Rinse and Repeat: This is a Process

This is it--the last in my 7 part series on How to Find the Work that Makes your Heart Sing. If you have missed them or if you just want a refresher--the first 6 ways (in no particular order) to find the work that makes your heart sing are here:

Busting Out of Your Rut

Treating Your Life Like a Mystery Novel

Having A LOT of Self Compassion
Getting Creative
Facing your Fear
You Can't Do it Alone.

The 7th tip is Rinse and Repeat

This is a process. Unfortunately, it is not a plug-and-play game where you punch in your skills, interests, values and out comes your ideal work.  It is not follow these 7 rules and I guarantee you will figure out your ideal work.  Because we are human, we are complex and emotional.  We have doubts, fears, insecurities, and rooted belief systems that keep us questioning and stuck.  We have kids, bills, sick parents and a myriad of responsibilities.

This is your life, which is an on-going, constantly changing, entity.  So finding that work that makes your heart sing, is challenging, exhausting and can be down right hard.  AND it is exhilarating, life altering, and game changing.  Doing the work that makes your heart sing is why we are here.  Figuring out how to life the best life possible, how to share your gifts and life from your heart is, in my opinion, the point.

I confess I hesitated to put this in as one of the 7 because I want to be able to say it is easy, I want to offer the plug and play game.  However, I KNOW from my personal experience and from watching my clients there is no magic pill, or easy solution.  This is an on-going process of spiraling up and checking back in.

Even this week, I sat in the back yard with my nearest and dearest as he worked in the yard chatting with him about my work, re-evaluating, checking-in with myself and what makes my heart sing.  I was checking in with myself, because my life circumstances have changed, my values are different, I have grown...so to has my work.

I can guarantee, if you live your life from the concept that finding the work that makes your heart sing is an process of these 7 ideas on repeat you will LIVE AND WORK HAPPIER.

So there you have it---my 7 ways. Let me know what your think...send me an e-mail at nancy@nancyjanesmith.com or just leave a comment below!!

You Can't Do it Alone

Today we are on Number 6 of my 7 part series on How to Find the Work that Makes your Heart Sing--the second to last tip.

So far you have learned about :

Busting Out of Your Rut

Treating Your Life Like a Mystery Novel

Having A LOT of Self Compassion
Getting Creative
Facing your Fear

Today's tip is You Can't Do it Alone.

Bottom line you need other people to help you achieve the work that makes your heart sing.  You need support, connection, and contacts.

You need people who... 

• debate ideas with you.
• challenge you.
• support you no matter what. 
• make you laugh.
• give you new ideas.
• think outside of the box.
• are practical.
• have great connections.
• know where the jobs, resources, next steps are.

You might have a different person for each role or you might have one or two people that fit each quality.  The point is you NEED these people to help you get to the place where you are Working and Living Happier.  Without people we are just isolated in our goal.

I have found, hands down, this is one of the hardest tips to follow for my clients (and myself!). Reaching out to people, sharing our dreams, fears, and needs is challenging.  So take baby steps, open up a little at a time--start with the 'safe' people you can trust with your dreams:  friends, partners, family. Then slowly start expanding your group to acquaintances, friends of friends, people in the community.  I know most people love to help, they love to support people in following their dreams and when you find someone who doesn't...move on, quickly!!

So reach out, take a risk.  Today, pick one person and share your dreams, share what you need.  Ask.

Face the Fear

Today we are on Number 5 of my 7 part series on How to Find the Work that Makes your Heart Sing--we are over half way there!!

So far you have learned about :

Busting Out of Your Rut

Treating Your Life Like a Detective Novel

Having A LOT of Self Compassion

Getting Creative

Today's Number 5 is:
Face the Fear 


Throughout this process of finding the work that makes your heart sing.  Fear will come up--I believe we each have a Fear Monger inside of us.  A part of us who's job it is to protect us, keep us safe and minimize risks.  I call it the Fear Monger--because a monger's job according to the World English Dictionary is a promoter of something unpleasant--this part of our personality has the job of promoting fear for a variety of reasons, safety, security, minimizing risk and protection.  But I believe one of our rights as humans is to face this fear...make changes...risk in a variety of ways and bust out of our ruts.  If we don't risk, change, grow and dare to look at life differently--what's the point? 

