Would you like to create a more satisfying, energizing livelihood?  You can!  One tool to help you is the Law of Attraction.  I love introducing this to clients, and I’m happy to share it with you.

The Law of attraction basically states that your thoughts matter.  And, your thought are matter.  Yep – they are a form of energy.  Well, before we create something we think about it.  Like let’s say you want a new job.  Your thoughts focus on this.  If you didn’t want a new job, one wouldn’t just drop into your lap.  You’d find yourself searching for opportunities on job boards.  You might start networking with friends.  You might even find that people tell you about great jobs even before you ask. 

The Law of Attraction first implies that when you think and when you speak, that magnetic energy creates something.  And, that energy attracts people and circumstances into your life.  Have you ever noticed that you are thinking of a friend, and then all of a sudden your phone rings, and it’s your friend!?!  Well, Law of Attraction would say that your thoughts created that call.  You had an energetic vibration, and your friend was magnetically pulled in, because his or her vibration matched yours.  It’s the idea that like attracts like. 

Or, perhaps you have seen that when you are having a good day, everything goes your way.  And, when you’re having a bad day, nothing seems to go your way, right? 

So, according to The Law of Attraction, you manifest in your life a mirror of your internal thoughts and emotions.

The Law of Attraction implies two major premises: 

1. If you want something, but you don’t yet have it, your thoughts and feelings are not aligned with your desire. 
2. If you have something that you don’t want, your thoughts and feelings are aligned with the very thing that you don’t want.

OK.  What does this mean, in a practical sense, for your working life?

Let’s imagine that you hate your job.  Your boss regularly screams at you.  You find the building where you work downright drab and ugly.  Payday is never close enough and the check is never big enough.  I could go on and on, but you get the general idea.

Law of Attraction would imply that you created those circumstances because of your thoughts.  What?  Excuse me?  Are you blaming me?  Well, no.  I know, I know, that whole premise might sound absurd.  But, if you’ll pay attention, you’ll notice that when you keep thinking negative thoughts, you attractive negative people and circumstances. 

Some people might say, "Well, tell the boss she’s mean" or "Decorate your workspace."  Those would probably take a lot of effort.  It’s generally quite hard to change other people and easier to change ourselves.  So, if you’re hating your circumstances, you need to envision the working situation you do want, rather than the one you don’t want.

In fact, by saying "I don’t want this crummy boss" or "I don’t want to work in this awful building," you are setting up the circumstances to keep the crummy boss and the awful building.  Why?  Because our brains don’t really understand "no" and "don’t" when it comes to what we’re envisioning in our future.  Additionally, according to the Law of Attraction, whatever forces align to make things happen, they really don’t know what to do with requests that are phrased with what you don’t want. 

So, imagine that your requests are like talking to a waiter in a restaurant.  You order, and tell the waiter, "I don’t want the crummy salad."  So, what does the waiter do?  Does he start bringing everything else on the menu?  No.  He asks, "Well, what do you want?"  Oh, you say, "I’d like the banana split."  You need to do the same with your work.  Get clear about what you do want, not what you don’t want. 

So, turn things around:  "Oh!  I want a supportive manager, a beautiful work environment, and great compensation."  How does it feel to say that?!  Aha!  Better, right?

This process is not just Pollyanna-ish positive thinking.  Not at all.  It’s about knowing and envisioning what you do want.  Getting clearer and clearer about that.  When it comes to your working situation, it’s much easier to shift your circumstances when you’ve clarified what you do want. 

Even small shifts in your clarity can help bring relief and change.  And, lest you’re prone to start putting the pressure on yourself, saying, "Oh, gosh, I need to know that I want a job at XYZ Company with the title of Such-and-Such Manager," hold your horses!  You can state whatever little things you do know.  And, if you’re wanting more clarity about what you want in your working life, just ask for that!  Imagine, envision, and play with pictures in your mind about this new life.  Let it be fun!

