Tag: Happiness

You Can Still Fix What “Ain’t Broke”

Posted on by Greg

Maybe you should fix what "ain't broke"

Part of the fun of moving away from home is confusing your new neighbors with the colloquialisms that you heard while growing up. Having done my growing up in the hills of West Virginia, I have quite a collection of such phrases and truisms that frequently raise eyebrows when I slip them into conversation here in Australia.

One such phrase is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Most often this is meant in the context of possibly screwing up a good thing with constant tinkering; the idea that trying to extend that board just one more inch… and then another… will ultimately bring your house down when you’ve extended too far.

Taken at its most literal interpretation, though, the idea of not ‘fixing’ what isn’t broken seems awfully limiting. It flies in the face of ambition and creativity by assuring you that the grass is perfectly green here and there’s no need to bother looking for grass that is greener. It suggests that you be content with the delicious and nutritious meal sitting in front of you and never wonder if the menu features something even better.

Life is a Mexican restaurant

This very situation unfolded for me recently. Claire and I frequent a particular Mexican restaurant that friends introduced us to a couple of years ago. These same friends recommended the fajitas during that initial visit and Claire and I heeded their advice. It was far from a bad tip. These particular fajitas quickly became my favorite dish in Sydney. Over the years Claire and I would get there once a month or so and we would both order the fajitas every single time. Why mess with success?

Why fix what “ain’t broke”?

Eventually we found ourselves there on a night that Claire had a strong craving for fajitas that I didn’t share. I looked at the menu and, for the first time in nearly three years, considered other options.

This was the record- scratch moment. Freeze the frame there on me examining the menu like I’m seeing it for the first time.

A lot can happen in two years. New menu items could have been introduced. Specials came and went. Any of these things could have been better than the fajitas that, despite being very good, are not the pinnacle of culinary achievement. How many opportunities to find something even tastier had I missed?

The truth about things that “ain’t broke”

Naturally, life is slightly more complicated than ordering Mexican. The concept of missed opportunities, though, is basically the same and all too real.

It is easy – and, in some cases, beneficial – to fall into routines within our day-to-day lives. For the sake of our sanity and productivity, this is mostly okay. Your job pays good money and has great benefits. It’s close to home. Your boss is chill and a pushover in fantasy football. You’re a hit on casual Friday. Life is good. Nothing is broken.

But what if there is a better opportunity out there? A chance to be even happier in ways you haven’t considered because you haven’t seen the need to look around for them?

Another popular phrase that you’re more likely to have heard is: “Fortune favors the bold!” It encourages us to take risks here and there because – and why not layer in another cliché? – you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

And thus we arrive at a critical juncture in which many find themselves throughout their lives: when can we stop looking for something better? When can we be sure that we’ve ‘arrived’ and can achieve no more?

The answer, of course, is personal. For many, there becomes a natural state of equilibrium at which it no longer makes sense to push ahead. Research shows us that once we’re earning about $90K a year, increases in income don’t really increase our happiness anymore – so why would we bust our rumps to get further raises?

However, you’re on an actualization blog because you’re a natural pusher. To you, the grass can always be greener. Yet, we can’t constantly be assessing every aspect of our life in search of areas that can be improved. If we were always worrying about the next job, we’d be less effective in this one. Furthermore, exploring every single option that is available to us can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis, a state of being in which the sheer volume of options hinders our ability to make a decision. More often than not, this leads us to make no decision at all.

Knowing when to fix what “ain’t broke”

In the interest of pushing forward without driving ourselves crazy, let’s consider three strategies for recognizing when it might be okay to fix something that “ain’t broke”.

1) You’re on autopilot

All of us build systems into our life than enable us to be more efficient and productive. In the interest of saving time and mental energy, we often make decisions without even considering that we had other options. In the Mexican restaurant of life, we just order the fajitas and move on.

Yet you should consider why you have arrived in the place you now find yourself. Did you have a craving for fajitas and thus you came to this restaurant that serves very tasty ones? Or did you come to this restaurant for whatever other reason and now you’re on auto-pilot, ordering the fajitas out of habit? If it’s the latter, the bell should be ringing inside your head as it did for me in this exact scenario.

As you go through life, consider your context and your situation. To mix metaphors: if you’re not craving the fajitas, maybe it’s time to look for a new job.

2) You’ve hit a natural plateau

There’s nothing wrong with a plateau here and there. Sometimes life throws a bit too much at us and we need to set at least one aspect of our life – like our job, for example – on cruise control for a while. However, this should only ever be a temporary solution. If we leave any one area of our life in this mode for too long, the symptoms will start to show:

  • You’ll be bored
  • You’ll no longer derive pleasure from this activity
  • You won’t be learning anything new

When life has settled down enough that you start to notice these symptoms, take it as an opportunity to explore other options. Have a look around at some other jobs or maybe some courses that you could enroll in to help take your career to the next level. Even if you take no action, the very act of considering other possibilities should be enough to shift you out of cruise-control and get your foot back on the accelerator.