So we all have A Fear Monger.  And the fear monger is clever, it pops up in a variety of ways, usually speaking to our value system or what we love the most.  

Step One: Start recognizing your Fear Monger.  Give her/him a name a face--it can be extremely creative or something as simple as Scared Nancy (bet you couldn't guess, that's mine ).  I will encourage clients to draw a picture, or write a description of what their fear monger looks like and/or sounds like.

Pay attention to the message she/he tends to send and when he/she tends to come out the most.  The fear monger is clever and tends to pop up in a variety of ways speaking to our value system, "you can't do that it will take too much time away from the kids"; "you can't go back to school, what about the money?"

Build awareness around how you react to the fear monger, do you eat, watch TV, become agitated, pick a fight or just give up.

Step Two: Once you recognize the Fear Monger has been playing your head acknowledge it, actually bless it.   Frequently I will say, "thank you 'scared Nancy' I appreciate your fear but I got this one.  I can handle this and I want to move forward".  I know that sounds crazy--but trust me it works.  It is as if acknowledging this very real part of us allows her to relax--she feels heard and she can then settle down.

Physically make some shifts in your body as you acknowledge the fear monger--place your hand over your heart as you bless it, get up and walk it out of the room, hold your hand up to say stop, thanks but no thanks.  Adding a physical movement makes a more real change.

This is a process, at first you might not recognize your Fear Monger has been talking until you are in the midst of an argument with your spouse.  The more you practice, the quicker you will catch The Fear Monger in the moment.  Eventually you will catch him/her as they are chatting away their negative propaganda and you will be able to bless them and move on in the moment.

Step Three: Know your big picture and take small steps  The Fear Monger is there to help us from getting hurt. He/she is a real part of us, just a scared fearful part.  So in order to keep her fear messages to a minimum, you need to have a two fold process:

First know your big picture.  Know what you are going after: more time with your family, more fulfillment, more happiness, more vacation time, etc.

Then begin to break it down into small steps.  Maybe you are wanting to explore going back to school. It doesn't mean you have to quit your job and go back to school next quarter.  You can start with small steps:  researching schools, gathering application materials, making a plan for finances, and taking entrance exams if necessary.

 I know from experience, when we know why we are pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone (big picture) and then able to take action steps (small steps), blessing our Fear Monger along the way we will be able to live happier lives.

Here are some other posts I have written on Fear:

Facing our Demons

An Interview with Tara Sophia Mohr

A Lesson in Facing My Fear Monger

The Suffering of Fear

Get Creative: Merging Your Dreams with Your Reality

Happy Thursday!  Today marks the 4th day of my 7 part series on How to Find the Work that Makes your Heart Sing--we are over half way there!!

So far you have:
Busted Out of Your Rut
Treated Your Life Like a Detective Novel
Had A LOT of Self Compassion

Today's tip is:

Get Creative: Merging Your Dreams with Your Reality

I have to admit, at first I was going to call this tip Get Practical but then I decided that was too much of a downer AND what I really meant is for us to Get Creative about our lives.  Up to this point you have been dreaming big, looking at your life in new and different ways, figuring out what you value, what you love, what makes you tick and then bringing a lot of self compassion and openness around those ideas.  Today we are going to merge those dreams with the reality of your life.

For example, maybe you decide you love nursing and you really want to go back to school and become a nurse.  But you also have 3 children and a spouse, plus a mortgage, car payment and monthly bills.  You need to keep your full time job to help support your family, full time nursing school is not an option.  But part time is...maybe even 1-2 classes a semester, maybe you can even take them on-line.  Maybe you just don't have the time, energy or finances for 1-2 classes; so you could volunteer at the hospital or assisted care facility on Saturdays--maybe if your children are old enough you could bring them along.  Or you could start reading books about the medical profession, learning as much as possible about the subject.

My point being....just because you don't have the time, energy or resources RIGHT NOW for your dream, doesn't mean you have to give up or are destined to live a life not having your heart sing.  You can merge both ideas--you just need to get a little creative!!