So, try it out as an experiment for yourself for a week.  I’d love to hear how Law of Attraction has worked for you in your working life.  Please send back your comments! 

Law of Attraction has helped me to attract new clients, and to really feel upbeat, energized, and excited.  I’ll be sharing about two more "companion laws" in the next week or so.  For now, I invite you to play with the Law of Attraction, and share your comments here!

Here’s to your positive attraction,

Susan

The year 2007 is just days away.  If you’re like me, you start thinking, "Oh, no.  I know I’m supposed to set resolutions, but then, sooner than I’d like, I’m not fulfilling them.  So what’s the point of making them in the first place?!?

I know, I know.  New Years resolutions scare some of us, because we feel we’ve fallen down on them in the past.  The word "resolution" comes from the Latin resolutionem which is "a breaking into parts."  I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time breaking some projects into their parts.  This is especially true when I’m working on something really new to me.  You know, the kind of project where you don’t know all of the steps in advance, and you’re still looking for an expert to help you.

Rather than teach you yet another way to break your resolutions into parts, or manage them like any other project, I want to offer you a gift — a chance to look at four actions you can take to make your resolutions more enjoyable and to reduce barriers to their completion.

(1) Feel the energy:  Too often, we write resolutions that don’t go anywhere.  They’re so flat, dull, boring.  They don’t motivate us.  Instead, they obligate us.  Perhaps part of that comes from our American puritanical work ethic that tells us we’re doomed to hard work.  That’s just a belief.  It doesn’t have to be true.  Here’s a better way to write your New Years resolutions…

Once you’ve written the resolution in an energizing, engaging way, let’s look at how you can invest your life energy to ensure you give it the time it deserves.  Our resolutions are investments.  Let’s look at three steps you can take to growing the investment in your future — in other words, three ways to look at the time you have and see how you can leverage it to accomplish what you desire.  Here are three questions you can ask yourself — and use the answers to make important changes that can help you to have more of what you want in 2007.

(2) Ask yourself:  What can I STOP doing?  In other words, what are the activities that cause me to leak my time?  Consider where you are using your time or your money in ways that are out of alignment with your intentions.  When you regain that time, you’ll be able to invest more of it in achieving your goals for 2007.  Here are some common time leaks and what you can do about them… 

(3) Ask yourself:  What can I START doing?  Review your New Years intentions, and look at what activities, especially small ones, you can start doing now that will help you create momentum towards your goal.  What will energize and leverage your time so that you can get what you want?  Let’s explore this a bit deeper…

(4) Ask yourself:  What can I CONTINUE doing?  Some things you are doing right now may be just perfect in terms of leveraging your life energy to help you achieve your New Years resolutions.  You’ll want to continue them.  This is a great time of year to acknowledge yourself for what you’ve been doing that works.  Here’s an activity that can help you feel great about yourself and help you reap the rewards you want in 2007…

I hope you enjoy all of these activities!  Visit the Work from Within website to find more resources for you and your life, career, and financial well-being!  You can also read two years worth of helpful newsletters and sign up to your receive your complimentary eNewsletter each month.   

Wishing you all the best in 2007 and beyond,

I’ve started to notice that WORK and WORTH are connected. 

As I listen to people talk about their careers, I’ve observed that when people love their work, they tend to be less caught up about their salaries.  People who really love their work often say things like "I’d even do this for free."  They receive so much positive energy from their work that they are nurtured and nourished by it.  Yes, of course, they need some form of compensation to pay the bills.  But once their basic needs for food, water, and shelter are taken care of, people really need little more.  Good, positive, life-affirming work can connect a person with others, so that they have meaningful relationships.  It can allow them to express their creativity.  It can help them to know that they are doing something valuable, so that they feel their worth from the inside-out. 

But when people are dissatisfied with their work, they tend to feel angry and resentful towards their employers.  They want more money.  Actually, this phenomenon seems to occur with people who are self-employed, too. 

