How to Earn Money and Satisfy Your Heart’s Desire

What can you do if your heart wants you to follow a new occupation but your bank balance suggests that you may need to stay in your current job?

First of all, don’t give up your day job – at least not immediately – but do start taking some kind of action towards your dream occupation. Maybe there is a course you can take, perhaps you can start putting your business together while you are still working or maybe you can do your day job part-time so that you have the best of both worlds.

Often, when we are unhappy with our life we blame our job and think that everything would be okay if only we were doing something else. This is not necessarily the case. My advice is to see if there is an activity you can undertake which will give you a flavour of your chosen occupation while still enjoying the security and familiarity of your current employment.

For example, if you work as a lawyer but deep down you want to be a teacher it may be possible for you to have a taste of teaching by volunteering to mentor a young person who is having difficulty with their lessons at school. You may find that this satisfies your teaching urge and makes your life feel more rounded; then you can continue volunteering and earning your lawyer’s salary at the same time.

Alternatively if the volunteering does convince you that teaching would be a wonderful move for you, then you can continue to pursue this path safe in the knowledge that you’re not making a terrible mistake.

Keeping your job, at least for the time being, can have many other advantages. Your employer might run some interesting charity schemes or you might be able to opt for a career break or take some unpaid leave. Many people who make the move to self employment also find that their employer and/or their colleagues become their first clients. Your employment provides you with a large network of people who know, like and trust you, so find ways to use this to its best potential.

If you do decide to change career and your new occupation is not as well paid, don’t despair. Being unhappy at work can be an expensive business because you end up treating yourself with retail therapy or an endless amount of must-have gadgets.

If your work becomes more fulfilling then you might find that you don’t really need as many designer clothes or technological gizmos. There may also be other ways you can downsize your expenses such as moving to a different geographic area, taking in a lodger or having a cull on subscriptions such as the gym membership you hardly use or the television package which has more channels than you ever watch.

Finally, don’t be afraid to dream big. If you only achieve half of your dreams then that’s a lot more fulfilling than not dreaming and staying boxed into a miserable life!

Cali Bird is a life coach, writer and speaker. Cali specialises in working with people to excavate their long lost goals and desires. She then helps them find a way to get started on these dreams whilst fulfilling their current responsibilities. To download a free ebook “Top Ten Tips To Lead The Life You Want To Lead” go to http://www.leadthelife.net/

You can hear interviews with Cali Bird on PASSION for the PLANET

How to stay motivated after redundancy

We tend to think of our job primarily as a source income so if we are made redundant then it is easy to surmise that money is the only thing we are missing out on. However the daily routine of going to work also provides our life with other important ingredients such as discipline and human contact. When these factors are removed because a job is lost then motivational problems can set it.

It’s quite ironic that when we have a job we can spend a lot of time wishing we didn’t have to work but when it is gone we overlook all the different benefits that it adds to our life!

Therefore, in order to keep motivated when no longer working you need find other ways of building a disciplined routine and getting sufficient human contact.

When you are out of work it is very easy to get into a routine of going to bed late and getting up late. In the short term this might be fun and a welcome opportunity to rest and relax but eventually it can lead to a sense of despondency, lack of drive and even depression. It is essential to build a new daily routine to avoid this downside.

I’m not suggesting that you continue to drag yourself out of bed at 6am as if you were still at work and run out of the house a few minutes later clutching a piece of half-eaten toast. Instead, consider the ideas below:

• Decide to get up between 8am and 9am everyday and ensure that you are in bed by midnight.

• Arrange to meet up with a friend a couple of mornings a week so that you are forced to get up and out at a reasonable time. If you know other people who have been made redundant then you can all help each other to stay motivated.

• Decide on a time period each day that you will spend investigating the job market and making applications.

• Find ways to be around people even if you are not in direct conversation with them. When I first started working at home I really missed human contact. However I found that working in a café for an hour, or a public space, satisfied this craving for human company. This need not be an expensive pursuit. For example, spending an hour reading the newspaper in your local library every morning won’t cost a penny.

• Make sure that you are active as this will benefit you both mentally and physically. For example, you might decide to go out for a one hour walk before midday or perhaps you could dust down your old push bike and explore your local area on two wheels. Again, exercise does not have to cost money – fresh air is free!

There are also advantages to having a period of not working. Now you can take up that new hobby to which you previously never had the time to commit or you can resurrect an old hobby that you just hadn’t got around to for years. You can have more quality time with your family, watch your children grow up and have more time to pay attention to their needs. You can also contribute to your community; spending an hour or so having tea and cake with an elderly neighbour will be of great benefit to both of you.

This period of unemployment is a great opportunity to reclaim neglected aspects of your life. Then, when you do find a new job you can look back on this episode with fondness rather than despair. You might even find that you enjoyed taking time to smell the roses and determine to carry this principle into your new working life.

Cali Bird is a life coach, writer and speaker. Cali specialises in working with people to excavate their long lost goals and desires. She then helps them find a way to get started on these dreams whilst fulfilling their current responsibilities. To download a free ebook “Top Ten Tips To Lead The Life You Want To Lead” go to Cali's website.

Top Tips for Journalism Interns

This summer the London bureau of FSN, PASSION for the PLANET's news partner and the world's leading independent news agency, has been blessed with a steady stream of talented, helpful and generally lovely work experience placements / interns.

In previous jobs though I've worked with some genuinely awful work experience people, so I'm drawing on them for my 'DON'Ts', rather than the excellent helpers we've had in recent months. (Promise).