3) You’re playing it safe

Granted, when you start to look around at other possibilities, you may be tempted to make a change and go for it. We know that fortune favors the bold, but what if we take that new job and it totally sucks?

Any hesitation of this nature might have already slipped into your day-to-day life. At work, do you often go for the tried-and-true method? When choosing between different strategies, do you hedge your bets and select the option with lower upside but less risk? If so, you’re playing it safe. The room for possible failure has made you too cautious; too afraid of doing something that might not work out in the short-term.

Well, nobody ever said fortune always and immediately favors the bold (besides being untrue, it’s also not as catchy). It is the long game that will eventually yield our reward.

You will most likely encounter setbacks as you push your way forward. Break through some walls and you’re certainly going to collect some bruises. Playing the long game with any decision allows for the possibility of initial setbacks. Yes, you may have to take a step back on the food chain when you transfer to that larger company, but the future opportunities at that new company might be more numerous and appealing than those where you currently work. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back in order to lengthen the track in front of you. Over the course of the long game you’ll pass those who reached the end of their own track and are being forced to run in place.

Some will be happy to run in place in this way – nothing is broken and so you won’t catch them trying to fix anything. Send them a photo when you reach the summit and make sure the next, taller mountain that you’re going to climb is in the frame.



YouCo. Part 2: Strategy And Scenario Planning

Posted on by Greg

Rupert employs aggressive marketing.

This is the second in a series of posts I have lamely dubbed YouCo. I’m drawing on lessons from my graduate business studies to show how best practices from the business world can be applied at the most micro of levels: yourself. The first post considered how a mission and vision statement might be useful to individuals and I encourage you to start there before continuing with this post. That said: I’m not your real dad so you’re free to do whatever you want.

Today’s post examines how businesses construct a strategy to help them attain their stated vision within the context of their mission. I also introduce scenario planning, an idea that is sure to tingle your creativity-senses. The series concludes next week with a look at some generic strategies that might just bring you closer to actualization. I’ll put it this way: once you’ve looked at mentorship as a merger, there’s no turning back.

 Part Two: Strategy And Scenario Planning

If your mission and vision are what you are and what you want to be, respectively, then strategy is the means by which you’re going to attempt to bridge the gap between the two.

Constructing a strategy (which may go by any number of names depending on which particular annual report you happen to be reading) for a business is complex. Internal forces are complicated enough to navigate, but there is also the added consideration of a number of external factors ranging from consumer attitudes to the behavior of your competitors. An effective business strategy must maximize results for stakeholders while minimizing risk and loss – and all within a turbulent external environment over which the company has little control.

Businesses compete with each other because the nature of the marketplace presents only one pie from which they can carve out a slice. If 40 people in your neighborhood drink coffee and you decide to open a cafe, you’re competing for a percentage of those 40 people. You’re not creating a customer base, you’re competing for a piece of one that’s already there… and you always will be. A business strategy, then, must focus on maximizing the business’ slice of this pie. Rarely is a dollar of profit created; it’s usually “captured” from a competitor.

Fortunately, things are far simpler for an individual. Actualization (the assumed endpoint of our efforts) is not one big pie from which every person on the planet must carve their slice – it’s billions of individual pies just waiting to be snatched once we climb high enough to reach the shelf. I’m not claiming that there is an absence of competition for individuals. We’re all going to end up competing for jobs, promotions, etc. However, these competitions are isolated rather than ongoing and the philosophies that I’m about to introduce don’t just apply to the bigger picture, they will also help you come out on top in these intermediate battles.

Constructing And Stating Your Strategy

Your strategy statement is every bit as important as your mission and vision statements and should be concise, specific and realizable in the same manner. Such a statement is made up of three components:

  1. The Objective
  2. The Scope
  3. The Advantage

The objective, of course, is the end state that you would like to accomplish and (where possible to gauge) a time-frame in which you would like to achieve that state. The scope is, simply put, the context within which you hope to reach the objective. The advantage, meanwhile, is the unique set of characteristics and traits that you bring to the front of this particular war that will enable you to lead yourself and other stakeholders to the objective.

In part one we looked at the mission and vision of my alma mater, West Virginia University. WVU are seeking to achieve their mission with their 2020 Strategic Plan For The Future, a set of five goals that conceptualize the components of the university’s vision statement into (caution: buzzword ahead) action items.

Enjoy a nice cup of Goal 5 for an example:

Goal 5:

Enhance the well-being and the quality of life of the people of West Virginia.

OBJECTIVE 1
Create an academic health system and health professions programs that enhance the well-being of West Virginians.