It’s as though they believe that money can compensate for dissatisfaction.  But can money really fill the void?  What are people wanting underneath?  Money can buy things.  But can it buy happiness and fulfillment?

I think that fulfillment (a sense of feeling "full," really — full of life, that joie-de-vivre) does not come directly from money.  Instead, I believe fulfillment comes a blend of three elements:

(1) Outward Self-Expression:  Each of us is in the world because we have something uniquely our own to express.  But when we don’t know what it is or how to express it, we feel unfulfilled.  When we do know what we want to express and how to express it, we feel engaged, alive, and fulfilled.  We experience our true abundance When you create a livelihood that that truly fits, you put yourself in a role that maximizes your life energy. You appropriately leverage your life assets.

(2) Right Livelihood:  When we translate the most meaningful expressions of our life energies into our livelihood, we become richer financially, emotionally, and in our relationships. 

(3) Leveraging Inner Prosperity:  We are each given tremendous inner assets.  We can leverage our skills, talents, and knowledge into creating a meaningful and energizing livelihood.   When we harvest our inner wealth, we automatically feel prosperous. 

When we find the right combination of these three elements, I believe we see the returns expressed in positive life energy.  Call it verve, vim, vigor, qi, chi, ruach, spirit, elan vital, life force…whatever name you give it, you know it when you feel it.  It’s like being in the flow.  You just feel more alive.  You get an inner sense that things are right.  That you are expressing your true essence.

And, when you are expressing your true essence, you just feel good — plain and simple.  It’s like an inner payment, so that you know your own worth.  Money is still important, but you tend to be less drawn to money for money’s sake.  So our job is to notice how we are spending our life energy, and focus on ways to increase it, rather than draining it.  As we do that, we increase our inner and outer worth. 

I’ve been healing my own relationship between worth and work.  Part of my own personal growth in this worth + work equation has included training as a money coach. 

If you could benefit from a healthier relationship between your career and your compensation, I’m very excited to be offering money coaching.  I invite you to contact me for a complimentary 30-minute "get acquainted" session.  We’ll set up a mutually agreeable time where I’ll ask you a few questions and introduce you to the step-by-step money coaching process. 

With money coaching, you can discover the ways in which money coaching can give you a deeper understanding of unconscious beliefs and patterns that hold you back.  When you can clearly and compassionately see these habits, you can transform your relationship with money and lead a more purposeful and prosperous life. 

Is it time to heal your relationship between worth and work?

It’s Thanksgiving time here in the US, so I’m
feeling inspired on two levels. First, I’d like to express my thanks to you,
and I’d also like to share a activity that can help you to cultivate prosperity
in your life through the continuous offering of thanks.

Give
Thanks & Cultivate Your Inner Prosperity

I love
Thanksgiving — seeing family, eating great food, enjoying the crisp fall air.
But I know it’s easy to get away from the spirit of the holiday. As I see it,
this holiday is a reminder to express gratitude.

I invite you, at this time of
year, to consider all the rich bounty in your life for which you can give
thanks.

• People (family, friends, colleagues)
• Places (your home, spots in nature)
• Events (special times, recurring meetings)
• Feelings (emotions that bring you joy)
• Body (your health, your ability to move & breath)
• Abilities (your inner gifts that create outer wealth)

I encourage you to think about
this: Do you give thanks for yourself? All too often, we focus
attention others. What about you? In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart
Tolle, writes “Get the inside right, and the outside will take care of
itself.” Consider your gratitude for the inner gifts you have — perhaps
your care for others, your creativity, your sense of humor.

BE inspired. Take a moment to
breathe in and acknowledge your inner richness. If you take just one minute to
do activity each day, you are sure to see an increase in your outer prosperity.
I’ve been doing this practice now for over six months, and I am so thankful for
all the friends, clients, ideas, events, and inspirations that have appeared in
my life. When we consciously recognize and value our inner gifts, we manifest
prosperity in all that we see and touch. I know this is possible for you, too.

