Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [67]
What games did you like to play? I liked to fantasize and I wrote plays. I organized a club one time. I went riding and loved hanging out at the stables. I daydreamed a lot. See the signs were there, I was born to be a writer and philosophizer. Daydreaming still comes naturally to me.
Anyway, in this exercise you pull together your peak experiences. Activities you love to do. Then you sort them by the type of skill that is involved. Within the activities you love to do, you will discover certain skills that you use over and over. When you get to use these skills at least 70% of the time in your job, you will be happy and fulfilled. The trick is to organize your work so you get to use your best skills.
For example my least favorite skill is sales and marketing. I am worthless at the traditional way of putting together sales letters, then following up with a telephone pitch to make an appointment for a sales call where you then have to sell yourself or your product. As a self-employed individual, I've had to find ways to market myself. I've had to get creative. As I get creative and ponder ways to connect with my customers, I've found ways to do this and stay sane.
Logic may dictate that I should focus on bookstores. I just can't find the energy to call store after store. But over time, I'm adding them one by one. Doing it at a natural pace works better for me, and I suspect I have a higher success rate this way. When the timing is right, they say yes.
What seems to work for me is to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. A combination of talking to the press, updating my website, sending out a newsletter, calling on bookstores. This morning I was praying for guidance how to best market my first two books, in ways I may not have thought of. The answer came to get therapy and body work schools to use them in their courses, to have them available on their reading lists. Well of course, if I can get the therapy teachers to use my material, they will recommend my books to their pupils who in turn will recommend them to their clients.
Instead of resisting our least favorite activities, I believe we can grow if we find ways to accomplish the tasks, but in a way that suits us. In pursuing the marketing to therapy schools, I get to use one of my peak experience skills, which is learning. I get to go grazing for information to find the schools, then find the decision makers, then build relationships with them and so on. When I can incorporate my peak experience skills into tasks that are not natural for me, I can make a success of them too.
Twenty-Six
Right relationships
Having just gone through a Venus transit (June 8, 2004) there has been much discussion about what it means. One of the main themes I pick up on is the idea of right relationships - with myself and with others. I don't believe we are meant to be able to love everyone equally and I certainly don't buy the idea that being nice is always the best way to show love.
Anger and setting limits and boundaries is one way to show that you care and may at times be the most loving thing you can do for yourself and the other person.
I've found it useful to from time to time review my relationships. If I met this friend today, would I want to get to know him/her? Would I choose to spend time with them? Reflect on what you get from the relationship and what you put into it.
I don't think it's ever 50/50 in a relationship and I certainly don't want to keep score. No, what I am saying is to stop and reflect occasionally. Do I give more than what I get back? Or does the other person give more and I take more? What do we get from our connection? Does it feed my soul? Does it help me grow? How do I feel when I think of my friend? How well can we talk to each other? How do we handle conflicts?
The energy in a friendship has to flow both ways. Both have to give and receive.