What do you think...how is this process for you.  I would love to hear so feel free to comment below or or send me an e-mail at nancy@nancyjanesmith.com

Have A LOT of Self Compassion.

Photo Credit: vvonstruen

Today is day 3 in my series:  The 7 Ways to Find the Work that Makes Your Heart Sing.   Yesterday in #2, I talked about Treating Your Life Like A Mystery Novel and really getting curious about what makes your tick.

 Today follows nicely with Number 2 (although these are in no particular order).  The 3rd tip is:

Have a Little A LOT of Self Compassion.

In fact without number 3, number 2 is pretty useless.  If you don't have a little compassion for yourself you won't be able to move forward into the ideas, thoughts that come forward from your great detective work you started yesterday.

What does self compassion mean? Yep--it is something that is a bit foreign to us.

Self compassion is:

• Loving yourself no matter what,
• Letting go of the shoulds, 
• Looking past the rules and comparisons
• Just appreciating where you are and allowing yourself to be fully who you are.

As you go through this process...stuff comes up, (and by stuff I mean: dreams, ideas, thoughts, plans) maybe it is stuff you have forgotten about, maybe it is stuff you convinced yourself was wrong, maybe it is stuff you just never even thought of.  Regardless when this 'stuff' appears welcome it.  As Tara Brach says, "welcome it to tea" Sit down with your dreams and ideas and welcome them in to your life.

Too often, we push them aside and ignore them because they are too great, too overwhelming, too ridiculous, too scary!!  Today we are going to great those ideas with self compassion and love.  Take notes, write it down, pay attention to what comes up for you.  What ideas, thoughts, plans are the scariest?  What are the most ridiculous, which ones have you built the most excuses around (those are all usually signs that you are on to something!!

What do you think about these tips?  We are almost half way through!  Anything exciting coming up for you?  I would love to hear--if you don't want to share publicly on the comments below--feel free to e-mail me at nancy@nancyjanesmith.com

Treat Your Life Like a Mystery Novel

Last week I started the series
7 Ways to Find the Work the that Makes Your Heart Sing. 

The first was Get out of Your Rut.

Today--number two (and again in no particular order) is:

Treat Your Life Like a Mystery Novel.

In order to figure out what makes your heart sing--you need to start viewing your life as a great mystery that needs to be unraveled and explored.  You need to get curious about your own life.  Start investigating, start exploring, start unraveling you.

Honestly, the answer to what makes your heart sing--is inside of you.  It is your heart, your skills, your passions, your interests that I am talking about.  You just need to start getting curious about your own needs, wants, passions.  As you go through your day--pay attention, do some investigating. Dig deep, ask one question then ask another and pay attention to the themes and patterns that come up for you.

• What do you dread about your day? 
• Why do you dread it so much?
• What activities make you down right giddy to get out of bed?
• What makes you smile?
• What movies/books/songs do you love?
• When do you find yourself getting stressed and annoyed?
• What are you annoyed about? 
• What in particular is stressing you?
• What fascinates you?  Be specific--what are you curious about?  
• Where do you find meaning?
• How do you spend your time?  
• How do you want to spend your time differently? 
• What do you value, I mean REALLY value?  
• What are the most important people/places/things in your life?
• What about them is important?
• What activities/thoughts/ideas do you just lose time with?  
• What could you do for hours and hours and hours?

You are the person that you will spend the most time with in your life---so why not get to know that person as much as possible.  When we truly know ourselves we can start naming the activities and work that makes our heart sing. 

Get Out of Your Rut

Today marks the beginning of my 7 day series on the 7 Ways to Find the Work that Makes Your Heart Sing.  So with out further adieu:  Starting with Number 1 (they are in no particular order):


Get Out of Your Rut.

So often we just get stuck in our day to day activities, we build a pattern of getting up, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home blah, blah blah.  Even if that isn't your particular pattern I would bet you have one.  And to some degree, we need patterns and schedules to make our lives flow easier.  But too frequently we get so stuck in the schedule and the pattern we forget what it is that we really love...what really matters to us...what we are passionate about. We get trapped in the to dos, the obligations, meeting other people's needs and expectations we forget to look at our own heart and passions.