In the incredibly tough current job market for journalism graduates, impressing a news editor on a work placement is more important than ever: you never know when he/she will have a job going, or will recommend you to someone else who's looking...

Some of these tips are less serious than others, but all are worth bearing in mind.

DO volunteer for anything and everything that needs doing.

DO ask for feedback on your work.

DO turn up on your first day knowing about the broadcaster/publication/company you'll be working for, and what it does.

DO check in regularly with your news editor if you're sent out on a story.

DO offer to make tea.

DO learn to gauge when someone is crashing on an edit or approaching a deadline and hasn't got time to chat.

DO arrive having read the newspapers (or at least having watched/listened to the morning bulletins).

DO turn up every single day with story ideas/coverage possibilities.

DO offer to go out with correspondents/journalists on stories, even if only to help carry stuff. You can learn a lot from watching a journalist work outside of the office.

DO keep in touch once the placement is finished.

DON'T grumble about being asked to go out to do vox pops. It is a rite of passage for you (and for the person asking you to do it).

DON'T blame the equipment if something goes wrong. You should have checked it...

DON'T be defensive if your work is criticised constructively. Lap up any advice going.

DON'T be late. News editors hate journalists that are late.

DON'T EVER come back from an assignment without the material you were sent to get, or admit defeat when given a task. Unless you can prove a near death experience has taken place.

Olly Barratt is FSN's Director of European News Coverage, and the regular World News anchor on PASSION for the PLANET.

How you discover the work you were born to do

Your desire to discover the work you were born to do is not a selfish act but a spiritual impulse, and is actually one of the most generous things you can do for yourself. The question most people ask is how do I find mine? Over the past 15 years I have found nine particular ways that people come to find what they’d love to do. Sometimes the answers are on the surface, other times they are buried, needing excavation.

1. Through your inspiration, joy and a sense of calling
It is the work that would inspire you, you feel called to and your heart calls you to. It is what you are naturally drawn to and curious about. It is what you would most love to do. Many people want their work to be a source of inspiration to them.

2. Behind your greatest resistance
The twin soul of inspiration is resistance, and often the work you’d most love to do is what you spend most time and energy procrastinating about, avoiding, making excuses why you haven’t done it and talking yourself out of. Many people are beaten by their resistance and never reach their full potential.

3. In your shadow life
The talents you have disowned become your unlived life, which you can only see in others. You can be close to the work you’d love, but you are more comfortable seeing other people’s creativity and talent – afraid to acknowledge your own. Begin to put own your talents out there and move them towards the centre of your life. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

4. Under the statement “I don’t know”
Often we genuinely don’t know, but with good questions and coaching, we can reach clarity. I don’t know also masks I am afraid to know because then I’d have to change, and that scares me even more. We can confuse I don’t know what with I don’t know how. Don’t deny what you know you’d love to do because you don’t know how you could do it and succeed with it. You can learn.

5. Through your naturalness, seen in the eyes of others
A great blind spot most of us have is to our natural abilities and talents. We value struggle, not ease, so don’t value or even see what comes easily to us, and can easily dismiss it, missing our own unique brilliance. Notice how others acknowledge and appreciate you.

6. Behind the words if only someone would pay me to do it
We believe we can pursue our dreams once we have been successful and have made our money, and don’t realise that we can support ourselves financially by pursuing our dreams. It stems from the belief that we either work for love or money, but not both. There is practically nothing today that you can’t get paid for. Think about what you would most like to be paid for doing or being.

7. In your lost dreams and your under-utilised talent
Often, as children, we do know what we’d love to do, but we can be actively discouraged from it, criticised for it or somehow abandon our passions to join the grown up world of working for money. You can go back and reconnect with what you loved, and sometimes this can be painful but poignant.

8. Behind a wake up call or even a crisis
A refusal to listen to our intuition and deeper self could precipitate a full-blown crisis. Things fall apart and we can feel awful, but so many people speak in retrospect about their illness/redundancy/bankruptcy being the best thing that ever happened to them. It got them back on track to a greater and more authentic life, but they needed to be broken open, allowing the phoenix to rise from the ashes.

9. In a greater sense of yourself and an expanded sense of your identity
You have probably experienced a comprehensive conditioning in littleness – being told you are nothing special and that you shouldn’t think too highly of yourself, or at worst you are flawed or bad. Your spirit is limitless, and your inspired dreams may seem too big, but you are called to grow, not shrink away.

OVERCOMING YOUR RESISTANCE

If it were as easy as that, we’d all be doing it, but the more important something is to you the more likely you are to experience resistance and not move forward.

So here are some tips for overcoming your resistance.
• Commitment to turn up and take some action, even baby steps – the tiniest of steps build your momentum and bring your dreams to life
• Develop your courage – feel the fear, guilt, doubt or unworthiness but act in the face of them; don’t wait for them to subside. Engage with your fear to grow bigger than it.
• Learn the how to information and strategies – educate yourself and learn what you don’t know so you can move forward.
• Don’t try and solve problems you don’t have yet – you can waste so much energy worrying about what might happen in the future. Act now, and deal with the future when you are there. • Get higher quality problems – we all have problems so focus on problems you’d love to have, like “I have too many clients to be able to service!”
• Surround yourself with positive people – isolation is the biggest dream killer, and the belief, love and encouragement of others helps you bust through. Step into your greater power, keep your focus on contribution; you have unique gifts and the world needs what you have, so give us what you’ve got.

Click here for more inspiration: Inspired Entrepreneur

GUEST BLOGGER: Nick Williams, best selling author and founder of Inspired Entrepreneur.