I could do anything… Part V

Do you now have your perfectly corrected scenario? Does it feel right? Are you nodding your head thinking, “You know, I think I could really do that!”? Good. Get ready. Now, if you haven't done the previous exercises, please don't jump ahead. Go back and do those first, please.

Part V: The Temporary Permanent Commitment

“Now I’m going to play a dirty trick on you. I’m going to insist you promise to do it! Yes, that’s what I said. No more looking back, your decision-making is over. Your career destination is clear.

Before you panic or decide that I’ve lost my mind, let me finish my instructions: I want you to do this for only an hour.

For a little while, I’m going to take away your freedom, because that freedom can be a killer. The very words ‘You can do anything you want’ create a private hell all their own. Anything? That’s too many choices! Sometimes limitations can be an incredible relief, and right now you’re going to get that relief.

The only thing that’s kept you in this free-fall of endless choices until now is the fear that you’ll make the wrong choice and be trapped. Well, right or wrong, I want you to believe that you’ve made a choice and you are trapped.

You’re going to make a total commitment to that scenario, the one that was so right you couldn’t make it any better. All other choices are now closed to you, and you must roll up your sleeves and get started making your scenario come true. For an hour.

Now, just a minute, you’re probably thinking. You’re not ready to make any commitment. Not even for an hour. For one thing, you didn’t know that’s what we were doing. If you’d known, you’d have been much more careful about the project, wouldn’t you? You bet you would have been more careful. And you (likely) wouldn’t have come up with a thing.

By commitment I mean I want you to stop the debate. Give up all your ‘what ifs.’ Your future is a done deal. I want you to say to yourself, ‘Okay, there’s no point in thinking about it because there’s no turning back. I will become a stand-up comic, or buy an island and become a telecommuter, or join a kibbutz. Now, what are the first steps I have to take to get there?’

Then I want you to actually look in your phone book, call a comedy club, check out the newspaper for island real estate, and phone a neighbor who lived on a kibbutz! For the next hour I want you hot on the track of your goal. Set the alarm clock for one full hour from now (take more time if you can stand it), and you can stop when the alarm rings.

During the hour, I want you to experience what it’s like to be irreversibly committed to something – and this scenario you have created will do as well as any other.”


Shared from Barbara Sher's "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was", published by Dell Publishing

I could do anything… Part IV

The next part of this exercise comes in two versions: one for folks who have a friend or partner available to help; the other for people who prefer to work alone.

Version No. 1: Team Up and Write a Movie

“A scenario is nothing more than a brief description of a movie. When you want to pitch a movie to a studio you might say something like: ‘This upper-class professor meets this flower girl outside the London opera house, and he and a friend decide to fix her awful speech patterns and pass her off as an aristocrat at a royal ball. Then he falls in love with her.’ (Ok, so not so original an idea, but… it’s just an example.) That’s a scenario.

Well, I want your buddy to pitch a scenario of your brilliant career movie to you. How will your buddy do this? He’ll work with those two descriptions: the Job from Heaven and the Job from Hell. Your buddy says, ‘Okay, you hate disorganization, so here’s the scenario: You’re working in a perfectly organized office, and everything is completely under your control. Every day you get praised for your wonderful performance.’

Listen carefully to your buddy’s scenario. When he is finished, help him improve the story. Decide if you’re happy with the life he has described or if you’d like to correct it. ‘I like the perfectly organized office, but I don’t think I want praise. I think I don’t want any boss at all.’

‘Okay,’ your buddy might say, ‘let me start again. You’re in a perfectly organized office and it’s your own office. You’re in business for yourself.’

‘Oooh. I like that.’

Back and forth, over and over, I want your buddy to adjust the story, each time eliminating the things you didn’t like, and putting in everything you want that got left out – and then try it out on you again. Little by little, by correcting that scenario over and over, you’ll start to find what does really matter to you – ‘matter’ as in ‘meaningful.’"


Version No. 2: Two Pens

If you’d rather not work with a buddy, this self-correcting exercise can be done with paper and two different colored pens – one to create the scenario, one to correct it. With one pen write your “buddy’s” suggestions; with the other write yours.


Shared from Barbara Sher's "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was"

I could do anything… Part III

“Being negative is often the best way to sneak around a stubborn strain of resistance that’s blocking your imagination. Now you have invented a perfect nightmare of a job, which will show you exactly how to design a heavenly one! This nightmare job will be the map that guides you straight to your deepest wishes and needs, those wishes and needs you thought you couldn’t remember. Let me show you how:

Take every detail of your Job from Hell – the hours, the activities, the environment, the attitudes of coworkers, even the weather, and especially the feelings you’re having – and reverse them exactly. Find their exact opposites. If you said that in your Job from Hell you’re working with a spoiled celebrity, change her to a wise, considerate, obscure philosopher. If you said that you’re commuting, change it to ‘I work out of my own home.’ Get the idea? Then pick up the pencil.

Take your job from Hell, and write down the exact reverse of it on a blank piece of paper. If you’re version of Hell equals no time off, try ‘I only work six months a year.’ If your Job from Hell has you isolated in a desert trailer court, put yourself in the middle of London or Paris and go dancing and eat great food. If you hate typing and filing, figure out what would be a wonderful contrast.

You see, you’ve done much more than let off a little steam. You’ve exposed what is most important to you, by drawing up the negative and then printing it, like a photograph, to see its opposite! There it is; you’ve created a picture that proves you know more about what you want than you ever realized. Regardless of whether you started with a positive image or negative one, you now have a picture of a dream job.”


Shared from Barbara Sher's "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was"

I could do anything… Part II

If Part I of this series seemed impossible, I have a hunch this exercise might come more easily. Welcome to…

The Job from Hell

“Put in (writing) everything you hate about every job you ever had or can imagine. If the devil himself took the time to design a job for you that was guaranteed to make you miserable, what kind of job would that be?

Remember to include what activity you’d be doing, where you’d be doing it, and with whom.”


Shared from Barbara Sher's "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was" (published by Dell Publishing)

I could do anything… Part I

The following exercise is taken from Barbara Sher’s book “I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was.” I have a longstanding habit of not completing the exercises I come across in "self improvement" books. But if I post it here, you can be sure that I will try it, too!

The Dream Job

Parts I and II are actually two sides to the same coin; if you have trouble defining your Dream Job, check back tomorrow for an alternate exercise to complete first.

“Let your imagination run free, and give yourself the gift of designing (your) most perfect job. Create your own hours, your own activities, your most desirable environment. Don’t limit yourself with reality or practicality, because this is Fantasy Time. The only limitation is this: It must be a job, not a life. That is, it has to have tasks in it, hours to keep, and some kind of remuneration (compensation for services). After that, you can run wild. You can decide if you want to be a cowhand during the week, who gets picked up each weekend by helicopter and taken to a luxurious spa, and makes documentary films on winter vacation.

Remember to include those important categories: what, where, and with whom? What would you be doing all day? Where would you be doing this job? Describe the environment – a cozy cottage? Midtown Manhattan? A huge Kentucky farm? And don’t forget to say who would be with you. Remember, this is a job, so you need to imagine all the people you’d love to be working with – your boss, coworker, employee, business partner, or 'right hand' helper – or competitor, for that matter."

April Fool

Innocence.
Spontaneity.
Potential.
A fresh start.
An opportunity.
The start of an adventure.
A new way of perceiving the world.
An important decision.
Optimism.
Purity of action.
Trust in a higher power.
Childlike wonder.
Freedom from inhibition.