I’m so very thankful to have you
as a reader of this blog, and hope you find some inspirations within. I’m also
thankful for my new worth
from within money coaching skills. Moving forward, I’ll be sharing more
with you about my own sometimes rocky journey with money and prosperity. I’ll
open up about why I am adding this very meaningful coaching (that has benefited
me greatly) and how it can help you to enhance your self-worth and to manifest
inner and outer abundance.

I care deeply about helping
people to achieve true abundance by getting unstuck about issues and patterns that are
blocking them from living the life they desire. Thank you for giving me the
chance to share my skills, talents, and knowledge with you.  If you’d like to learn more, especially about
teleclasses you can join, click here to preview upcoming Work from Within events.

In the meantime, I wish you,
your family, and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving. Be well!

I want a PLAYCHECK!

Yes, you read that right.  It’s not a misspelling. 

Without any explanation, I’m sure you know what I mean by a playcheck.  Do you want one, too?  I want to do what I love and receive compensation for it.  Well, honestly, I’m already doing that as I help people to "work from within."  I am honored to assist people who are feeling stressed out or burned out about work.  I help them to create much more satisfying, energizing working lives through individual coaching and public workshops. 

And while I love playing at what I do, I want to bring in more money and play bigger.  I feel like I’ve been playing smaller than what’s truly possible for me.  Can you relate?  So, I knew it was time for a change in my patterns. 

I swear the Universe must have heard my wish, my desire to bring Work from Within to a bigger audience.  As soon as my desire became clear and crisp in my heart, a piece of magic happened. I was invited to a 2-day workshop with my friend Deborah Price, author of Money Magic.  Deborah also facilitates a Money Coaching workshop.  Today was Day 1 of the workshop. I’m learning about my relationship with money.  Oooh, it’s not all pretty.  For example, I used to be pretty uptight and not too creative when I was in the corporate world.  I thought I’d learned to be relaxed and even self-expressed in my current life.  Well, I’m discovering that when it comes to money, I tend to constrict.  I get scared.  I can be pretty timid.  Tomorrow, we’re supposed to be healing those issues. 

Already, just on Day 1, the Money Coaching workshop is helping me to start healing my relationship with money.  One of way I’m doing that healing comes from having a new word in my vocabulary, PLAYcheck.  I’m thankful to one of my fellow workshop participants, Steven "Shags" Shagrin, for sharing it.  Shags is a ball of energy (like me!) is smart (like me!) and has a string of degrees (like me!).  Part of his work in the world is to help people really understand their feelings about money and make financial plans that fit for them.  I count him among the many new friends I am making who are expressing thier passion through their work and creating their own PLAYchecks, rather than working for someone else in a way that constricts them. 

I’m going to share some of the ways to create a PLAYcheck and to create ABUNDANCE and PROSPERITY as alternatives to work that eats you up and burns you out.  I know that life is too short to slug it out in work you don’t love, and you really can have abundance doing what matters to you.  I’ve been studying the science of getting rich and the secrets of the millionaire mind and the laws of attraction and how to create money magic. 

Would you like learn to create abundance and prosperity?  Would you like to discover how to create a PLAYcheck rather than a PAYcheck?  I’m going to be sharing my own story of how I’ve learned to embrace and create wealth and a working life that works for me, and share many of the perspectives and tools that have helped me.  Please join me for a teleclass by phone on Friday, September 29, from 12-1 pm Pacific Time.  You can dial in from anywhere in the world.  I’d love to have you join me.  For more details, check the Work from Within website.

Let’s PLAY and grow PROSPEROUS together!  There’s abundance for everyone!

I’m a big advocate for what I call the "self-expressed career," meaning doing work that reflects who you are and what you care about.  For me, that involves assisting others with transforming their passions into their professions.  I help them to work from within, listening to their inner impulses, trusting their instincts about how to make a livelihood.  Some of my clients go to work for big and small companies.  Some go back to school for a period, and others start their own ventures.

