
DOING MOCK INTERVIEWS
As I said before always do your homework
and be well prepared for the interview. Practice
with a friend or family member doing a mock
interview. Seriously, this will help. Let them
quiz you on the dates and information straight
from your resume. It is not a good thing to
tell the interviewer “it’s all on my resume”
when asked questions about work experiences
and dates. The interviewer can see it on your
resume, but they are wanting to involve you in
a conversation just to get to know you better.
Only you can make your past work experience
real and show your interests in bringing together
what you are capable of doing with the needs
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of the new position you are applying for. GET
INVOLVED.
BE ENTHUSIASTIC.
Let your employer know you are enthusiastic
about the position and point out ways you can
bring your skills, knowledge and experiences to
add value to the new job.
Don’t try to make it go your way by pointing
out all the perks and things you need in a job in
order to make it work for you. Don’t talk about
all the things you haven’t liked about your
previous jobs or employers. Don’t unload onto
your interviewer all your hard luck stories in
life, they are not psychiatrists. No whining is
ever allowed in an interview and never use abusive
or foul language.
Always speak loud enough to be heard in a
pleasant and positive but natural voice. Don’t
concern yourself about having an accent, just
maintain eye contact and listen carefully. Be
polite and open to cooperating fully.
“Be fully engaged”
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HAVING GOOD MANNERS
Always be polite and well mannered. Turn off
all cell phones and any other distractions like
watch alarms.
Time manage properly so that you arrive early
and prepared for your interviews. Do a little
centering and relaxing if you have a moment
before the interview. Breathe deeply to calm
yourself and think positive thoughts and
affirmations about how smoothly it will all go.
Visualize your success.
Try to enjoy the interview, remember to smile
and don’t take yourself too seriously. Remember
you can only do your best and that’s enough.
“Be cheerful and friendly”
KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE
“Help yourself”
If the interviewer asks you difficult or quirky
questions, don’t question the interviewer or get
thrown off. Employers want to see how you
handle the unexpected and difficult situations
that may arise on the job. When you are asked
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the “what if” questions, take a reasonable
amount of time to consider your answer, then
answer with your truth and confidence. Don’t
ever worry what the interviewer may be thinking,
just be your best self and be friendly, tactful
and honest. Being sincere and cooperative will
go a long way. Never be defensive when asked
difficult questions and always be honest in you
answers.
“Your mannerisms, gestures, body movements, posture, tone of voice, and
expressions communicate just as much as your words do” – .Job Seeker’s
Handbook
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
First impressions are so important. I recently
met a very accomplished and talented young lady.
Her resume was glow in the dark good. She had
exactly what I was looking for, but she arrived
unprofessionally dressed for the position and
she had a kind of “I just wanted to check
this out” attitude. I am still not sure she
is the right candidate for the position. I was
disappointed in her casualness about it all. She
has all the right experience but she needs to
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be more professional to be a right fit for the
leadership position I was offering.
DRESSING FOR SUCCESS
I can’t over emphasize the importance of
dressing for success. I know that today blue
jeans are the new dress pants, but not all our
conservative corporate clients buy this. There
is still a business casual dress code in the
industry I staff to. I know dressing should
not be an issue but it is.
Shower, brush your teeth, do your hair and
nails and dress your best in something that is
appropriate and you are comfortable with.
I have some ladies who wear short skirts and
sexy tops that are more suitable for the evening
scene. I have young men who come in wearing
jaunty hats and undershirts. Although they
look ‘cool and trendy’ this will never work for a
corporate office.
Unless you are applying for a position in the
entertainment industry, it is best to dress neat,
tidy and on the conservative side.
“Make your clothes work for you”
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BUSINESS CASUAL
Unless you are going for a professional position
or work that is in the management level, you
don’t need to wear a suit and tie. For men, wear
dress pants and a shirt and for women a skirt
or dress pants with a blouse or a pant-suit
will work perfectly. Take off any outer-wear
like coats, hats and gloves when you arrive at
the interview. Women put your handbags on the
floor by your chair or with your outer wear.
Never sit through an interview with your coat
on, it is unprofessional and you will over heat.
Don’t wear any clothes that have wardrobe
malfunctions like missing buttons, falling hems,
or clothes that are out of season or too big or
too small.
We want to look our best and be so
comfortable with what we wear. When we
look good, we feel good.
GOOD GROOMING
Always wash your hair and look fresh. This
shows energy, good health, vitality and eagerness.
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It shows you are interested in making a good
impression. Use your good judgement as to
how you can present yourself at your best.
Employers want to see how we look and how
we conduct ourselves. What we look like and
how we interact is very important. It reflects
on us as a person and is a significant part of
who we are. Not that looks are everything,
certainly we need the experience to do the work
but a vibrant and friendly personality as well as
a great overall attitude will go the distance for
us.
“There is a perception that how we take care of ourselves is often the way we
will look after other things in our life. “
DO THE BEST YOU CAN WITH WHAT
YOU HAVE
I am very aware that not everyone has a big
budget to buy the clothes to fit the job we
are after and this is all fine. However it is not
overly expensive to have a basic good pair of
dress pants and shirt or a shirt and skirt for
women that we keep clean and pressed to wear
for interviews.
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Giving our shoes a shine is a good idea too. The
point is “do the best you can with what you
have.”
” Just don’t work against yourself.”
DEALING WITH REJECTION
If you have gone for an interview and hear back
that you didn’t get the job don’t be too hard
on yourself. Take it easy, be grateful that you
tried your best. It’s O.K. not to get a job.
Don’t take it personally, as there can be many
internal reasons why you didn’t get the job.
Know there will be other opportunities that will
come along.
Try your very best not to let fear take over
your life. Talk to people who love and support
you. Do something fun that you really enjoy
to reward yourself for having tried. Know
that trying is half-way there and we will be
successful at some point.
Rebuild your self-confidence and self-
esteem by reviewing your previous successes.
Remember to be your own best advocate and to
love yourself anyway. Please move on. Say NEXT.
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SOMETIMES WE JUST NEED MORE
PRACTICE
Once we have gone to an interview we know
better where we can improve. Maybe we need
more experience, or maybe we need to better
represent ourselves on paper and in person.
Hindsight, think how you would have changed
things? Let’s keep in mind that rejection and
disappointments happen in life all the time.
Everyone wins, loses and draws in the game of
life, but let’s not let this make us quit. Let’s
just keep on moving in the direction we want to
go. We have to find our way back up from any
big let downs. That’s life.
“It’s not how many times we get let down that matters, it’s how many time we
get up and going again.”
We have to have bounce in life. Big Bounce.
REMEMBER TO WRITE A LETTER OF THANKS
TO YOUR INTERVIEWER.
