I had great fun being interviewed by Yvonne Anderson of Safe Space Coaching in New Zealand for her WOW – Work in the World Wednesdays series. Click here to watch our interview.

Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, including:

* the nutty story of how I went from work that I hated — management consulting — to my current work as an executive coach and work futurist

* (8:45 minutes in) How people get stuck doing work they dislike, and one very uplifting story of moving into fulfilling work, and how that totally shifted the energy for one of my clients.

* (12:50 minutes in) My current project, talking about the distinction of being a “traveler” or a “tourist” in the world of work.

So, are you a traveler or tourist when it comes to your work? Why?

I’d love to hear about your traveler or tourist mentality on the job, and how it impacts you. Leave a comment on the blog, and I’ll happily reply to you.

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Executive Coach & Work Futurist

If there are 50 ways to leave your lover, there must be at least 7 ways you can hold yourself back from doing work you’d love to be doing. I’ve covered five of those excuses so far: not believing in yourself, not knowing what you’d love to do, fear of not making money, fear of killing your hobby, fear of repeating a failure. Today, I’ll share the sixth excuse with you. Oh, and we’ll bust it.

Maybe you hold yourself back from work you’d love because you tell yourself:

“I don’t know how to do what I want to do.”

In other words, you don’t know how to get from here to there. You don’t have a clear, step-by-step plan. Yet.

This is fix-able.

Imagine you’re an accountant, but that’s never what you wanted to be (my apologies to accountants who love their work). Now, you’re dreaming of opening your own restaurant. You’ve always loved cooking, entertaining, and creating beautiful atmospheres. Whenever you go to a gorgeous restaurant, the kind where you experience a unique vibe from the moment you walk in, you catalog the place in your brain. You take pictures. You write in your journal about the place, the food, and your feelings.

But it feels like a fantasy to become a restaurateur, when you’re currently crunching numbers. You can’t seem to find a course called “how to start a restaurant.” None of your friends or family members own restaurants. You feel overwhelmed and exasperated when you imagine everything involved in opening a restaurant.

You kick yourself for having a big, fun, happy dream in front of you, but no idea how to make it real. You feel stuck in your boring job. And tortured by your apparent fantasy. You wish a magic genie would drop you into your already-constructed, wildly successful restaurant. But since that hasn’t happened, you feel paralyzed.

Can you relate? Do you simply “dream” of work you’d love, but fail to take action?

If you’ve got a case of the “I-don’t-know-how-to-do-what-I-want-to-do” blues, here’s your action cure:

Work backwards.

Most of us try to plan our futures by starting in the present moment. And then we stop and wonder…um, what do I do next?

Instead, what if you start from the future, and work backwards, planning in reverse.

Imagine you own that amazing restaurant. In fact, it’s opening night. Envision all the spiffy-dressed patrons joining you for a celebratory glass of wine, cheering as the chef brings out pastries specially prepared to mark this special night. Envision all the details you can.

Now, ask yourself, “What happened just before this?”

Wow, lots of things, probably. The paint in the dining room finally dried. The stoves in the kitchen were calibrated. The health inspector gave his seal of approval, much to your relief. The menus finally came back from the printer, and you opened the box and ooh’ed and aah’ed at their beauty.

Yes, a zillion other steps came before. Even if you’ve never been in the restaurant business, I bet you can guess at least a few of those steps.

The bigger your dream, the more this “planning backwards” can help. And it’s fun. Like creating a story, in reverse.

The key is to keep asking yourself, “What’s the step before that? And what does it look like?” Write down all of the insights you get. Keep doing this, until you get to the present moment. Then, you can take all of the steps, put them in order moving forward, and create a workplan.

A note of caution: As you do your backwards planning, you may find that you hit a roadblock. You’re stumped. You don’t know the preceding step. You can’t imagine it. What do you do then?

Ask for help.

Especially when you have a big vision, you’re not meant to do it all alone. Though it may take you some upfront time, you’ll soar a lot faster if you’ll seek out experts. Whether that’s consulting someone who is already in the business, going to a professional meeting for guidance, or even reaching out to helpful people on LinkedIn groups, you can tap into expertise from others.

What happens when you plan backwards and ask for help?

