Are You Happy In Your Career? (By KV Gautam)

The reality is that our success will depend a lot on the kind of field we choose. Many people keep working hard in a wrong profession and make no progress. It's important that you understand the importance of working in a right field to show your skill and achieve success. For example, in India all professions or careers are not well rewarding. Choose a career that has potential for growth and fulfillment.

You should not assume that I am suggesting that you don't follow your passion or interest and just go for a job everyone is going after. I am saying that you should choose a career which is both satisfying as well as meets your interest criteria.

Choose a career or profession that rewards you well. If all things are equal choose a career which is more rewarding than others. I don't mean to say that choose a career just due to its earning potential, but you should chose a field which rewards you handsomely, in terms of satisfaction and even money. The sad reality is that India is not a developed nation and several industries are not well developed. Many professions are pathetic in terms of satisfaction and remuneration. Avoid those careers. Otherwise you will repent later.

In the real world if you are exceptional then you can get satisfaction and money in any profession. If you are passionate about a career which is not rewarding then come up with a way to make it more fruitful. For example, if farming is indeed your passion then you can come up with ways to make it more profitable. You can use better tools and products to make it far more profitable. However, doing so will require hard work and passion.

If you get satisfaction out of your career then you are in a good job. Many times we get stuck doing a thankless job. If the job is not satisfying then you may have made a bad career choice. Move on. Find another job that may satisfy you.

A better career can also be judged by level of compensation. If your job pays you well then it is a good job. However, money cannot be the only motive of doing a job. If you are in a job just because of its earning potential then you will be bored very soon. To be able to hold on to a job you should be satisfied with your profession.

Some jobs are highly fulfilling. One of my friends, Raja Basu, was interested in a job in an NGO, as he was passionate about social causes. One fine day he got a job in a leading NGO. He was very happy as he could see how his activities were directly impacting lives of many people. Doing something for the disadvantaged sections of society can make you feel wonderful. For him, it was a great job and he was happy about it.

If you have found a job which gives you a similar kind of satisfaction then you are in the right job.

Many careers give you no chance to grow. If you are involved in a job which has no career growth opportunity then it would be a bad choice for you. Change that kind of job. The career growth is not only about an opportunity for better compensation. It's also about potential for learning new skill sets that may help you in the future.

A better career does not always mean a well paying job. It should be judged also on the base of your happiness level. If your job makes you feel happy then it's good for you. On the other hand, if you have to drag yourself to the office then it means you are stuck in a bad job.

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Your Rival Is an Asset: Engage Your "Enemy" and Win

You are not alone in wanting to avoid conflict. Most of us tend to avoid it. However, the potential for growth and self-discovery lies in conflict. That conflict is a chance to get to know the previously undiscovered sides of yourself. It may help your fear and discomfort about conflict change to excitement about personal growth.

When we work on conflict in groups, a useful attitude is that a group needs conflict in order to understand itself. Conflict may be the field's way of getting to know and appreciate its parts and of realizing its full self.

--From The Leader as Martial Artist, by Arnold Mindell 

In a recent family conversation about how to support my mother after a fall in her kitchen, my sisters and brother and I had different ideas about how best to help her. We ended up putting five possible options on the table, options generated by our conversations with each other and with her caregivers.

The eventual solution, which turned out to be the perfect one for her (and us), was a combination of three of the five options we looked at. I was fascinated with how the process unfolded.

First of all, none of us got over-invested in our ideas. We put them out and advocated for them but were willing to look at the advantages of the other options. It was clear that each of us was more interested in helping my mother than in having the right answer. Our shared purpose in wanting Mom to "win" was greater than any individual need to win. It was very cool. Besides solving the problem, we also reinforced our common bonds as people who care a lot about our mom and each other.

As Spotify's Global VP of Design Rochelle King says in her online talk -- "Your Biggest Rival is Your Best Asset" -- one of the most effective tools to push forward the creative process is conflict.

Rochelle understood that in order to do her best job as a manager/mover of people and cutting edge technology, she had to learn to be comfortable with conflict. To appreciate the opportunity to see more than her slice of reality. Your biggest rival has good ideas. Why not bat things about and see if you can come up with a product or solution that neither of you would have found on your own?

With learning rather than winning as a goal, you will create great products, mend broken relationships, and find solutions more quickly.

You have to catch yourself at these things:

wanting to advocate

convinced you have the best solution

talking more than listening

persuading, cajoling, manipulating

debating only to win

demeaning others ideas

If you can catch yourself, you'll stop for the time it takes to breathe and create a ki moment.

So that you can:

listen

ask open ended questions

learn about what you don't know

ask more questions

seek first to understand

acknowledge what you hear

make their argument for them

look for solutions

These are actions that take awareness and practice. And in time, you will change, you'll be a different person. You won't even notice it happening. You'll just begin to have a more calm, centered, creative, and peaceful life. And things, oddly, will go your way without even trying.

Our greatest learnings often come when we are unaware that we are leaning something. We can study a technique or focus upon a project for days, and the truth or the essence of it just does not seem to click. Then something happens. The fog clears and we notice that we have moved to a new level of truth without ever knowing how we got there. It was not our straining or trying that brought us to this new level. It was our willingness to be aware of what had already taken place that opened new doors.

--From Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, by Anne Wilson Schaef

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Finding Your Center

Are you familiar about Yoga class? In Yoga class the instructor would often tell the students to find their center. The instructor means the student should try to focus on discarding all outside influences and establish within himself a calm and serene mind. Upon achieving this state the student will then start to know the true nature of thoughts that are parading on his mind.

The calm and serene state of mind is the real state of our mind. Mind is like a blank paper that whatever you wrote on it will be identified with the paper. This is the same with mind that whatever thought you entertain your mind will Identify with it. We should accept that whether we like it or not our mind has its own nature which we are bound to recognize in this life.

In finding our center we will learn that mind is one of our tools while living in this world. It is one of the powerful faculties that we have not yet perfected to use. The complexity of our mind makes us a very different being in this world with the highest potential for growth. Although serene and calm in its original state the mind is full packed with universal energy that can affect not only the person but also everything outside it.

Once you find your center you will begin resolving problems easier than when your mind is not focused. Because in being with your center you will learn that focus or concentration is the best approach in problem solving. You will learn to manage your emotions and mentality as if they are also one of the tools that you have the access to improve your maturity over life.

In finding your center you will realize that everything we have only serves us. Our ability to use them will be optimized once you realized that being the center of your being you are very alive and not limited. But finding your center is very hard to achieve even the oldest person in this world might have not yet grown closer in knowing his very center.

It might take us our lifetime to at least achieve a closer realization of being with our center. Our everyday battles in life and all its joys and sorrows simply push us closer to being with our center. We will realize that joys and sorrows are just means that will lead us into finding our very center in our being.

Simply put, the center of our being is like the watcher of different movies in television. The watcher will feel the actions and emotions of the characters in the movie but in the end he will realize that all that he watched was just a movie and doesn't have anything  to do with him.

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