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KNOW THAT YOU WILL FIND YOUR
DREAM JOB
Know that you will find your dream work,
somewhere sometime. No one can keep our good
from coming to us. We will succeed in finding
work. Try to stay positive and engaged in life
while you search for new work.
Build your confidence by remembering all the
times you have over come something difficult.
Remember all the pleasant surprises you never
expected that came into your life. Think of all
the good things that have happened to you, all
the achievements and progress you have made in
spite of the challenges you had to overcome.
Also think of all the good things that you have
going for you right now in your life. Think of
all the wonderful experiences you have enjoyed
and know there are plenty more in the future.
Look for every way to brush off disappointment
and frustration. Walk, pray, meditate, read, do
yoga, dance, talk it over with people you love,
run, exercise, eat well, drink water, get plenty
of rest, take a holiday and engage your mind and
body doing all the things you love.
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If your interview really doesn’t go well
remember that we have to ignore much in life to
accomplish our goals.
“Don’t get thrown off by other’s poor opinion of you.”
MOVE ON
Don’t spend time tormenting yourself by going
over your shortcomings or the rough times you
have experienced in the past. When we are in the
midst of one major life challenge, it is not the
time to go over our whole life and find all the
things we have messed up. This is overload on
all our energy sources and to stir everything up
will surely swamp us.
We need to leave the past in the past. We need
to move on. We need to let go of the pain. We
need to release the people and the situations
which have caused us so much heartache and
grief. We truly need to forgive and forget. Let’s
close one chapter on our life and no matter
how young or old we are let’s begin a new and
exciting dream.
Don’t fall into the abyss of self-pity and
loathing. Don’t become quiet and discouraged,
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fearful and full of dread, and don’t allow
yourself to become a victim or bitter.
Pick yourself up, be your own best friend, know
your good news will come too and it truly will.
Love yourself, enjoy life. Just Trust. Know your
dream will come true.
Do everything you can to love your life. Be
thankful and live joyously while you wait. Have
faith. Have hope and keep believing in your dream.
“Take your mind off your problems by helping someone else.”
“Don’t wallow in self-pity”
DON’T SEE THIS CHALLENGE AS A
PROBLEM
Don’t see this challenge as a problem, it is truly an opportunity in disguise.
Looking to create our special life journey and
finding meaningful work is a happy and good thing
and yes it is usually very challenging when we are
trying to bring a positive change into our life. We
have to work harder to bring about the birth of
something and often we ride a roller coaster of
emotions going from elation to despair.
I know it is difficult to live with the constant
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uncertainty as to what results our hard
efforts will bring. Sometimes it may seem futile
to keep working so hard to find our life/work
dream when we have no guarantee what the
return will be on the huge investment of our
resources. But overall know that it is worth
the effort to reach high and to give everything
our best. Challenges are always opportunities
for positive change so let’s go for it. Enjoy.
Have Fun!
KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS
Sometimes when we just don’t seem to be
making progress in our job search in spite of
our best efforts, we need to step back and do
an assessment of how we feel we can improve.
We need to look at all the possible ways
we can present ourselves better. Ask people
whom we trust to give us positive feed back.
Sometimes it is just as simple as changing one
bad habit or mannerism that is putting off the
employers.
Yesterday I interviewed a beautiful and
talented lady who has excellent experience but
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unfortunately has not connected with work
for almost a year. She is neat, well mannered,
organized and professional in demeanor. I
wanted to help her, but truly she needs a little
coaching up before I would feel comfortable
placing her with our clients.
The barrier she is facing has to do with her
own attitudes. She openly complains about
employers being losers for not hiring her when
she has such good skills. In her frustration
she wants to push back and put them in their
place. I know she is just discouraged and trying
to speak her truth, but as I explained to her,
clients too have their stresses and problems
and they are wanting someone with the skills
they need but with no baggage.
Employers are wanting happy campers who will
get down to work without too much drama.
They’re wanting to manage the work flow
without having to be crisis workers.
If we are facing difficulties connecting with
work, let’s look at all the possible barriers we
may be putting up in our way and let’s find ways
to remove all obstacles.
‘Give yourself a break.”
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BE A HAPPY FACE
After every downturn comes an upturn.
No matter what the outcome of the challenges
we face, we need to stay positive and continue
looking for our good. Let’s not sour on life and
give up. If we don’t get the job we want, there
will be other great work opportunities that are
waiting for us and this is the absolute truth.
I have seen so many people devastated and angry
when they lost the job interview, their job or
a contract they were hoping to get. Yet today
they are living their dreams and are grateful they
didn’t get what they hoped for at the time. It
was not right for them and although at the
time they were very disappointed, fortunately
they didn’t give up, they kept looking and
eventually they found what they were looking
for. So a word of caution, watch closely what
you wish for.
Keep on being a happy camper and keep looking,
keep asking, keep seeking and knocking until the
door opens to your heart’s desire. Trust that
it is out there waiting for you to claim. Give
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thanks when you get your heart’s desire.
“It is amazing how often we find our way in, not through the front door, but
through side doors.”
STAY HAPPY AND ENGAGED IN LIFE
Too often when we face disappointment, we
disconnect with life and others. We lose our
sparkle. We trudge through our days like we
are weighed down by every worry in the world.
We lose our enthusiasm for life in general and
we start second guessing ourselves. Our selfconfidence and motivation slides. We think we
are so unlucky and feel that everything is falling
apart. This is normal, but let’s not stay in this
mode for too long. Remember it’s like having
the flu, the sooner we get over it the better.
Let’s not be so unhappy. Hey let’s get cheerful
and bouncy again, find something good to be
happy about. Let’s shed every discouragement,
regret and frustration. Strive to live lighter and
stay engaged in life. Often when we go through
really tough times, we need to treat ourselves
to the things we enjoy. Let’s fill our days doing
things that inspire us and will help put us back
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into our own good life.
Surviving a major set back, can certainly knock
the wind out of our sails, but we need to
regain our balance, lick our wounds and heal
our heart and soul. Over time we will find our
burning passion and dreams again and our spirit
will rise.
So let’s shake off the heavy thoughts, feelings
and moods, take our minds off of our problems
and open our hearts to the sweet goodness and
blessings coming our way. A sure way to feel
good about ourselves and life is to count our
blessings. I do this often and it fills me with
gratitude and renewed hope.
“Keep on going in the direction of your goodness”
STAY CONNECTED
If you have been let go, fired or laid off from
your work, know that you will go through
some tough times coping with the changes and
challenges but this is a time when you have to
keep going. Dig deep into your inner resources
and be your own best friend.
This is not a time to beat yourself up! This is
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a time to be very good to yourself.
Find a friend who will support you by listening
to you and is willing to help you come up with
a plan of action. Keep your mind, heart, body and
spirit sweet, positive and full of hope.