I regularly hear from people who are following their own authentic career path, "So, I’m doing the work I love, but where’s the money?"  You know, Marcia Sinetar’s classic book, Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow should add the word "EVENTUALLY" at the end.

The path requires an appreciation of abundance.  And patience.

I’ve wailed many times, wondering when I’d have the shower of money rain down on me.  Sometimes, my former salary from my management consulting days looks enticing.  But then I think about going back into that world, of 80-hour work weeks, out-of-town, serving stressed-out clients, missing friends and family, chowing down on calorie-laden room service, and basically having no life.  Almost immediately, my stomach clenches up.  I feel anxiety crawl all over my body, locking me up in a box of worries.  I remember those days.  I was so anxious to do a good job for my client that I neglected myself.

No more of that tortured lifestyle.  I have true abundance.  I set my own hours.  If I want to take a day off, I plan it.  When I want to take a class, I schedule my clients around it.  I make some time for writing my dissertation at least two days a week. 

What abundance do you have?  What can you be thankful for?

So, the other side of the equation is patience.  I want everything now, now, now, now, now.  So I look at my amazing self-expressed venture, Work from Within, and I ask myself, "Am I rolling in dough?  I mean, is this company making me a zillion dollars a year?"

No.  Not yet.  Time to practice the fine art of patience. 

And yet, if I follow the Law of Attraction, I realize that I visualize and intend for prosperity regularly.  And I’m doing my part to create it.

I discovered a interview relevant to the topic of abundance and right livelihood by book editor and author Randy Peyser on her website.  She speaks with Esther Hicks and Abraham, who authored Ask And It is Given.  Her interview is entitled, "Opening the Doors to Bigtime Prosperity."  Now, there’s a title that speaks to me!  And here are some of Abraham’s quotes that speak to me from Randy’s article.  Abraham is saying that people turn around from their dreams when they get only part of the way there:

"People do that relative to their financial gains in this way: they get hopeful, and vibrationally speaking, they are well along the way to their destination. But then a bill comes, or they get tired, or feel overwhelmed or overworked, or stop and take score. Then they turn around and head in the wrong direction."

Then, Abraham offers this advice:

"To obtain vibrational alignment, you have to consistently keep the faith, focus upon what you want, and speak about it in ways that make you feel good about it. Disappointment, anger or frustration mean you are headed in the wrong direction. Feelings like hope or elation mean you are going in the right direction."

If you are contemplating a career change, and it’s got some risk to it, listen to your heart.  Do you want to pursue a particular direction and just really feel the energy of it?  Then somehow, some way, things will work out.  I know that sounds nutty.  I have an MBA.  I’m supposed to know how to write business plans.  But business school does not generally teach you to follow your passion.  I’m following my passion and noticing my energy and vibration, and generally, it keeps getting higher and the rewards get sweeter and sweeter.

Yet I have what feel like occasional setbacks.  It’s then that I need to trust.  You too?

I do trust that I’ll be enjoying greater financial abundance in the very near future.  I’ve been at this new career path a little over four years, and really less than two years on a full-time basis. 

What else helps me to trust that what I’m doing will bear financial fruit?  Well, many things energize me and help me to know that my vibration is set for attraction.  These accomplishments add to my strong vibration:

• I continue to bring out new products (yippee — a lot of work — yet fun to create!)
• I continue to add new clients, especially for career transition assistance
• More and more people continue to sign up for the free Work from Within eNewsletter

What helps YOU to know that what YOU are doing is on the right path for YOU?  What do you do or say or believe that helps you to trust that the financial rewards are coming for you?

In my last posting, I talked about how I am starting to write, daily, without knowing where the journey will take me.  Writing is totally pleasureable for me, especially free-writing, like this.  And somehow, I feel guided to keep writing, but without trying to create some specific outcome.  Writing for the sake of writing.  No goal, just the experience. 