In order to find the work that makes your heart sign you need to break this rut pattern--break out of your schedule and do something different.

It can be as simple as:

• taking a different way to work, 
• stopping for ice cream with the kids after running errands,
• taking a walk in the middle of your work day
• trying something new for dinner, 
• or grabbing your partner and doing a dance in the living room. 

Shake things up!!!  And then pay attention to how that feels--what got stirred up--what emotion, thoughts, ideas came to the fore front.

Or you could be a bit more radical:

• Taking that class you have been putting off.
• Going on the vacation you have been dreaming of.
• Throwing yourself a party.

When we get out of our rut and shift our patterns we can also slowly start shifting our thinking and then eventually our lives.  Changing it up reminds us of what if feels like to take risks, to spontaneously laugh, to the ideas and people that bring us passion and make our heart sing!!!

Roadblocks and Detours

Yesterday morning my nearest and dearest and I headed out for an 8:15 appointment.  So we had left on-time (shocker) and when we hit the main street traffic was congested. We chalked it up to rush hour traffic which we usually miss since we both work strange hours.  As we made our way on to the freeway we soon realized why there was so much congestion--the main outer belt had been shut down and we were being forced off the freeway in the opposite direction!!

Panic set in--we were already running late and now we were headed in the wrong direction with thousands of other panicked cars also headed in the wrong direction!!  It didn't help that I no longer carry my i-phone so looking up directions, finding the name of the place to call and say we were late, all impossible.  So I pulled out the map from my glove box (circa 1990--a shout out to my father who always insisted I carry a map) and we called my mom to look up the phone number (who did so using the yellow pages--again circa 1990).  Long story short we made it to our destination just 45 minutes behind schedule.

It got me thinking about unexpected road blocks and diversions in our personal life path.  So often we are headed down a path, and suddenly we are met with a road closure and forced to detour--whether that be an  we meet the love of our life, we get offered a new job, someone close to us unexpectedly dies, or we are presented with an opportunity we can't pass up.  Detours both good and bad happen all the time in our lives--the trick is in how we handle them.  Panic, uncertainty, doubts and questioning all take place at the same time as  figuring out how to move forward and making informed decisions.

Too often we pick one or the other panic or stoic resolve.  We don't allow for both.  We either move into panic which makes moving forward, next to impossible OR we pick stoic resolve where we pick a new path and stick to it without allowing for the grief, doubt and uncertainty that comes with change.

Through the uncertainty the  problems arise the questions that need answered come to the surface.  If you just pick a choice with stoic resolve you might miss an area that needs your attention.  Throughout our journey yesterday am we were consistently recalibrating, shifting between 'we got this, we are doing fine' and 'OMG we are LATE, we are going the wrong way'.

In true transparency--it is much easier to go through the road closure and detour of life (and traffic) when you have someone to share them with.  I admit I tend to be a stoic resolve person making decisions, not always taking into account emotions while my nearest and dearest tends to be a panic person pointing out the issues, and problems --so together a natural balance seems to form.  

The Unnecessary Pressure of "Callings"

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across an article called Jobs, Careers or Callings.  This article describes the research  of a group of Yale professors on job satisfaction based on our definitions of what we do.  In a nut shell, they interviewed a group of employees in a variety of occupations asking them to select whether they viewed their job as a calling, career or a job and then asked them to answer series of questions to determine job satisfaction. Not surprisingly they found that individuals that viewed their work as a calling reported more job satisfaction then those who viewed it as a career or a job.  Interestingly they found that people in the same occupation, defined their job differently. Specifically, there were some administrative assistants who viewed their work as a calling and some who viewed it as a job (those who viewed it as a calling reported more job satisfaction).