Stay connected with others. Keep your routines
going, keep doing fun things, stay in the land of
the living. Don’t become a recluse, challenge
yourself everyday to get out with others, to
exercise, go to the library and generally to stay
in touch with all of life. Seek wholesome
healing.
“Keep loving, keep giving, keep living.”
REMEMBER THE SUN IS STILL
SHINING
Know that even though you are going through
a dark time, the sun is still shining. Growing
always takes effort and growing through
difficulties is even a bigger challenge. But
we need to stay the course, we need to keep
moving, we need to keep believing there will be a
light at the end of it all. We need to know that
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our good is awaiting us and above all, we need
patience. Faith and Patience is what will save
our day. Don’t give up. Give yourself time to
find your work, to fulfill your dream, to create
the life you love and desire. Trust that it will
come. Look Up!
MANAGING OUR MOODS
When we find ourselves facing a challenge,
our first reaction is to stress and moan
about it and this is normal and very healthy
as it dissipates the toxic nervous energy from
settling in our bodies.
To cry and to complain about our
disappointments and challenges is part of the
healing process because we are venting toxic
emotions of pain, we are flushing out negative
energy from our mind, body, heart and spirit. It
is like lancing infected wounds to flush the
poison and to release the pressure and pain.
We need to clean out the garbage and toxins
we all collect over time. When we feel sad,
sorry for ourselves, anxious, discouraged,
frustrated, depressed, put down, fearful,
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confused, disappointed, exhausted, burned-out
and angry it is best to share our grievances with
someone we trust. To suck it up and lock up
our emotional pain inside of us will create lowgrade depression and lower our immunity against
infections and diseases. Collecting and storing
toxic and negative emotions one drop at a time
will fill us to overflowing with pollution if we
don’t sort through the garbage and dump these
toxins daily.
“Take time to decompress and unwind”
HEALING
It is always best to deal with our painful
emotions by releasing this negative energy
from our systems by talking it out, crying,
walking, praying, dancing, singing, meditating,
helping others, exercising, sleeping, resting,
dreaming, dancing, singing, writing in our journal...
Constantly we must “catch and release”
meaning catch all the goodness which comes
into our life and releasing all the toxic garbage
we collect everyday. We must always be
sleuthing to find positive ways we can make
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our relationships work and to create our good,
happy and inspired life.
“Of course, habitual complaining is every bit as unhealthy as holding
everything in.” – Sue Patton Thoele
One word of caution here is not to let
ourselves be consumed by our challenges and
discontentment. We need to manage our moods
or they will manage us. We need to focus
on what is working in our lives and to keep a
positive perspective. We need to know that life
is still good even if our life is difficult.
“I will focus on what I have and not what I don’t have. I will not be consumed
by my challenges. I will stay in faith, focus on the good and keep the right
perspective. I will remain open for something bigger and better.”
– Love your Life by Victoria Osteen
LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE
Often in our work we meet people who have
been fired or handled badly in someway. They are
angry and in pain and feel they have been treated
unfairly. Sometimes the answer is yes they
were and sometimes they didn’t put in their best
effort. The point is don’t go over the pain and
the agony of the situation until you exhaust.
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Certainly everyone deserves to be listened to and
sharing our pain is part of the healing process
but we need to do damage control by releasing
all the guilt, shame, anger and pain we have
suffered and to start building our good life
dream again.
We have to move on, we have to force ourselves
to get over it and to start something going again.
We have to believe that we will get over this
rough time and the sooner we start the healing
process, the better off we will be.
People are like palm trees: “We have a bounce back on the inside of us.”
- Joel Osteen
Daily let’s take breaks from our pain, anxiety and
sadness.
OVERCOMING SET BACKS
When we face really, really tough breaks, we
cannot just curl up and die. We must keep in
mind that we will always get a second chance.
Failure is only an opportunity to learn how to
do things better next time. Everyone alive has
experienced the sting of failure, it is just a
natural part of life. Failure is not really failure
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unless we leave it at that. Failure in reality is
just a vital part of the learning process. One of
the many steps to our goal.
Not making our target only means that we have
more work to do to be successful. Life is 99%
understanding the big picture and seeing things
for what they truly are. In life we only need
to compete and please ourselves. Too often we
dance to the tune of other people, never hearing
our own inner harmony and very often many of
us give up far too easily because we weren’t
doing our own thing anyway.
Unfortunately too often we want to excel at
everything and now. We don’t want to run into
any turbulence. We want a smooth ride, the
whole way paved for us and this thinking sets
us up for big disappointment.
“If you ‘re not living the life you want, keep working on it”
HIGH EXPECTATIONS
Oh my! How unrealistically high many of us
set our standards and expectations. We want to
be perfect and we want too much and we want
it all now. (Me too)
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I hope I don’t confuse you when I encourage
you to set high goals and dreams to reach
for. I believe we enjoy the thrill of a big
dream, but as we work to make our dreams
come true we need to have patience and lower
our expectations of what we can expect to
accomplish with all else we have going on in
our equally big life. We need to temper our
dreams with our realities. Move our dreams in
increments. Enjoy our life at every stage and
appreciate and give thanks for what we have
accomplished.
“Give yourself a break.”
EASE UP
Let’s stop being so hard on ourselves and
others, let’s ease up a little. We need to know
that we have what it takes to overcome the
difficulties that we face. We need to believe
that we will make it to our goals with time and
effort. It’s not what happens to us, it is what
we do with it.
Very often a set back is a great set up for
something so much better than we could have
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ever imagined. It’s time to let go of the pain
and to seek the good that is trying to make it’s
way into our life.
Everything and I mean everything can be used
constructively to build our beautiful life and
work dream. Let’s not let the speed bumps,
the detours and the tough times in life stop
us in our tracks. Let’s look for every way to
get around the obstacles and barriers we come
up against. Let’s pick up the bits and pieces
and start building up again. We’ll use everything
good, bad or otherwise to build our dream. The
most interesting and courageous people are not
those whose lives have been easy, but those
who have come through very difficult times and
have survived and thrived.
Affirm daily that “we can and will do it.” HURRAH!”
IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO START
OVER AGAIN
I am just a hair shy of being sixty years young.
I don’t mind telling my age because I still have
a lot of life and work dreams I am eager to
build and enjoy. Fortunately I have great health
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and vitality so age is just not an issue for me,
it’s just a number.
I feel I still have the time and the creative
energy to keep building my good dreams and look
forward to doing so. My dreams and goals get
me up in the morning frisky and eager for the
day. I don’t worry about having to retire from
work at any age or being overlooked for someone
younger because I know there is always plenty
of opportunities for people of all ages.
My clients are of every age, from twenty
years old to sixty and beyond and I see that
it is their attitudes and skills that keep them
employed.
We are never too young or too old to start living
our life and work dreams. Only we can erect the
barriers and limitations about what we believe
we can or cannot do. True there are some
people who are ageist, but let’s pay no mind to
their short sightedness. It only goes to show
how limited their thinking is. With confidence
let’s go on doing our thing.