One of my clients created a bold new coaching program that she’ll be offering in the fall. Another client is finally moving into her vision of starting an organic farm. Will the farm open tomorrow? No. No genies around to drop her into the farm. But she’s taking action. And her previously unattainable fantasy is becoming a dream come true.

So, what about you?

What work do you dream of doing?  How might “planning backwards” help you reach your dream?

Let’s want to hear from you. When you share your dreams, you give others the courage to bring theirs into the light.

With care,

PS – I can’t wait to bust the 7^th and last “excuse.” It goes really well with this sixth one. Keep watching…

So many people tell me, “I just want job security.” I understand that need. Your job (or your work) pays for your groceries, your home, your car, and so much more.

So where do you get job security? From the big brand name of your Fortune 500 company? From your latest performance review? From your manager?

Really, where does your job security come from? (Hint: It’s so close you can touch it)

Job security comes from inside of you. Your ability to have a job (or work, a career, or a livelihood) depends on three qualities:

• Self-confidence
• Your ability to watch big trends and forecast how they will impact your career
• Resilience, also known as your flexibility — in other words, your ability to make change

So, if you want job security, what are you doing to create these three qualities?

I’d love to help you create these three qualities. And I’m very excited, because I want to give you a FREE copy of my brand-new Future-Proof Your Career program I just created. This 90-minute audio program and workbook will help you to plan for the future in an easy way. I don’t want you worrying about your job!

I created the Future-Proof Your Career program so you can sleep at night, knowing you have the ability to forecast potential changes to your career, and be able to respond in ways that will keep you working.

To help you feel more secure about your long-term career, I distilled down tons of research into a program you can apply to yourself and your own career situation. In the Future-Proof Your Career program, you’ll discover:

• the five mega-trends that will impact your future
• the three conflicts that you’ll need to overcome to ensure you’ll always have work in the future, and
• four great ways to forecast your own career future, so you easily create a new plans when things change (and they always do).

Do you want to keep working long into the future? You owe it to yourself to understand what’s changing in the world of work, and discover the simple things you can do to flex and change when you need to.

So, how do you get your very own FREE copy of the Future-Proof Your Career program?

Simply answer some survey questions. I want to get to know about my Work from Within readers. Your feedback will help me design bright new ways to help you feel phenomenal fulfillment at work.  The survey is fun & quick (takes 7-10 minutes).

When you complete the survey (by May 15), you’ll get a link that you can use to get your free copy of Future-Proof Your Career.

So, please let me help you have long-term job security. Take the Work from Within survey now and get your free copy of Future Proof Your Career

Thanks for sharing your life and your thoughts!

Last week, I met with a friend who’s an investment advisor. Sometimes, if I tell him about a stock, or a mutual fund, or an ETF I’m considering, he’ll share what he knows about the people managing the money. I’d chosen an ETF carefully, looked at the advisors and their track record, considered the market for this particular ETF, which focuses on emerging markets, and was trying to get a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down.”

Here’s what he reminded me:

“Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.”

Instead of looking at how the investment had peformed historically, I had to switch my view from the rear view mirror to looking out the front window.

It’s often the same with when you’re considering work you love. Instead of beating yourself up about the things that didn’t work out so well in your career, the risks you’ve taken that turned out less than successfully, I want to remind you to avoid using past performance to predict your future.

As an example, let’s look at my client, Ben (I’ve changed his name to protect his privacy). Ben came to me after a 10-year career as a product manager, always for companies with highly artisanal, beautifully crafted products. He went into that work because he’d failed as an artist. He made so little money that he was forced to move back in with his family.

As we worked together to sense his next work, we looked at what maximized his ROLE, his Return On Life Energy. It wasn’t writing product plans. It wasn’t developing promotional literature. It wasn’t creating the outline for the next trade show. No, it was making art. He didn’t do it very much anymore, but when he did, Ben came alive. During the course of our work, he hand-fired an ornate clay vase, took pictures, and sent them to me.

“Do you like the color? How’s the shape?” Ben asked, like a puppy dog wagging it’s tail, begging for affection.

Despite adoring his work, I refrained from heaping compliments on him. The attention belonged on him. “Ben, how was it to make the vase?”

I was drawn into Ben’s story, the step-by-step love and attention he put into the clay upon the potter’s wheel, his selection of the color, his estimation of the perfect amount of time to leave the vase in the kiln.