Since reading this research I have been thinking a lot about jobs vs callings and what this all means in terms of working and living happier.  So yes, working at our calling=job satisfaction therefore we should all be working at doing our calling.  Which to some extent I think that is true.  I believe we all have something we were put on this earth to do, something we excel at, we thrive in doing and we love. For some people that can be translated into a paying career, for other people they might work 'a job' in order to pay for the work that they do in their calling.  Personally I think we run into trouble when we have the idea that to be happy we MUST be getting paid to do our calling.  Confusing coming from a career counselor who helps people find the work that makes their heart sing.  But notice I said finding the 'work' that makes your heart sing, not the career, not the job.  I help people find their life's work, their life's passion.  So let's say you love writing and that is the work the makes your heart sing.  You would LOVE to get paid to do that and to have that be your career, but for the time being you enjoy writing.  You just love writing for the sake of writing.  So you have a job that is ok, not fantabulous but it requires limited energy and gives you the time and inspiration to write.  While you are working at your 'job' earning money you are finding creative ways to enjoy your calling. Maybe you are writing for the company newsletter or the company blog, maybe you are submitting articles to be published.  Or maybe you figure out that you are happy working at your 'job' and writing for yourself and your close friends and family.  Regardless of what it looks like, the goal is to determine your calling and then figure out creative ways to weave it into your life (as a paid position or not).

Maybe your calling is being a great mom, a nurturer, caregiver, loving mom.  Is this a highly paid job?  No.  So even though being a mom is the work that makes your heart sing, you might need a career or a job to help support your family.  But while your children are young or while they are in school you are going to poor most of your energy into being a mom because that is a calling of yours. So your career might not take  off during this time because you are working on your calling of being a mom.

There also is a need to get creative.  For me my calling is caregiving, nurturing being "Mama Bear".  Because that is something I love doing, something I feel compelled to do, something I do it without even thinking of it. It also means there are certain jobs that I excel at that don't feel like work...such as counseling or mothering.  But another less obvious one which is one I was very good at for years was administrative assistant.  I made an awesome assistant!  I loved predicting what my boss needed and getting it for him. I loved making sure my boss was prepared for the day and ready to handle any situation, I loved being his right hand person.

So I believe our calling is more than our job, and we can find outlets for our calling in a variety of ways paid and unpaid.  The absolute KEY is figuring out your calling (or the work that makes your heart sing) and then figuring out the ways to implement that in to your life as much as possible.

Give Yourself a Break

Any time I get sick, inevitably my dad will call and ask how I am feeling and then follow up with "you must have been doing too much and not getting your rest". It is one of his dad'isms, one of his favorite sayings and pieces of wisdom: Lots of rest, and low stress=no sickness (not that he necessarily always follow his own advice).  But he is right, last week after weeks of pushing myself to hard, not getting enough rest and not engaging in self care I got sick.  SICK: stuffy nose, cough, headache, barely move you are so tired sick.  So I rested. I rested because clearly my body was telling me I needed to.  The body is an amazing thing--if you don't take a break and rest it will make it very clear to you when you need to.

The irony of it was earlier that week I was just talking to a friend about the need to take a break every now and then. Not just a physical restful break but an emotional, mental break. That when we are going through transition (job change/search, loss, relationship issues, general life struggles) sometimes we can't be 'processing all our emotions' or reacting and acting in the most mentally healthy of ways. Sometimes we need to allow ourselves time off from life.

I remember a few years ago I heard Ilyana Vanzant speak and she was talking about the power of re-charging, taking a break, taking care of ourselves.  So when she started sharing her favorite re-charging practices, I thought I was going to hear some wonderfully soothing practices of meditation, yoga or prayer.  And then she said hands down her favorite relaxation activities was to put on her pajamas and sprawl across the bed watching Law and Order repeats.

 I was amazed!  I was relieved!  Here is a self-help guru, a woman who teaches on spiritual practices telling us that she LOVES watching Law and Order repeats and finds great comfort in it! It was then I realized, there is no right way.  We all are doing the best we can with what we have and we all need to give ourselves a break!!!  Remember that change is hard, transitions are exhausting and there is no 'right' way to move forward.  Sometimes when we push too hard we can end up exhausted and frustrated.  It is counter-intuitive but in order to make quality decisions and to know what's best for ourselves and others, we need to give ourselves a chance to rest, regroup and relax.  Whether that means sitting watching TV while playing Plants vs. Zombies (my personal favorite), having coffee with a friend, taking a nap, doing yoga or going for a run.  Whatever allows you to relax and disconnect for awhile is helpful.

What is your favorite way to regroup and relax?