If you aren't already subscribed to thought guru Seth Godin's blog, I would highly recommend you do so. His short, to-the-point, and thought-provoking posts are momentary day-stoppers because they make you pause... and think. I cannot even imagine what is going on in his mind at any given moment with so many pearls of wisdom floating around in there!
But one recent post hit home particularly hard the other day... it was about planning versus committing. On a personal note, I had been planning to write a book on career strategies for a whole year. In fact, I had “planned" to spend the entire month of December 2010 working on it, but instead kept adding client appointments... which proved great for business but meant zero book completion. That is, until I made the commitment to actually do it this past December 2011. And guess what? I absolutely made it happen.
Notice that one word... commitment? It's all about the follow through, not the intent.
Sure, this process was scary.
A whole month without income?
I never thought I could do it... but when I committed to the process and saved up funds to make up for the financial hole, my commitment made the opportunity possible. Was I petrified clients might leave me because I was “unavailable?"
You betcha.
But many prospective customers were willing to wait until I started taking clients again the first week of January.And you know what? A byproduct of being unavailable created pent-up demand. If this week is any indication, this year is going to be a blistering barn-burner.
But what I am getting at is Godin's post about committing is an important mindset we can apply to our own careers and how we manage them: We plan a lot of things... we plan to update our resumes every few months so we are ready for new opportunities or can easily respond to unplanned job transitions... but most of us don't.
We also plan to take that class we've been needing to take... but don't because we are “too busy" to find the time. We plan to attend that networking event we know we should go to... but we don't because something else came up or we simply don't feel like it.
My question is to you: What kinds of opportunities are you missing out by only planning... and not committing?
Chances are if you start committing, career success will find you versus you trying to seek it.
Dawn Rasmussen, CMP, is the president of Portland, Oregon-based Pathfinder Writing and Career Services. Clients from across the United States and Canada and from all career levels have benefited from Dawn's highly-focused and results-oriented resume, cover letter, and job search coaching services.