OBJECTIVE 2
Increase opportunities for the citizens of the state through workforce education, lifelong learning, and outreach to every county.

OBJECTIVE 3
Promote sustainable economic development and a cultural environment that improve the quality of life throughout the state.

ACTIONS

1. Promote sustainable economic development and a cultural environment that improve the quality of life throughout the state.

2. Expand outreach efforts to connect the campuses to citizens and communities throughout the state. Provide resources and information to equip West Virginia University Extension agents, and other personnel engaged in outreach and care, for a broader role as ambassadors for the institution.

3. Meet regularly with state and industry leaders to articulate University successes and initiatives, to learn of the needs of the state, and to promote the commercialization of research, economic development, and global commerce.

4. Create a nimble academic health system that is responsive to patient access needs, ensures high quality, cost-effective, and safe care, and delivers patient satisfaction and value.

5. Strengthen relationships with alumni, stakeholders, and the communities that neighbor West Virginia University campuses.

This goal clearly addresses the final part of WVU’s vision statement: “By 2020, West Virginia University will attain national research prominence, thereby enhancing…  the vitality and well-being of the people of West Virginia.”

This desired end state is presented in the strategic plan as a list of objectives and actions required to get there (the first component of a strategy statement), clearly states the scope as being the people of West Virginia (the second component) and makes reference to the advantages that WVU will employ to get there (the third component), namely: their aspirational position as a leading research institution, the ability to work alongside the government as a land-grant university, and the existing network of campuses across the state.

Your own strategy statement can be engineered in just this way. A component of my own vision statement is to become an academic. This follows from education and knowledge being important values to me and the pursuit of both being central to my personal mission. My own strategy, then, must bridge the gap between that mission and my desired end state of being an academic. What objectives, then, will lead me to that promised land? There are two major possibilities:

  1. Pursue further formal education in the form of a PhD.
  2. Continue on my path of independent research.

It’s possible for either of these roads to take me to my destination. However, considering the scope (again, component two) helps me to turn the wheel in a certain direction: I wish to be a university-based academic. Now the picture begins to crystallize and come into focus. Sure, I could be an independent researcher and have one foot in the door at a university, but pursuing my research through university channels aligns more closely with what I’m hoping to achieve.

Considering my advantages allows me to pull the trigger and make a strategic decision. Conceptualizing this third component for an individual is slightly different to doing so for a business. A business must differentiate itself from competitors in order to “capture” more of the pie. My coffee might be the same but my take-away cups are way rad. It might seem insignificant, but these small details effect consumer behavior in subtle (but often detectable) ways.

However, advantages for an individual don’t have to create or demonstrate differentiation between yourself and others (although, again, isolated instances will require this but we’re talking big picture stuff here). For this reason, it’s best to consider your strengths as your advantage. You don’t necessarily have to be better, but you do have be good. I have worked hard to become a solid academic writer. I wasn’t born that way – I developed the skill over years of constructive feedback. Now it is a strength of mine – an advantage – and it is a strength that would serve me well in pursuit of a PhD. Clearly the first objective is the way to go.

Or is it? In developing my strategy statement I have considered objective, scope and advantage, but all of these considerations are based on my current state of affairs and balance on the dangerous assumption that my life – in all related aspects – will continue as it has proceeded to date. In taking the cornerstones of my existence for granted I have ignored the fact that an earthquake could – at any point in the future – shake that foundation and bring it to the ground. How, then, do we consider what life will look like at that point in the future when we actually achieve our objective?

By engaging in a fantastic exercise known as scenario planning.

Back To The Future: Scenario Planning And You

Scenario planning is an exercise in which strategists imagine plausible futures in which their organization will eventually operate. Not to be mistaken for forecasting, scenario planning is less about the bottom line and more about ensuring the organization can withstand changes in circumstances that may or may not be beyond their control. The scenarios that are drawn up are not predictions, they are plausible narratives.

The practice was popularized by Royal Dutch Shell, who began scenario planning in 1965. Attempting to imagine alternate futures that ignored the generally-accepted assumption that present trends will continue unabated allowed the company to survive the 1973 energy crisis and is a practice they still employ to this day.

Fortunately, like developing a strategy statement, engaging in scenario planning is far less complex for an individual than it is for a business. You are simply attempting to picture what the world around you might look like when you ultimately achieve your objective. It might seem a bit silly, but you will often find that what the future holds for you may not be conducive to an objective you’re thinking about undertaking.

Using my own example, I know that the timeline of completing my PhD is about four years. What will my world look like in four years? I know I will be married and after this there are two futures: one in which I am a dad and one in which I’m not. Obviously the possibility of having a child is an important (and very realistic) consideration. My sleep will be impacted. I will have less free time to focus on my study. My partner’s needs will change and I will need to meet her at those junctions. Perhaps my partner will get a job in a different city, which will put a strain on me as I will be tied rather immovably to the university here in Sydney.