“What can and can’t we change?”
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YOU ARE YOUR OWN BOSS
Best of all I truly believe that the power to
generate our good is within us, not out there.
We are the only ones who can limit our dreams.
No one else has that power. We have the power
to conceive our dreams, plant and nurture them
and enjoy living our dreams.
This is a big world we live in and it is filled
with every kind of wonderful and incredible
opportunities. There are so many needs we can
fill with our special talents. Truly there is
never a lack of work, just a lack of awareness
and motivation. We are the only ones who can
find the right work opportunities for ourselves.
Always remember you are your own boss
whether you work for yourself or someone
else.
“Whatever your work, hold your head high”
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WORKING FOR MYSELF.
I feel confident that my life and work dreams
can take me until the end of my days and that
gives me the freedom to work at my own pace.
I don’t have to get it all done before forty,
fifty, sixty... If the economic times are slow,
it just means that I will need to be creative
and resourceful and that my goals may take a
little longer. This is the beauty of being selfemployed and going for the long haul.
“Whatever work we do, let’s put our heart into it”
WE ARE IN OUR RIGHT PLACE
If we find ourselves stressing about being
35 years old, unemployed and still not where
we thought we would be, let’s chill out and
get real. We have our whole life ahead of us,
certainly we have no time to waste, but hey our
life is moving along as it should. We are doing
our best and everything is part of the journey
we are on. Let’s be grateful that we truly are
in the right place and desiring to move along. If
we are frustrated with where we are then we
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can always change things up.
We must never compare ourselves with others,
as we all have different learning curves, dreams
and life experiences. We must understand that
we are in our right place and our right time.
Where we are is where we should be. So let’s
relax and know that it is never too late to do
what we still want to do, no matter what age
we are. Whining about our age is only counterproductive and doing negative self talk is so
self-abusive, so let’s cut it out.
I have young people in their twenties and in
their fifties telling me it is too late for them
to go back and study and this is pure nonsense.
It’s astounding what negatives we can talk
ourselves into believing.
Let’s forget about thinking we are too young or
too old and let’s just find ways to get the job
done. Let’s ask ourselves every day “What can I
do today to move my dream?” And then let’s get
doing it.
NO TIME TO WASTE
Looking for work in a down market can certainly
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bring it’s own challenges and road blocks.
Recessions in my experience have always created
lay offs, hardships of every kind, uncertainty
and general economic crisis, just to name a
few of the difficulties. But these difficult and
uncertain times should not make us retreat,
in fact more than ever we need to find some
project, some deferred dream or even a new
dream that we can work on. We need to keep
going, keep growing, stay inspired and keep making
good things happen.
“Desire and yearning is our inner wisdom guiding us to our good”
TIME TO RENEW AND REFOCUS
This downturn does not mean dead time nor time
to veg and waste away. In fact recessions are a
perfect time to think about going back to study,
or doing some wonderful project we never had
the time to do before. We can prepare ourselves
by cleaning up and catching up in areas we got
behind in so we are ready to hit the ground
running when the work starts rolling again, as it
always does.
All of us need to make good use of this slow
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and quiet time, by acquiring new skills, great
experiences, and renewing our creative energies
and resources.
The slow times in a recession just gives us
sabbatical time to choose how we will grow
and add value to our own lives and others. It
gives us a break to catch our breath and to
re-focus. It is a perfect opportunity to use
our precious resources in creative and positive
ways which will enrich our life and the life of
others.
Waiting it out very often means losing out. We
have to see our work as a huge chunk of our
life span and who among us has any time or
goodness to throw away. We all have a big life
waiting for us to enjoy. So let’s get on with
this wonderful adventure.
“Let’s water our dry and parched places”
DREAMING BIG DREAMS
It is so healthy to dream big dreams. This fills
us with anticipation and gives us vital energy.
Stop dreaming and you start dying by the inches.
Anyone who has worked their way to fulfilling a
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goal or a dream knows first hand the deep sense
of achievement and feeling great about life one
experiences. It is an exhilarating feeling which
propels us to our next dreams and goals.
“If we are not living, then we are dying.”
LIVING OUR DREAMS
Both Gary and I have moved along in living our
dreams. For many years we have made up lists
of dreams we would like to realize and then
we work at them for however long it takes.
Sometimes we talk about things for ten years
or more before they come to be. But diligently
we continue working inch by inch to make what
we want to see in our lives come true.
Fortunately we are both on the same page and
if we agree whole-heartedly on one thing, then
we go for it. It is then just a matter of time
and working out the details before we move our
mountains.
GRATITUDE
Always we are so grateful for having so many
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of our dreams come true. This is why I can
passionately write a life and work book based
on setting our minds and energy on working and
achieving our fabulous dreams.
“It’s been our experience that dreams usually turn out so much better than we
could have imagined or planned for.”
It is beyond wonderful, the feeling of reaching
our goals is beyond words.
BEYOND WONDERFUL
It is also a delightful experience when others
we know and love enjoy having their dreams come
true. It blesses us too in knowing that there
is plenty of good to go around. We share in
their joy and it makes our day. Let us never be
jealous of others good fortune. Let us always
celebrate their victories with them.
Life just gets bigger and better.
DREAM ZAPPERS
Sometimes when we dream big dreams we run
into turbulence with those we know and love.
Unfortunately not everyone likes to see people
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moving on with their lives.
One reality we want to be aware of is that
when we are changing and growing into our
greatness, we will come across some of
the dream zappers and naysayers in life.
Unfortunately these jealous people do not enjoy
seeing us enthused and inspired by setting goals
and working towards them. These are the people
who will make fun of our ‘big ideas.’ They will
snicker and roll their eyes when we share how
excited we are about some future plan. The
bigger our dream the more these distractors
will ridicule us.
It is sad because although we love these good
people, we have to stop sharing our dreams and
hopes with them. Who likes to be put down
for trying to do something good and meaningful
with their life?
If this starts to happen, take comfort in
knowing that you are not alone. Try not to argue
with them or talk until you are blue in the face
trying to make them see what you are wanting
to do.
Remember these good people are truly happy
for you, they just don’t understand what you
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are up to and are afraid of being left behind. We
know their behavior is counter-productive but
let’s not let their doubts and negative comments
slow us down. For sure their negativity hurts
but let’s just keep going.
FIND A DREAM PARTNER, someone who
may not be personally involved in your journey
but who loves you unconditionally and will
support and cheer you on. Our dream partners
are positive people who will whole-heartedly
celebrate our victories and successes with us
and truly this will double our pleasure. Hurrah!
“Let’s always insulate ourself from people who take pleasure in putting us
down. This is their way of trying to build themselves up.”
Smile, wish them well and move on.