“So, what do you realize from all of this, Ben?” I inquired.

“I want to be an artist.”

And then, a long pause.

“But I failed at it before. It will never work. Crap! Now, what am I supposed to do?”

Ben was looking in the rear-view mirror.

We talked at length about what went wrong in his previous artistic forays. Essentially, he’d not really considered his cash flow, so he wound up with insufficient funds. In particular, he’d made 25 very large format pieces that were to be hung on the wall of a large law firm. But a week before the items were to be delivered, the law firm backed out.

With no contract in place, only a gentleman’s handshake agreement, Ben was left with 25 pieces of pottery that’d he’d funded, and no one to buy them.

Ben had a cash flow issue on his hands. No one had taught him how to plan for that. He didn’t learn that in art school. His parents, who were teachers, could not have warned him to watch his money.

I asked Ben to spend a weekend at any artist’s event he could think of. He immersed himself in a workshop on glazing. Funny, but he came back from it with a huge glow. He wanted to be an artist.

And now, he is. He sought help from the Small Business Administration to learn how to manage cash flow. He worked with a bookkeeper to set up an online accounting system. He took classes in marketing for artists. This has all added up to a thriving business. He got there by doing some contract work in product management while he was ramping up his art business, and now, the art accounts for nearly 100% of his income.

Action Cure: If you’ve “failed” at something before, ask yourself: “What’s the lesson in this failure?”

* What skills could you acquire to boost your abilities?
* What mentorship might you secure?
* Who might be a good confidante for you?
* How might you transform any negative self-beliefs that are holding you back?

If you’re at a point where you’re looking longingly at work you’ve tried before, but somehow not succeeded, you don’t need to suffer. I’d love to help you. You’re welcome to reach out to me for career reinvention coaching. Or at least talk to someone, like a good friend or a therapist. Get a new perspective.

When you clean off the front window, you’ll have a new view on your future career.

Seeing you clearly,

Mostly, I consider myself compassionate. But not so much so when I overhear strangers (like on the bus or in the supermarket checkout stand) say, “I can’t do the work I love.” I get angry. And worked up. It’s not right for people to go around feeling stifled in their work, boxed in, hemmed in, trapped in work that doesn’t fit them. Because I know it doesn’t have to be that way. And I’m out to transform your bad work into a phenomenally fulfilling livelihood.

So far, I’ve shared three “excuses” I hear people use about why they’re not doing the work they love: You don’t believe you’re worth it. You don’t know what that work is, yet. You think the work doesn’t pay well.  I’ve also shared solutions to all of these problems! And I’ve promised to cover seven reasons. So today I’m addressing the fifth problem that holds you back from work you love.

Problem #4: You fear that if you transform what you love into your work, you’ll kill your favorite hobby.

Oh boy. I’ve seen this one a zillion times. It’s based on a deadly perspective. A false distinction. You’ve mentally separated your work from your hobbies, consciously or (more likely) unconsciously by telling yourself something like this:  “Work is something awful, terrible, hard. My hobbies are things that are pleasurable, easy, fun. Why would I ever want to turn my hobby into something awful and terrible and hard?” You wouldn’t. In order to shift this limitation, you’re going to need to look at your beliefs about work and hobbies.

Action Cure #1: If you want to explore turning your hobby into your work, in a way that works, I’ve got a remedy for you. Actually, it’s a remedy with three simple steps.

Step One: Ask yourself:  “What does the word “work” really mean to me?” As fast as you can, without judging, write down all of your associations with the word “work.” Maybe work equal “drudge, obligation, heavy, must-do.” Sure, it might have some positive associations, like “creative” or “pays me well.” But let’s look at where work doesn’t meet your needs. That’s a good place to turn things around. So your second step is to look at your list of associations and circle the ones that feel good. And the ones that don’t feel good? Turn them around. So maybe those negatives become “uplifting, desirable, light, want-to-do.” Then, allow yourself to imagine what work would be like if you allowed it to have those positive qualities. What would shift or change for you?

Step Two: You may rightfully be afraid to mess up your hobby by transforming it into something you don’t love. For example, if you like baking, but you hate managing, you might transform your hobby in negative ways if you decided to dedicate your time to running your own bakery. Dear baking lover, the trouble here is that in casting yourself as a bakery manager, you’ve put yourself in a role that doesn’t fit for you. But you don’t have to give up your delicious dream. You just need partners. Who can run the bakery for you? Who can do the marketing?