Write without knowing if it’s a novel or a how-to book or doesn’t have a purpose at all?  That’s a totally foreign concept, but one I’m learning to embrace, partly with the support of reading Marianne Williamson’s "A Return to Love," which is her interpretation of "A Course in Miracles." 

By reading the book, I feel redeemed to find support for the idea of embracing that all is well if I just trust myself, trust the forces of nature.  By contrast, I used to be so intensely goal-driven.  Always pushing, pushing, pushing for what I wanted, often winding up exhausted.  Believe me, I still have a lot of that energy inside of me.  Having grown up in the business world, and crafting corporate strategies, I know that it’s possible to make a 20-year plan.  But to live it?  Things don’t go neatly according to plan.  So, what is one to do?

I am discovering that there’s something different that happens when I follow my impulses.  I get a sense within me that what I am doing fits, feels right.  A warmth in my chest, a relaxation in my shoulders, an ease in my belly that says, "Yes, that’s it."

When I’m doing something that is really right for me, really my next signature move in the world, It’s not like getting a mental "check off" that says, "Yep, that measures up."  No, it’s an inner awareness.  Logic can support it, but logic is the assistant, not the master.  I’m not trying to convince myself of something and then get behind it with my heart.  It’s the other way around.

But trusting my impulses?  Trusting that the Universe — God, The Higher Power, whatever you want to call those forces — is guiding me, holding me?  When I allow myself to believe it, I feel so at ease, I am filled with inner peace and I want to spread it outside myself.  When I don’t feel it, I get worried.  I don’t know what to do minute-to-minute.  I question myself.  Self-doubt mounts quickly. 

I had been feeling an overflow, an abundance of inner trust for a few weeks.  It was intensely "chill", feeling deep inner peace, and the underlying tone was "something big and wonderful is happening to you — you are on your path, all is well."   

And, of course, I fell from grace.  I’ve had a few days of panic, depression, sadness.  I feel like I’m coming out of it.  I want to grasp for the inner peace, but as I write that, I realize that grabbing is the antithesis of this energy I desire.  I need to allow, as it suggested in "A Return to Love."  But what is this change from Was it hormonal?  Heck, I don’t know.  But when I listen within, I am guided to write.  So, here I am…

I will be sharing some of my writing on these pages (uh, in this blog, the virtual pages).  Perhaps one of the things I will be doing, in that honesty, is conveying to others the journey from the planful, methodical, push-push-push life, to one where you work from within. 

As an affiliated coach with VocationVacations, I’m constantly in touch with the pulse of this creative organization that helps people to pursue their dream jobs. 

They ran a survey last month asking:  "What is the biggest obstacle that stands between you and your dream job?"

Over 2400 people responded.  Here are the results:
Money – 42%
Education/Qualifications – 25%
Fear of Failure – 21%
Family (commitments, lack of support, etc.) - 12%

Let’s look at those one at a time:

Money:  Is money really a problem?  I hear people ALL the time tell me, I’d quit my job now, but I’m not taking a job that pays less.  What if the stress level is less?  How much is that worth to you?  How much would it be worth to you to be with people who share your values?  Or to have freedom and flexibility in your working hours?  Or to be able to express yourself? 

How much are you suffering because you think money will somehow keep you safe?  Money can buy stuff, but do you really want more stuff?  Or, do you crave more meaning? 

I have a friend who is desperately seeking money, but she is always finding ways to share the few special possessions she has with others, and she’s doing nice things to spread joy in the world.  I also know a few people who have incredible financial wealth, yet are stingy, hoarding their money and closing out others.  Money is a form of energy.  Look at what you are spending your money on this month — what does it say about you and what you value? 