DON’T LET PEOPLE LABEL YOU.
Don’t let others label you, unless of course
it’s good label. How often do we hear people
say nasty things about others that sticks
a label on them. John is a whiner, Lisa is a
princess, Jeanne is stubborn and so on.
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I AM STRONG-WILLED
When I was a child my good mother always
told me that I was stubborn and I know I
was. My mother was strong, independent and
resourceful. I looked more like my father and
his side of the family and mom always said
dad’s family were very stubborn people.
In my opinion they had to be to have survived
the wars, death and famines they had lived
through in Europe.
Even though I loved my mother and my European
family, I never liked being called ‘STUBBORN’,
it was like throwing down the gauntlet for me.
However I do want to balance things out by
saying that my mother often told me that I
was lucky, smart, and feminine. Now THAT I
believed without argument.
WISDOM THAT COMES WITH
EXPERIENCE
Later in life when I was in my thirties and my
mother was in her mid-fifties, she came for
Thanksgiving to visit me after I had given birth
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to our youngest son Jonah. One day as I was
feeding our newborn and chatting with her she
said to me, “you know I always said you were
stubborn but now I see why you needed to
be stubborn. I don’t know how you could get
through these tough times without being at
least a little bit stubborn.”
Jonah, our youngest son was born in the fall
of 1981 just as our economy was plunging into
what later became known as the 1981/2 National
Energy Policy Recession. To make things more
difficult our darling son was born with medical
difficulties. Thankfully with time, both the
recession and the medical concerns with our
son pleasantly resolved themselves.
“ Thankfully most problems come and go”
REFRAME YOUR LABELS
Today I have re-framed that label “Stubborn”
and I fully understand my mother was well
intended. English was my moms’ second
language and she did not have the gift of a good
psychology education, as we have today.
I choose to believe that my mom meant that I
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was spirited, focused, determined and motivated.
I have replaced that old label “stubborn” with
“strong-willed” and believe me we all have to be
“strong-willed” at times to move along in our
life.
If you too have labels and handles that are
unkind and unfair, reserve the right to change
them, put a positive spin on everything. Think
positive.
As my oldest son Dustin frequently reminds me:
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.”
Dustin, I couldn’t agree more.
FOCUSED AND DETERMINED
We all need to be focused and positive thinking.
Often in life we encounter times when it doesn’t
just rain but it pours. Everything seems to come
at us from all sides, but in our own way we
need to find our inner strength and calm. We need
to hold our own and boldly stand our ground,
especially when it comes to surviving tough and
tricky times.
We start by finding the things we are grateful
for, remembering all the things we have achieved
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and have been blessed with and we hold these
gifts close to our heart. We can’t just look
at what we’ve lost or what we are struggling
with as this will debilitate us. We must look
up with faith and seek even the tiniest morsel
of goodness to savor and to give us a boost of
hope.
“Let’s look for our strengths and stay the course.”
IN GOOD TIMES AND IN BAD TIMES.
Whatever the times we find ourselves in we need
to stay focused, motivated, determined, creative,
resourceful and moving in the direction of our
destination. In many things in life we need to be
strong-willed. Sometimes we need to follow our
own head and heart and to be true to ourselves,
no matter what other’s believe we should do.
Always we need to be our own advocate as we
know ourselves best. We need to change our
vocabulary to include positive and up-lifting words
like marvelous, fabulous, amazing, wonderful,
incredible, brilliant, generous, creative, resourceful,
talented, fascinating, charming, loving, generous,
charismatic, inspiring and delightful.
“Tune out the negatives.”
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LITTLE DREAMS WITHIN BIG
DREAMS
Daily I meet with many people who are looking
for work. We do recruiting and staffing in our
firm Horizon Resources International Inc. and
it never ceases to surprise me how many people
will sit out being unemployed until they find
their perfect job.
This comes to mind as I just had a lengthy
discussion with an intelligent and accomplished
lady yesterday who has come to meet with me
several times desperate for work. She says she
is willing to take anything as she is running out
of Employment Insurance Benefits.
But every time I offer her something, she
refuses the work so yesterday I met with her
to get the scoop. As we talked it over she said
that she needs to work but doesn’t want to
accept anything less than what she is capable
of doing. She’s wanting interesting work that
will help her grow and is expecting top dollars
for the job. She is going to hold out for her
big break, it is the whole deal or no deal.
This is all good and reasonable but presently we
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are in a bit of a recession and there seems to
be more laying off than there is hiring. So we
need to take everything into account when we
make our decisions and what I suggest to her
and others is working on little dreams within
our big dreams.
LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE
When we are looking for work we need to get
a clear picture of what is happening in our
work world and we need to put things into
perspective. Realistically there will always be
curves in life that we have to maneuver around.
And often we have to re-adjust our course
and change our plans, ultimately keeping in mind
what we want to do with our lives.
It’s very frustrating that we can’t always work
full steam ahead doing what we love and find
meaningful. Unfortunately very often life’s
realities slows down our plans and progress and
we have to come up with creative compromises
that will still move us in the direction we want
to go.
Even if our current reality isn’t our first choice
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we need to invent creative ways to navigate
around our road- blocks and delays. We will
still get to where we want to go, but not the
way we had hoped to go and most often, not as
quickly.
‘Problems often redirect us to our good”
COMPROMISE
The good news is that usually by compromising
we will find our good faster. I know how
hard it is to accept the disappointment of
lowering our expectations. It is tough and it
takes time for this brutal reality to sink in. We
have to wind down in manageable increments.
But overall we have to learn to be flexible and
accommodating in order to get ahead.
We have to live small dreams that add up to
big dreams. We have to take small tasks and
work them like they are the big dreams we love.
Often we have to graciously take the best that
is being offered at the moment and pay no mind
that this in not what we had hoped for nor
deserved. Life may be bumpy, but we have to
smooth it out.
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Who knows what a small dream can do for
us or where it can lead us? I have found
that when I have worked on something and I
wondered why I was spending so much of my
good energy on it, many times what I thought
was insignificant has come back to bless me in
a huge way.
I once wrote a poem about how most good
things in life come wrapped in a brown paper
bag. So often good things come in the most
unexpected ways.
“Life grows in the cracks.”
BIG MOMENTS
“It may not look like your big moment, but it can lead to your big moment”
– Love Your Life by Victoria Osteen
Many years ago I worked with an abusive man
who was looking for work. He was rude, wore
his hat in our interview and was disheveled and
bitter towards life. He was battling an alcohol
problem, was recently divorced and had just lost
his job. This good man was very talented but
was in a tug of war with alcohol and life in
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general.
I was somewhat taken back when he told
me in the interview that I couldn’t help him
because I was too young and inexperienced in
life. “What did a young thing like me know?“
Whoops!
I tried to give him hope and faith that his good
was waiting for him and that he just needed to
keep ‘asking, seeking and knocking’. I told him
that something would turn up and turn up it
did!