When you’re afraid that pursuing your dream is going to ruin your hobby, you’re justifiably concerned that you’ll be doing work that’s outside your passion and joy. So that’s where you need assistance. Maybe you don’t even need to hire someone. Often, you can find a freelancer, a contractor, or even a virtual assistant.

I really love the one-on-one coaching and presentations and workshops I do for businesses. But setting up the shopping cart for my online store? Or getting my newsletter out? I do the writing, but I have a virtual assistant who does the detail work for me, so I can concentrate on the big picture. Ah, life is so much easier that way!

Who can you hire to handle the details of your dream, so you can handle the areas where you’re immersed in fulfilling experiences?

Step Three: Often, I find that people have a kind of all-or-nothing thinking about their hobbies. They imagine moving immediately from work they hate to work they love…overnight. It doesn’t happen like that. And that’s the good news for you. If you’ve been wanting to turn your hobby into your work, make a long-term plan to get there. How can you gradually put a toe in the water to try out your hobby as work? I had a client, Roz (name and some details changed for privacy), who wanted to create a garden gift shop. But that wasn’t feasible, especially financially, at least at first. So she approached her local nursery about teaching classes on making terrariums. And then she asked these gardening stores about creating small sections of their stores dedicated to gifts for gardeners. As Roz did these two things, she learned about gardeners in her area, and what they consider to be great gifts and terrible gifts. Over a two-year period, Roz increased the amount of time on her gardening-related explorations, and reduced her hours at the job she’d been doing for seven years, work she no longer loved. You might also like the story of my client, Andi, who was afraid she’d ruin her baking hobby. It’s got a sweet ending!

How might you dip a toe in the water and try out your hobby? What are some ways you could try out making even a little bit of money with your hobby?

It’s such a joy to transform work into a joyful expression of the energy within you. Remember, even a hobby can maximize your ROLE.

What’s the hobby you’re considering turning into your ROLE? And what’s your next step with it?

Always cheering you on to maximize your ROLE,

Susan

PS – I’d love to help you transform your hobby into your fabulously fulfilling work. Coaching might be just the thing to get you out of your fears and into your reinvented career. Let’s talk!

If you’ve been wanting to do work that you love, instead of love that you hate, you’re in the right place. I’m helping you, over about a month, with seven lessons to help you move into work you love. So far, I’ve shared two problems: You don’t value yourself and You don’t know what you’d love to do. You can also find my  action cures to turn those around.

Today, let’s get to a huge gripe I hear that holds people back from work they love.

Problem #3: You think good work doesn’t pay well

You know this one. It’s when you say: “Oh, c’mon. I’ll never get paid to…”

What’s your version of that story? You’ll never get paid to make cookies? Or surf? Or write?

OK, let’s take that excuse apart… Because you can have work that you love and that pays well.

Action Cure #3: First, you need to realize that if you think you can’t do something, then you can’t.

It’s a huge cultural myth that you can’t make money doing what you love. Especially in the US, we live with the remnants of a Protestant ethic that puts serious value on “hard work,” essentially condemning the idea that you should have fun and be paid. As a cultural norm, those elements don’t belong together, at least in the world of work.

To remedy this situation, look for examples of people who are doing what they love and getting paid for it. Keep a list. Remind yourself that your quest is possible.

Second, once you sever your ties those silly cultural values, put your head into the service of your heart to ask, “How could I make money doing what I love?” You may need to get together with some creative friends to brainstorm. It’s also helpful to put on an entrepreneurial mindset.

As an example, I just signed on a new coaching client. Before she agreed to work with me, she nervously asked, “What happens if we find out what I love, and it’s something I can’t make any money at?” I replied, “You mean, like you discover you love finger painting, and you question how you could make a living doing that?”

That was exactly what she meant. The thing is, you sometimes have to get pretty far out of your current mode of thinking to find ways to make money. Will your love look like a conventional 9 to 5 job? Probably not. So, how could you creatively market your talents?