Other financial options:  If you really, truly need money, like to go back to school for a career change, how can you get it?  Are you willing to take out a loan and invest in yourself?  Can you afford to go back to school part-time and take a job that becomes the equivalent of a "patron" — it pays enough to cover the basics, and gives you flexibility with your time.  And, it’s the kind of job you don’t take home with you at night.

Education/Qualifications – Do you really need a credential?  For some professions, yes.  If you’ve been a ballerina and now you want to be a brain surgeon, yes, of course, you need to go back to school.  Another possibility is to become an apprentice.  One of my friends has wanted to be a painter for years.  She took a course with a prominent artist and then asked if she could apprentice under him.  She was willing to do anything for him, including yardwork, in order to learn.  Fortunately, the artist let her do more meaningful work at first, like framing his artwork, and he also gave her studio space and encouraged her to paint.  A year later, she is having her first showing. 

Deliberate Dabbling:  If formal training is keeping you back from moving fully into a new profession, consider how you can conduct some experiments that will let you do a part of the work.  Can you do a project for a company in your target industry?  For example, if you want to break into marketing, do you know a company who needs a marketing campaign created?  What if you moonlighted to get the experience?  Get creative with ways you can get a taste of the work you crave.  It will help you get even clearer about how and where you want to do it. 

Fear of Failure - Ack!  This is the biggie, in my book.  Why are we so afraid to do it wrong?  Don’t get me started on that topic…I think part of it starts in school, where we assign everyone a grade, so that we come to believe we will always be ranked and assessed by others.  What about setting our own inner standards?  Much harder — no, not that we’ll necessarily be tougher on ourselves, though we may.  Actually, it’s usually harder for us to know if we’re doing a good job or not. 

My recommendation?  Gather all the data you need to know if you want to make a transition, like changing professions.  Then, lay out all the pros and cons, on paper.  Walk away from the piece of paper for 24 to 48 hours.  Come back to it and then look at your choices, not with your logical mind, but with your heart and with your gut.  What do they have to tell you?  The mind is a terrific servant, but a terrible master.  Let your heart and gut guide you, and let your mind take your chosen course of action and plan out the next few steps. 

Family This is a tough one.  Two sides of a coin.  Some families have commitments…er, a vested stake in you staying in the same job.  Money is often part of the concern.  In this case…can you reduce your expenses?  Live more simply for a period of time?  Take out a loan? 

What if change means you’ll be traveling or occupied, like with school?  Consider ways to make the time together more meaningful, and create rituals to mark the transitions to time apart.  When I was a kid, my dad traveled for IBM.  Though I was only four years old at the time, I still remember the tapes he made me with bedtime stories.  They made me feel soooo good. 

Another side of the coin is families who don’t provide emotional support.  I have a client now who wanted to be a writer, but her parents practically forced her to go to law school (familiar, anyone?).  Though she graduated near the top of her class, she really hated the law and hated being an attorney.  And now, she’s finally, in her mid-40s, exploring making a change. 

Sometimes, we have to do what we have to do.  It can be difficult to tell our families, "That may be what you want me to do, but I need to do something else."  Personally, I wanted to study psychology as an undergraduate.  But my family told me, "You’ll never make any money until you get to the PhD level."  Well, I’m finally pursuing that PhD, 20 years later.  Why so much later?  I was horribly frightened that I wouldn’t make "any" money, especially since my family nearly went bankrupt before I started college.  I didn’t want to relive that experience.  I threw myself into a BS in Marketing & Economics, worked a few years, then got an MBA.  Out of fear.  Now, I am having to go through a different set of fears as I pursue my real loves — counseling others, teaching, and writing.  The fears of "can I do this?"  "Will anyone care?"  "How do I just write?"  I had to learn to listen to myself.  If you’re getting pressure from your family to do something you hate, or to avoid something you love, listen to your frustration with that pressure.  That’s probably an indicator of your passion.