We got a request for a candidate who had
just the expertise and experience he had so we
placed him on contract with a good client of
ours.
OUR OPPORTUNITIES
Truly I wanted to give him a chance, but I had
some mixed feelings about how it would all
work out. To my delight he did an excellent job,
he knew the work well and enjoyed being back to
work and earning.
But to my dismay he continued his verbally
abusive behavior towards me and our firm. He
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constantly challenged the way we did things, he
tried to find errors in his pay and pay advise, and
no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t put a
foot right with him.
He was difficult to say the least. Over and over
again, our whole office took time with him to
set things right and make him happy. It was very
taxing, but we all wanted to make things work.
OUR BLESSING
Two years later, an international corporation
took over the company Mr. Difficult worked for
and wanted to put all our contract employees
who worked in his department onto the payroll
of a Staffing firm they had an alliance with. We
stood to lose many contract employees as well
as an excellent client company. No doubt this
was going to hurt our firm.
WONDER OF WONDERS
Wonder of wonders our good man with his
difficult personality and hard edges went against
the take over and mobilized our contractors to
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refuse to leave our company and to go with
another staffing firm.
At the time we didn’t even know this was going
on, we had only been told by the corporation
that this was a done deal, but fortunately as
it turned out, this was not so. The whole
department said they would resign their
employment if Horizon Staffing could not
represent them and they stuck to their word.
“We never know how far a good turn will take us.”
GOOD NEWS
To our surprise we were asked to go with the
international company under the radar and provide
staffing services to them and over the years
little by little we became their major staffing
firm. Incredible! I can’t tell you how richly
this has blessed us. This was living one small
dream that turned into a big dream. One small
break that gave us a huge break. AMAZING!
Always we need to live our little dreams the
best we can, one at a time, as we never know
where they will lead us.
Humble Note: When I share this story many
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others have affirmed incredible stories of finding
their good in unlikely situations. Think back
to the many times you have found a profound
blessing while working your way through a
difficulty.
“We need to count our blessings everyday.”
NO TIME TO LOSE
Oh my goodness! As time goes by I realize
how truly precious and fleeting time is. Truly
time is one of our greatest assets. With time,
resourceful thinking and determined action we
can co-create so many wonderful things beyond
our wildest dreams.
Time and not money is what we need to make
our beautiful dreams come true. When we plant
fertile creative ideas and do the work over time,
we create unbelievably wonderful things in our
one short life. “Truly life just gets better.”
OUR GIFT OF TIME
The most difficult thing to do sometimes is
to get started. Once we get started, we are on
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a roll, one thing leads to the next and life just
keeps getting better. We seem to move from one
experience to another and somehow everything
is connected. We need the learning from one
experience to make our next step. Each is a
piece of the puzzle and when we look back, we
can see all the connecting steps on our path.
This is the divine order of our life.
Let’s make good use of our gift of time here
on earth. Let’s not let life pass us by. Let’s
enjoy one good thing after another. ENJOY IT
ALL!
“Time is the most valuable commodity an individual possesses”
– James Arthur Ray
DEFERRED DREAMS
So often we hold back living our good life
because we feel that not everything is sorted
out yet. We are not ready to make a change.
Maybe we don’t like the home we live in, maybe
we want to lose weight, maybe we need to get
feeling better, maybe we want to sort out our
love life before we feel we can live well and love
our lives.
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I have been in this land of deferred dreams and
it’s like living life in black and white. The color
and sparkle is missing and we move through our
lives on autopilot. It is so ‘ho hum.’
What are we waiting for? We have the incredible
power of mind, body, heart and spirit within
us. We are fully equipped with all that we
could possibly need to make our lives so rich
and exciting. All of us have so much untapped
talent and incredible abilities just waiting for us
to get moving.
Yes certainly we may have to brush up some of
our gifts and skills, but we have them ready to
go.
When we push down our dreams and desires,
for whatever reason, there is a good possibility
that these unfulfilled self- expressions could
wither and die within us. It is not only our
loss, but we cheat the world of lost potential.
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER
When we wait for things to happen, we are
wasting our precious resource of time. Time
always moves on and will leave us behind if we
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are not living in the moment, current with our
life and making some head way.
How often have we spent time with others
who have closed the door to their dreams and
are just putting in time. The only thing which
makes them feel alive is eating and feeling
their pain. Sadly so their days move in and
out of their lonely lives with little change or
enjoyment. It’s just another day like any other.
They have gone into hibernation and hopefully
will come out in spring time after they survive
their winters.
“It’s time to break the mold”
LET’S BE BOLD AND WISE
Let’s use every little bit of our talents, our
gifts, all our experience, expertise, creative
ideas, and every resource we have to the fullest.
Let’s take it to the limit and see what we
can do with what we have. Let’s not let the
negatives in life derail us from living the life we
love.
Let’s not hold back, let’s not let fear rule,
let’s be bold and wise and build and enjoy our
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impossible dreams.
“Let’s create our magnum opus.”
OUR LEGACY
“One excellent way to extend our time here on earth is to leave a legacy for
others to enjoy.”
So many of us just follow our noses not fully
understanding that we are living and creating a
life that will count for something, at least to
those we love. It is astounding to hear people
talk down about themselves and their lives as if
this big life experience on earth is meaningless
and insignificant.
Let’s make a list of all the successes large and
small we have enjoyed over our life time. Let’s
look for every way to build more successes
into our life. Let’s build a great legacy.
“May our legacy be a gift to others”
THE MAGIC OF LIFE
Honestly since I was a child of ten, I have
always felt the magic of life. I knew I had a
place in this good world and I just knew life
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held something magnificent and grand. I savored
this inner knowing like humming a happy tune
that I didn’t know the words to, nor fully
understood yet. The words to describe this
‘knowing’ have come and I use them to try to
make sense out of life and to lay before me the
path I will journey on to create my magnum
opus.
OUR SUCCESS POSITIVELY IMPACTS
OTHERS
How well I will live my life, overcome the
challenges and difficulties I face, build the
dreams which our mine to create and grow
into the person I aspire to be, will make a big
difference to me, to my family and to others.
We are not in this alone. When we succeed
we don’t always know the ripple effect this
will have on others. Conversely when we fail,
especially ungraciously, it hurts many people.
Both my mother and father are story tellers and
their stories of survival and of people building a
good life in spite of near impossible conditions
still carries a message of courage and hope.
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Success is always so full of good energy.
Let’s work hard to succeed. It will richly
bless us and others.
“Live well one hour at a time”
CO-CREATING A MIRACLE IN LIFE
We don’t live just for the moment or for
ourselves every day of our lives. We need to
think of how we connect with our world and
all of life. Sometimes we get caught up in the
pain and strain of the everyday, but there is so
much more going on than the distractions and
disappointments we all face.
