Resonating with Your Career by Curt Rosengren A career, like everything else in life, is filled with choices — choices that will take you down energy-rich paths, and choices that lead to paths that will sap your energy dry. Work can be a vibrant, vitalizing force in your life, a conduit for the energy that comes from following your natural path, but first you have to make the choices that will lead you there. I call it pursuing your passionate path. Your passionate path is one that is deeply in line with who you are. It lets you tap into the energy that the universe has to offer when you are being true to yourself. Being on your passionate path also has a beneficial impact on the world around you. Like ripples from a stone dropped in water, the positive energy you create will have an impact on the people and events you come in contact with. The first and most important step may seem deceptively simple: get to know yourself. Before you can strike off in the direction you want to go, you’ve got to really know who you are, and how you want to be. In the Mayan view of the world, there was a fifth "direction" (in addition to north, south, east, and west). One word for that direction is yaxkin (yosh-keen). It is center, or, put another way, it’s where you are. In addition to its geographic and astronomical significance, yaxkin had a religious and spiritual importance for the Mayans. It was the location of "The World Tree," which connected the planes of the heavens, the earth, and the underworld by its branches and roots. The concept of yaxkin is at the core of anything we do in our careers (or our lives as a whole, for that matter). Think of it as your own center point. It’s not just where you are, but who you are, how you are, and why you are. When your career is in line with your yaxkin, it can be like a fire-hose of energy shooting through you. The friction disappears, and amazing things can happen. You open yourself up to richness and growth (interestingly, the color associated with yaxkin was green, signifying nature and life). When your career isn’t in line with your yaxkin, when it’s off-center, there is a dissonance between the place you are and your true nature, and that eats up energy. Rather than becoming a nourishing, replenishing source of energy, your career becomes an energy-draining beast. Once you have a good awareness of what your yaxkin is, it’s time to take action. Greater insights into yourself are wonderful, but unless you act on those insights, little will change. Here are some tips to help you pursue your passionate path, aligning your career with your yaxkin, and reaping the benefits of the positive shift in energy that will bring: Discover your yaxkin — discover yourself Before you start your journey, take some time to do some serious self-exploration. Spend some time getting to know your yaxkin. There are lots of approaches to this one; take as many as you like. Explore things on a surface level and on a deep spiritual level; they’re all important pieces of the puzzle. The better you get acquainted with yourself on all levels, the better the odds that you really will be able to create a career (and a life) that is truly in line with your yaxkin. An example is one of my favorite exercises, creating what I call a passion profile. Take some time and make a list of all the things in your life, from childhood through now, that have just made you buzz. List the things that really resonated deep down. Maybe they were extraordinarily fun, exceptionally fulfilling, or spiritually compelling. It can be work or play, an event, a period of time in your life, etc. There are no rules. Once you have your list, pick one item and start digging into the reasons why. The question why is a powerful tool for your explorations. Use it liberally, both in this exercise and other self-exploration efforts. This will help you peel back the layers of the onion and help you get to the heart of what’s important. Brainstorm Once you have developed a picture of your yaxkin and identified some of your passions, brainstorm ways you could incorporate them into your life. Write them down in one session, or tuck the question in the back of your mind and carry a small pad of paper with you to record your flashes of inspiration. Have a brainstorming session with friends and colleagues (do it over dinner, drinks, coffee, or whatever). Make a game out of seeing who can come up with the most ideas, "practical" or not. Above all, be creative. Don't confine yourself to the logical and rational. You never know what crazy idea is going to spark the Big One. Explore Ask, ask, ask! Once you have identified some things you think you might be interested in, identify people who are knowledgeable in those areas and contact them. Explain that you are exploring your options and ask if you can meet them for coffee to pick their brains. You'll get some fantastic insights if you make this a habit, not to mention making some great contacts along the way. Take baby steps For many people, the fear of jumping in the deep end of the passion pool keeps them from swimming at all. Remember that there's a shallow end of the pool. It may not be realistic to jump into the deep end right away, but you can still enjoy splashing in the water. Look for baby steps you can take that will bring your passion into your life. Keep your eyes on the long-term goal, but take action to create your passion in small doses along the way. Remember that your passion pursuit just might be a long-term process. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. That single step is within your reach! Identify your obstacles Now you know what your passion is. You've looked at what you'd like to do in the long term, and how you can bring it into your life in the short term. Now, what things are getting in your way? Make a list. Maybe they're real: financial obstacles like a mortgage or the kids' tuition, or perhaps the need for more training. Maybe they are internal. What's keeping you from roping that passion and wrestling it to the ground in a gleeful bear hug? Fear? Self-doubt? Simple inertia? Figuring out what's in the way will help you plan for how to minimize its impact, but be careful not to fall into the trap of letting your obstacles take on a life of their own. You're looking at them to reduce their power, not enhance it! Manage your gremlins We all have gremlins, little voices in our heads that tell us "You can't do that," "Who do you think you are?" "You're not good enough," "What will they think?" etc. Take some time to look at your gremlins. What do they tell you? Identifying and acknowledging your gremlins is the first step in taking their power away. Create a passion posse In my interviews with people who have made the passion transition and are following their dream, the most common answer to the question "What one thing would you point to that has been instrumental in your success?" has been the support of the people around them. Create a "passion posse" to support you in your pursuit of your passionate path. Friends, family, and colleagues can all be a great source of support and inspiration as you make your journey. It can be an informal support network, or a regularly scheduled meeting to exchange ideas and brainstorm solutions to challenges. Reexamine your definitions of success and failure What is your definition of success? What does "there" look like? Is it getting in the way of really pursuing what resonates at a deep level for you? We live in a society that places a lot of emphasis on material accomplishments, power, etc. Unfortunately, that gets in the way of real happiness for a lot of people, who choose to stay on the treadmill in pursuit of that version of success. Perhaps you're not at a point where you can or want to change that definition of success. That's okay, don't. Instead, try identifying one or two less common ways of defining "success" — ones that come from the heart — and try to move toward them as well. Our definition of failure, which tends to be all or nothing, also gets in the way. If you try something and it doesn't pan out, how do you see that? Is it a failure, or is it an opportunity to learn from what you did and apply that knowledge to your future efforts? If you "fail" in an effort to move toward your passion, it's not really failure. Think of it as a step in the right direction. Taking a longer-term view can help with this. Make a plan Map out your passion pursuit. Whether that should be a high-level overview or a granular action plan is up to you; you know how you work best. Creating a plan will force you to think things through and add some comfortable structure to something that can seem very up in the air and undefined. It will also offer you those critical next steps when you are feeling sluggish or lost. Act! Today! The fact is, the time will never be right. Something is always going to be less than optimum. With that in mind, don't wait! Do something right now that will move you toward your passion. What two things can you do right away that will start the ball rolling? They don't need to be earth shattering; they just need to happen. Commit to making it happen Let it out of your brain and into the open. Say, "I am going to do this." Say it out loud to yourself. Say it to a friend. Put it in writing where you can see it. Once it's out in the open, it will have room to grow, and that's exactly what you want! A career and a life that resonates with your yaxkin is well within your reach. Commit to being who you are, acknowledge that getting there is a journey, and you will be well on your way. Curt Rosengren is a passion catalyst. In a career coach-like role, Curt helps people explore their passions and move towards a career that resonates more deeply with who they really are. You can see more about Curt's passion catalyst work at <http://www.rosengren.net/passioncatalyst/>.