You can tell your family something like, "I need to do this (become a clown, go to cooking school, open a doggy day care business)."  I know you don’t agree with me, but it’s so important to me.  I’d love to have your support.  But, if I can’t have that, I’d at least request that you let me try without adding negative messages.  I already have natural self-doubts.  I’d ask you to kindly help me keep those at bay.  Thanks!" 

HOW ABOUT YOU?  Do you want to explore a possible job change that you’re considering?  Want to establish a plan for working through the issues of money, education, fear of failure, or family concerns?  I offer a free 30-minute "get acquainted" session.  I’d really love to talk to you see if Work from Within coaching is a good fit for you. 

Coming ahead…in my next posting:  sharing my personal story…moving into my own dream job…being a writer.  A scary, "get real!" experience. 

Aaaah, just "follow your bliss" — and "do what you love, the money will follow."

Yeah, right.  When is that money coming?

One of the biggest fears that people have about a career change is the money.  We’re often scared to take less.  According to an article on Women’s WallStreet , it’s a good idea to save up three to five months worth of income, so that you have a cushion. 

Also,  rather than taking a drastic step, like quitting your job and going to school, start off with a smaller step…take a class and see how you like being in school. 

If you want to start a business, get a taste of it by working for someone else on a project or on a part-time basis.  Moonlight. 

Experience goes a long way in helping you decide to make a move…particularly in helping you to know if it’s OK to take a paycut.

Sometimes, simplifying your life will help you ease a paycut.  What can you do without?  What would it be worth to you to have more time for yourself? 

If you are contemplating a career change to something really different and you’re worried about the money, I encourage you to talk to others who have done it.  They can help to inspire you. I’m making less money (for now, as a PhD student and career coach), but feeling great about the flexibility and creativity I have in my life…I feel lifted up, not pushed down as I did in jobs that were not aligned with my true needs.

I’m even watching one of my dear friends put her condo on the market, even though she’s owned it for less than two years.  Why?  Keeping up the mortgage payments meant that she had to work in a high-pressure job.  She wants out of the pressure cooker, and loves the non-profit world.  It may not make as much money, but she’ll have more time to pursue hobbies and will be working with people who come from their hearts, which is important to her.

What is your happiness worth to you?  If you let yourself do what you love, what would would that type of work or livelihood give you? 

Whew, it’s been way too long since I have written my blog!  I have been immersed in a number of projects, including my dissertation, which deals with body awareness in the midst of career change.  I continue to believe that we need to pay more attention to our inner voice and sensations as we navigate change.

One of the issues I constantly hear when people go through career transitions is, "But what about the money?" 

Personally, I have taken a pretty sizeable paycut to transition into the life I want — and it’s been totally worthwhile!  When I worked in management consulting, I was trading off life energy for money.  Working 60, 70, 80+ hour work weeks is a killer.  I was constantly emotionally and physically fried.  Living out of suitcases, in hotel rooms with boring decor, not seeing friends most of the week, and commuting to work in a different time zone, that’s just no fun at all.  I have a hard time imagining ever going back to that lifestyle.

So, let me share with you something that Oprah Winfrey said at Harvard Business School that I find totally inspiring: 

If you only desire to make money, you can do that. Obviously, everybody in here is going to make money. Everybody in here is going to have a level of financial success that most people in the world will not know. But what I will tell you—and I know this for sure too—that the money only lasts for a while in terms of making you feel great about yourself. In the beginning, the money is to get nice things. And once you’ve gotten those nice things, I think some of the most unhappy people I know are the people who’ve acquired all the things and now they feel like, ‘What else is there?’ What else is there? What else is there? And that feeling of ‘what else is there’ is the calling—is the calling trying to say to you [that] there is more than this. There is more than this.

Thank you, Oprah, for focusing us beyond just the financial!  If you want to read the whole article, here’s the link.

Can you listen in and find out how you feel about money in your own life? 

Does money rule you from the inside or the outside? 

What are you doing to deal with your fears around money?