We are a very important part of the whole.
What we do is significant and important. We are
a vital part of the ebb and flow of life. We are
unique in co-creating with others the miracle in
life.
Be vibrant, be inspired, look for some little
messes to clean up and beautify. Make
improvements every where you go, uplift others,
love life, plant trees and leave a legacy that will
live on well after you are gone from this world.
“Always do what is important first.”
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PRIORITIZE
Don’t leave the best to the last. Start with
what is the most important thing that you
need to do today. It has to be on your list of
priorities, not on that of someone else.
Too often we rush to deal with other peoples’
crisis of the moment and leave what we need
to do until the last. And too often we are too
tired and drained of energy by the time we can
start on our own projects.
I too find that there is always so much to
do at work, at home and just to keep my life
going. There are always places to go, things to
do and people to see and I love all this, but
time slips by and I have not accomplished what
I want to do. My time has been consumed by
all the little sundries, the emails and telephone
calls of everyday business. Everything is a small
emergency that I need to answer to. Now
certainly these things are important too, but we
have to know that they are really the behind the
scenes to the major event. Someone else could
take care of these if I chose to delegate.
“Let’s give ourselves permission to eat our cake before we eat our peas.”
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Let’s do what we can’t wait to do. FIRST.
Enjoy!
DELEGATE
We need to know that someone else can do
these background things for us and we can get
on with our task at hand, whatever that may
be. We could be writing books, painting art,
sculpting, writing and recording music, creating
videos and doing the fun stuff of life we dream
of. Now I’m not suggesting that we stop driving
our parents to their doctor’s appointments
or volunteering on committees. What I am
suggesting is that we make time to paint our
delightful masterpiece as well.
GETTING DOWN TO THE SMALL STUFF
Of course taking care of the small and tedious
tasks has to be scheduled in. When we are
looking for work we need to do things like our
job research, creating a database of who and
where we are sending our resumes, writing
thank-you notes and recording the comments
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and feedback we receive. Good record-
keeping will set us up if we ever need to find
employment again.
Keeping a current data base will remind us where
we have sent our resume, the responses we
have had and general notes on conversations
or contacts we’ve had with the company.
We don’t want to be caught unaware when
a prospective employer calls, we want to be
updated, professional and ready. If we are not
prudent with our follow up, let’s get help from
someone who has great organizational skills and
can keep us current and informed. We need to
have this background information. It is part of
building our dream work life.
“we always need to do the background work”
MAKING OUR CHOICES
We have gone over many ideas about finding our
life and work dream, creating our work of art
here on earth and leaving a beautiful legacy to
be remembered by. We have thought long and
hard about how to find our life and work dream.
We have looked and given serious thought at
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the choices we have and now we have come
to a decision. We are about to make our small
start and take our first little step of a long and
rewarding journey.
Now, we have big choices to make regarding our
work life. Do we want to work for ourselves
as in contracting or freelancing work? Do we
want to start our own company or do we want
to work on staff or temping with corporations?
We can do all three, but it is best to focus on
one and move with it.
We can be confident that we alone always know
best what will work for us.
BEGINNING OUR JOURNEY
On our sacred journey we will have to have
hope and faith as our dream partners. We will
need an exciting vision of our dream to guide
us as we travel through uncharted territory.
Like pioneers setting out we know there will
be tough times ahead. There will be fog that
will cloud our vision and we will come into
turbulence and detours. We might even lose our
way. No worries if we keep our partners hope
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and faith with us at all times as we’ll find that
we will never feel lost and alone for long.
“Faith is the fuel that drives our dream”
OVERCOMING
Part of the success of our journey is
overcoming big challenges. We will need to
focus on finding creative solutions to the many
potential problems we are sure to face.
We will need to have a faith that is bigger than
our fears. We will need to have bounce to come
right back up when we go down. We will need
to feel the assurance that we are not alone and
to feel the comfort of the many others who
journey with us and share our dreams.
We will need to stay positive at all times,
resourceful and innovative in the way we
use our gifts and talents, and when we find
ourselves hanging in the balance, let’s just say
a prayer and take a leap of faith even if we can’t
see the net below.
“Always remember to wing it when all else fails.”
We need to make plans, set goals and envision
our life and work dream and always we need to
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keep our dreams alive. Above all else we need
to learn to take time for ourselves to regroup,
recoup and recharge.
“Our health and wellness always has to be a top priority.”
DOCUMENTING AND RECORDING
OUR JOURNEY
What a difference it makes when we take
photos, do videos and write in a journal so that
we can make a record of our sacred journey.
This is great for posterity but best of all it
helps us to make sense of our life.
These visuals will help to fit the pieces of our
life story together. It allows us to readily see
the progress and the distance we have come. It
gives us an overall view of our grand journey.
Like an aerial map we can easily see where we
have started and the ground we have covered. We
can see patterns and conformity, and see how
each step led to the next. Best of all we can
enjoy and savor our good life’s journey.
“We learn as we grow along”
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GRATITUDE
Without a doubt, we need to live our life to
the fullest, no matter where we find ourselves
on our journey. We need to always count
our blessings and to have sincere gratitude.
Patience, good will, perseverance and an exciting
vision of our future will help us to navigate the
many twists and turns we encounter.
If we feel down, which will happen, let’s go
over our journey and be grateful for all the
victories and successes we have enjoyed. Let’s
look at our photo-albums, videos and read our
journals so we can remember all the good times
shared with those we love and the miracles
we’ve been blessed with.
Know that in spite of feeling like we are at a
stand-still in our lives, we still have so much
to be thankful for. Life never stops and often
we are still moving ahead even if we don’t feel
like we are. Know that challenges are temporary.
So let’s find something to be happy about
today.
“Make happiness a way of life.”
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BUILD GOODWILL
As we search for work and as we work hard
to build our magnum opus, our big life/work
dream, let’s never forget to build goodwill.
Having a friendly, helpful and cooperative
attitude will take us places we never dreamed
of, it is that powerful. Today the word “nice”
seems trite and old fashioned in this world of
big deals, but I learned early in life that being
kind, considerate and well mannered can move
mountains.
Too often in our rush and scramble for
success, we leave out the best parts of
ourselves. In the end this hurts us the most.
We arrive at the finish line with no one to cheer
us on. We are loners, hardened by the years of
struggle for survival.
Let’s not forget goodwill as this will include
others in our journey and will hasten our
success. Never try to be top dog, just be
yourself.
Goodwill sweetens our hearts and softens our spirits.
