If You Want It, Work For It

Throughout life, my dad said, “if you want it, work for it.” This phrase takes on many meanings. For me, growing up it meant that if any of us wanted something, it wouldn’t be given, it would only be obtained through work. Now that I’m grown up, it still means that I need to work for it each day. But work doesn’t always mean what we think.

WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR CAREER, WORKING FOR IT MEANS:

  • Define your goals
  • Visualize your future
  • Take time for yourself to work on your goals and future
  • Take care of your mental and physical health as well as work health
  • Step outside of your comfort zone

DEFINE YOUR GOALS

Each year, define your personal and work goals for yourself, partner and/or family. To define your goals, take an honest look at your current situation and think through personally, family, work, and financially, where you want to be in one, three, and five years. WRITE down your goals somewhere that you can keep up with. Defined goals are the first step to developing your plan to achieve your goals. Goals should drive direction and be measurable. A measurable goal is one where you can state “I accomplished my goal of…” or “I still need to do … to accomplish my goal.” And setting goals with timeframes creates a mental target for us to help push us towards accomplishing the goal. Review your progress regularly. Its ok to update goals – life changes unexpectedly, therefore goals will sometimes need to change. The important thing is to keep the goals in front of you.

VISUALIZE YOUR FUTURE

This can be a fun family, group, or team activity. Create a visualization board using a board of some type and your goals. You can do this online or on a sheet of paper or a poster board. Have fun with it. Use pictures, markers, or whatever helps you draw out how you visualize the future you / your future situation. Keep your board in a safe place and review it often. Sometimes we are stuck in a rut or we cannot see past our current situation (or see our way out). A visualization board helps us see past where we are today and helps to move us mentally towards our future.

TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF TO WORK ON YOUR GOALS AND FUTURE

It is hard for many of us to take time for ourselves. We are running around with kids, working too much, taking care of others or doing a long list of chores. We put others in front of us and make an excuse as to why we couldn’t spend time on ourselves. This is a large part of why we started The Business Briefcase – to provide an option for you to Take 10 for You! Our philosophy is that if you can decrease your social media time by 10 minutes a day and take one of our 10 minute courses. Within those 10 minutes, you’ve worked on goals and future. If its not taking one of our courses, take a walk or spend time with your children. Do whatever it is that helps you move towards achieving your goals and vision. Start with 10 minutes – Take 10 for You!

TAKE CARE OF YOUR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH AS WELL AS WORK HEALTH

No matter who you are, the bare presence of the covid situation has had some type of impact on you, your family, your job, your career, or some part of your life. In addition to dealing with the hurricanes and storms we’ve faced as a nation this year, the past two years have been a lot for all of us. There are lots of great professional resources online and in-person to help, and we all need to take a moment to realize the impact on each other and ourselves. Talk to someone, take a walk, get some fresh air, take a yoga class, go fishing; whatever it takes to help you re-ground yourself and ready yourself to achieve inner peace. Understand that its ok to admit that its a lot and its ok to talk to a professional if needed.

STEP OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

A lot of us just settle because we are scared or too reserved to take that step to do something new. Yes, failing stinks, hearing “no” stinks, hearing that your work is not good enough stinks, hearing you cannot do something stinks. BUT, all of these things can be turned around and used as motivation to work that much hard to show that person who doubted you that you can accomplish whatever it may be. Personally, one of my driving forces is when someone tells me that I can’t do something. At that point, I’m more driven than ever. Not for them, but for me. Each of us has an internal driving force. It takes courage to step outside of your comfort zone, but doing so most often results in growth and development, and often future opportunities. Evaluate your risk, take that step!