I once helped Caitlin (not her real name), who had an artistic talent she loved. Caitlin doodled the nonsense that runs around in her head. Sitting in a cafe, drawing with a common black pen on a basic sketch pad, Caitlin drew these elaborate interconnected images of the issues and items occupying her mind – cars, scarves, old boyfriends, beaches, the sun. She did it mostly to clear her head. But occasionally, people peer over Caitlin’s shoulder, or look around her giant mocha, to see her creating these doodles, and would ask to buy them.

While Caitlin loved creating these sketches, and they felt almost too easy to call “work,” she rarely sold these drawings. But, working together, we crafted a way for her to make money in a way that all artists would like to do — sell her work on commission.

I asked her, “What would happen if you offered potential clients the chance to bid on a self-portrait? You’d draw the client’s (or patron’s) silhouette, either in person or via a photo. Then, you’d ask for 100 interesting things about the person, including about their hobbies, possessions, obsessions. And you’d promise to include at least 40 of those interesting elements in the finished drawing of “What’s going on in my head?” And instead of selling an 8 x 10 for $50, this highly personalized art could go for $500 or $1000 a portrait? Caitlin was thrilled.

Caitlin kept her crappy desk job for a while longer as she started learning to market herself and her unique, highly customized artwork. She had fun embracing new financial freedom in what she loved. Yes, she had to learn some new skills, especially marketing (and no, that is not a dirty word). Was it worthwhile to learn those skills? Absolutely. Over time, she would be able to cut her hours at the job she hated, as Caitlin replaced her income with work she loved.

You have the ability to transform what you love into something that brings in money. It’s important for you to break out of your box and create new ways to do this work.

So, who’s going to be on your team to help you brainstorm creative ways to make money doing what you love?

Creatively yours,

PS – I’d love to help you brainstorm and create work that you’ll love. Check out my Working Well sessions, so you can get started reinventing yourself.

PPS – I’m collecting a list of people who are doing work that most people would say, “You can’t get paid for THAT!” So, who do you know who is getting paid to do something that sounds fun, extravagant, or unbelievable? Please share their story, and if they’ve got a website or blog, post those links here, or send me the links to those.

On Tuesday, I started a month-long series to help you delve into the reasons you can’t do the work you love. It’s not enough to diagnose the problem. I’ve got action cures for you, too.

One of the biggest reasons people don’t do work they love is because they don’t believe in themselves. Some people who face this hold themselves back from work they love because they devalue themselves.

But what if you don’t know what you love? Or essentially, you don’t know what you want to do…so what do you do about that? How do you do the work you love when you don’t know what it is?

Problem #2: I don’t know what I want to do.

All too often, this is a problem of perspective. You think you need to know what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. Or you think you need to know the title of what you’re going to do, the company where you’ll do it, and the details of exactly what you’ll be doing.

Oy vey! Take the pressure off yourself!

Flashing back, again, to my five years in management consulting:  I knew I wanted to get out, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I did know some activities I wanted to infuse into my life. Like writing. So I joined a writer’s group. And I wanted to host dinner parties, so I started inviting people to my home and broke out the cook books and played in the kitchen.

Did I become a writer? I wrote, but I wouldn’t call myself a writer. I cooked, but “chef” would not have been a good professional moniker for me.

Slowly but surely, when I immersed myself in the activities that maximized my Return On Life Energy, I created a new ROLE for myself. I wasn’t sure what to call myself. I still don’t know. Sometimes, I hate calling myself a “career coach.” But it’s not about the title. It’s about the activities that maximize your Return On Life Energy.

Action Cure #2: If you’re trying to get clear about what you want to do, first, drop the idea that you’re going to have a nice, neat title for it. You know, like “manager” or “social media expert” or “butcher,” “baker,” or “candlestick maker.” When you’re seeking for work you love, titles can box you in. Get out of the box.

Instead of focusing on what you’ll be, focus on what you’ll do. And make those activities the ones that maximize your ROLE.

I created a video that takes you through a three-step process to maximize your ROLE, so that you’ll know a lot more about the work you desire. It’s been wildly popular with my clients, and think you’ll enjoy it. Watch it, and you’ll discover the steps of finding your energy gains and drains, and transforming those into your desires.

Tell me:  What energy drains can you start to ditch, pronto? And what energy gains can you infuse into your life, today?

Here’s to loving your ROLE!