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HUMBLE THOUGHTS
• if we work daily on our dream and we stay
true to our heart’s desires, life will bless us
in ways we can’t even imagine
• a kindness is something we never forget
• be mild tempered, kind in your judgments and
noble in your thoughts
• lead by example
• build a big and beautiful life
• never give up
• goodness happens everywhere
• don’t be a one note person
• be a good listener
• be comfortable with yourself
• believe in a magnificent dream
• spend your resources wisely, never squander
• unearth the treasures within
• laughter is multi-lingual
• make time for lighthearted pleasure
• BELIEVE
• say YES
• wake up anticipating the good in every day
• never let distractions occupy your mind
• calm and center yourself everyday
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YES IS A BIG WORD
When we say yes to good things, we open the
door to let our lives be positively changed
forever.
This little word “yes” unlocks our prison door
where we have held ourselves captive and we
become free to explore our own good life.
YES! What a wonderful adventure awaits us.
KNOWING IS POWERFUL
I’m sad to say that too often we accept less
than we deserve and are capable of because
we don’t know better. We hold ourselves back
most often because of a fear of change and a
dread of failure. But when we fully understand
that failure is just trying to succeed at
something and that we can have as many tries
as we want, it helps to remove some of the
negative barriers and frees us to pursue the
dreams we hold near and dear to our heart.
Just a note here that most often the things we
fear are the things we know very little about.
Always let’s work at overcoming the things we
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fear.
“Let’s allow ourself some wiggle room”
PUSHING BACK FEAR
I have found that often the things I fear are
things I have had very little experience with
and what little experience I have had may
not have been favorable. Sometimes I have a
false impression of something and so I am
uncomfortable with it. Certainly there are
things we should fear, but we should not let
fear rule our lives 24/7 as is the trend today.
We need to consider that perhaps we don’t have
the correct impression, information, attitude
or a positive experience about what we perceive
to be a negative and scary experience. But if we
make an effort to seek reliable information and
to learn as much as we can about what we
fear, we find that knowledge can be a powerful
force in reducing the fear factor in our life.
Fear can be controlled. Fear not. We can make
our way around this obstacle.
There is power in knowing that
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – T. Roosevelt
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BELIEVING MAKES THINGS HAPPEN
When we believe in our goals and dreams, we add
amazing muscle power to building our magnum
opus. If we think we can do something, we
most probably can. Truly, believing is half way
there.
I think one of the toughest hurdles I come
up against in career coaching is helping people
to believe. To believe in themselves, to believe
in their dreams and to believe in a higher power
that we all can connect with 24/7.
“Now how good is that?”
CLAIMING OUR GREATNESS
Too often we feel like we are not worthy,
educated enough, have the right connections
or experiences, are too old or too young. For
whatever the multitude of reasons we come
up with, we feel we are not ready and capable
of realizing what we deeply desire. Whether it
be finding work we love, or living the life we
hope for, our negative thinking holds us back in
bondage. Fortunately this is a habit we can all
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break.
“We should only compete with ourselves.”
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS
We break down these barriers when we realize
that we have so much more strength of mind,
body and spirit than we know. That we have all
the resources within us to pursue and live our
meaningful and happy life. We will find the work
we love and we will make our life an incredible
work of art. Believe this with all your heart
and it will come to be.
“They are able because they think they are able.” – Virgil
THE POWER OF KNOWING
Believing is a powerful energy when it walks
with us on our sacred journey. It puts
determination in our spirit, strength in our
convictions and a song in our heart. Enjoy!
Let’s turn the little word yes into a big word
with the power of knowing that if we believe in
the strength of our dreams we can change our
lives in a most magnificent fashion. Let’s say
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“YES!” to our life and work dreams today.
“We can move our mountains.”
TAKING TIME TO CELEBRATE LIFE
March 23,2009 Everyday look for something
you are happy for. Let’s never ever miss an
opportunity to celebrate every little thing we
can. Do the dance of joy, give thanks. Enjoy.
This morning I saw my first robin happily
singing in the spring sun. It warmed my
heart. And today I finished this book so this
afternoon I am celebrating.
“I LOVE MY LIFE! ”
SEEK YOUR BLESSINGS!
I end this short journey you and I have been
on by encouraging you to look for a dream that
will fill your spirit with hope. Hope gives our
lives meaning and purpose, filling us with ideas,
energy and enthusiasm. It keeps our endorphins
working and we’ll find we are more optimistic
and cheerful. Having a dream to live by makes us
feel like the winners we are.
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Dreams always bring sunshine to our hearts
because dreams release incredible energy and
enthusiasm within us. Truly having a dream will
make waking up each day worthwhile.
Know that there are as many dreams as there
are dreamers, and if our dreams feel right for
us, then they are absolutely perfect for us.
Exuberantly pursue what inspires you. Follow
your Heart and find your Dream. ENJOY!
“We all run our own race.”
THINGS THAT NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE
• Being nice, friendly and kind
• Being professional
• Hope, goodwill and trying to live our dreams
• Being well mannered and polite
• Being clean and well-groomed
• Staying fit and in good health – mind, body and
soul
• Wanting our one life to work out well
• Having a need to be loved by others
• Looking for ways to make life better
• Surviving catastrophes and major set backs and
disappointments
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• Enjoying time out and holidays
• Tears of sorrow and joy
• Smiles, laughter and having fun
• An attitude of gratitude
• Being humble and yet proud without being
boastful
• Being gracious and forgiving
• Being patient
• Being serene and calm
• Truth, integrity and being sincere
• Loving life
• Good intentions
• Happiness
• Goodness of every kind
• Knowledge and the willingness to learn and grow
• Persistence and Perseverance
• Never quitting
• Starting over again
• Striving for excellence
• Faith and Courage
• LOVE
• Living well
• Believing
• Working hard
• Focus, dedication and determination
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• Cheerfulness and friendliness
• Compassion and caring
• Being organized
• Accepting ourselves and others
• Knowing we will make errors
• Respect and dignity
• Being positive
• Being fair and non-judgemental
• Helping others
• Singing and dancing
• Dreams and dreamers
• Patience
• Loving our life
• Laughter and Merry-making
• Making the most of our gifts and talents
I LOVE MY LIFE
We all want to love our life and we all deserve
to live a life we love.
Presently I am learning how to create the
life I love by making the very best of the life
I am presently living. I am looking at all the
relationships and activities which make up my
days and I am praying and meditating on how I
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can make the most of these precious assets.
Don’t get me wrong, most days I love my life,
and certainly I love the people in my family
circle and those who come into my life, but
the more I learn and grow and tweak things, the
better my life gets.
I am always looking for ways to make my life
and my work more interesting and rewarding
by checking that my attitudes and habits are
positive and constructive. I am open to learn
and grow and I am eager to live the best life I
possibly can.
I am the student now as I begin to write this
book on how I can love my life.
The Global Crisis is still raging in the world,
but let’s make our inner world rich and
thriving. Let’s all find a positive and healthy
psychological plane to live on. Journey with me
and get ready to love your life.
My heartfelt best wishes to you. – xoxo Jeanne
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