Sunday, March 21, 2010

My next big thing

My goal for 2009 was to focus on getting my ducks in a row. I was feeling stagnant at my job and wasn’t sure if I wanted to remain in my current field or to pursue an alternative career altogether. After a year of personality assessments and soul searching, I’m sorry to say nothing in my life has really changed. This is partly due to the soft job market, but also to my discovery that my strength and passion is to read and learn. My desire to pursue a new career is more about taking the classes required for a new career than actually working in it.

Lately, I’ve been uninspired:
I wrote last week about not being busy at work. That along with the lousy spring weather in Wisconsin has left me feeling lethargic and uninspired. I even contemplated taking a break from blogging. Does anyone really want to read another blog post on “Why the Roth IRA conversion may not be for everyone?” Good because I don’t want to write about it. Even my new series, "Getting a Clue" seemed dull. The only problem with taking a break from blogging is I don’t have anything relevant to do in its place.

Then I read Penelope Trunk’s post how to get unstuck in life. She writes:
I coach so many people who tell me they can’t move forward because they don’t know where they are going. And I tell them, make something up. I tell them to commit to a goal, any goal, and move toward it until you think of a better one. The act of moving toward something helps you crystallize where, exactly, you want to be moving.
So what is next?
For the time being, I have no choice but to continue working at my present job. I still feel stagnant, but I need to buy groceries and pay my mortgage. To appease myself, I’ve signed up for two conferences one was last week and the other in a couple of months. And I do have this blog.

I spent most of my twenties and early thirties either studying for my business and accounting degrees or working multiple jobs in attempt to pay the tuition for these degrees. In my free time I read mindless fiction or books from Oprah’s book club. Books of substance were few and far between.

My focus for 2010 is going to be reading to “Get a Clue.”

I will blog about the books I’ve read and what I learn. My first series is going to be, “Getting a clue about aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns.” My favorite reference librarian has compiled a list of books for me. Since I don’t enjoy writing book reviews, I am signing up for Trish's non-fiction book challenge to push me into actually writing about these books. Who knows where this new goal will take me; hopefully to the next big thing. If not, at least I will be doing what I enjoy ~ reading.

5 comments:

  1. Good for you! At least your moving and not giving up. I feel the same way about my job, so I know how difficult it is to feel like you worked hard to get somewhere and you spend so much time doing something you don't even care that much about. What is it all for?

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  2. We all go thru those feelings from time to time and we all have to decide whether or not to move on. I've always decided "better the devil you know, than the one that you don't" and it's always been easier for me to decide to stay and use the extra time for myself and my family. Oddly enough, I stayed at my last job that way for several years - treading water. Then the company closed and I was out of work. Had the opportunity to do something else, and ended up going the way of comfort... right back doing the things that I always did. This time I am a bit more invested, but the comfortable is, well, comfortable. Good luck. Hope your new goals help you keep moving until the sun shines enough to make the world look better.

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  3. Winter/Spring blahs do complicate things, it's true. Here's my tip for writing reviews, which I do enjoy. Challenge yourself to be short, not long. Maybe not Twitter short, but under 100 words.
    Form your book reviews like this: what is it, who's it for, why read it, what's unique about it? Rather than make that an essay outline, make it a paragraph outline. This will challenge you to change it up with each review and awaken some sleepy creative part of your brain.

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  4. Thanks for signing up for the Non-Fiction Five challenge.

    Writing reviews is something that every blogger does a little differently. Some go all out with essay-length posts and some keep it really short (http://thoughtsofjoyblog.blogspot.com/ for really short reviews!). The important thing to do is have fun with it. I like Caroline's suggestion about trying to keep it short and simple. You'll grow from there, I'm sure.

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  5. Brandi, Webb, Caroline and Trish:
    I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the support and encouragement I receive from my fellow bloggers. I sincerely thank every one of you for your comments.

    And Caroline thank you for the book review suggestions. I especially like the possibility of awakening some sleepy creative part of my brain. As you can see from my latest post, keeping reviews under 100 words is going to be a challenge, but I do think you are on to something. I sometimes wonder if the majority of readers actually read more than 100 words of most reviews anyway. Personally, if I haven’t read a book or am not particularly interested in it I skim the review to determine if the reviewer considers the book worth reading and why.

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