Such scenarios underscore another important consideration: other stakeholders. Where I have a number of possible scenarios, so does my partner. Our lives are linked, but only to an extent. My pursuit of a PhD would affect her own scenarios. She might be forced to turn down that job in another city, even if it would have been better for us as a family.

It’s easy to imagine an infinite number of scenarios because, stopping short of going FULL PHILOSOPHICAL, there truly is an infinite number of possibilities. Scenario planning calls for identifying those that are plausible without inducing an analysis paralysis that will prevent you from moving forward. Choose one or two (Shell used to work up three until they noticed management tended to choose the middle of the road as a way of hedging risk) but Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers (authors of the HBR article about Shell) warn against identifying a best and worst case scenario:

The trap of having a “good” versus a “bad” future is that there is nothing to learn in heaven, and no one wants to visit hell.

Instead, they recommend looking for links between your strengths (advantages) and those plausible futures. Such thinking forces you to look outside of your comfort zone, actually enabling you to grow even while you’re planning for growth. When the future eventually arrives (as it usually does) it may not look exactly like the scenarios you had imagined, but the flexible thinking and consideration that scenario planning has helped you develop will leave you agile and adaptable in a way that will make you feel like you were born ready for anything.

This is the second in a series of three posts I’ve lamely dubbed YouCo. The series examines how best practices from the business world can be applied to your pursuit of self-actualization.

Part One: Define The Mission And Vision Of YouCo.

Next week I will wrap things up with a look at some generic business strategies that might not seem applicable to your personal pursuits but may just yield surprising results for YouCo.



Define The Mission And Vision Of YouCo.

Posted on by Greg

Rupert employs aggressive marketing.

I recently completed my MBA at the University of Technology, Sydney. My own shift toward personal development coincided with the commencement of my graduate studies and the two simultaneous pursuits really played well off of one another for the duration of my course. Since putting the finishing touches on my coursework I’ve begun to synthesize many of the larger ideas that were common threads across different subjects including efficiency, responsibility, strategy, and communication.

More than once throughout my course I was struck with the notion that many of the theories and best practices that we were being taught to apply to business could also be implemented at the most micro of levels: ourselves.

This is the working thesis behind a series of posts I’ve lamely dubbed “YouCo.” that will appear over the next several weeks. Think of it like a crash-course MBA that’s all about you. No tests. No accounting requirement. Just the best practices of the business world turned inside out in the name of self-actualization. Let’s begin.

Part One: Mission and Vision

No concept has induced more yawning or eye-rolls in “team building” meetings than that of a mission and vision statement. This is an unfortunate byproduct of the fact that so many mission and vision statements are poorly constructed or don’t reflect reality. Do you know the mission and vision of the company you work for?

Does your boss?

Yes?

Because he wrote it?

Yeah, I thought so.

When appropriately stated and grounded in the reality shared by all members of the organization, mission and vision statements can be powerful rather than groan-inducing. Mission and vision are two different notions, though they are often clumped together. Generally speaking, a company’s mission is a summary of what’s happening now while their vision considers what they’d like to be doing in the future and how they aim to make that ideal future into the present reality.

Examples are fun, so consider this one from my alma mater, West Virginia University:

Mission

As a land-grant institution in the 21st century, WVU will deliver high-quality education, excel in discovery and innovation, model a culture of diversity and inclusion, promote health and vitality, and build pathways for the exchange of knowledge and opportunity between the state, the nation, and the world.

Vision

By 2020, WVU will attain national research prominence, thereby enhancing educational achievement, global engagement, diversity, and the vitality and well-being of the people of West Virginia.

The mission explicitly states what the university is, what they aim to deliver, who they aim to deliver it to, and establishes an ideal framework in which they operate.

The vision, meanwhile, looks ahead and sets a goal of even higher achievement with a specific focus on the people of West Virginia. This vision is in line with their 2020 Strategic Plan, but we’ll save that for next week’s YouCo. entry on strategy.

Is it shocking that a university emphasizes learning and wants to be better at it in the future? Well, no – but that’s not really the point. More than stating the obvious, a mission and vision statement is a checkpoint against which operational decisions can be measured. It is, in essence, the compass that keeps the ship headed in the right direction.

It has to be based in reality and it has to be realizable.

If you were to measure any current student or faculty member against the mission statement you would find either a whole or a broken link in the chain – there is really no middle ground. If the mission is based in reality, you’ll find only one strong chain with no broken links. If it doesn’t reflect reality there will be weak links indicating the mission statement is actually the vision statement and you need to take a step back to reassess.

Your Own Mission And Vision

Though not every group will formally state their purpose and aspirations, most will have at least an informal idea of who they are and where they’re going. It’s easy to see that mission and vision statements are a virtual necessity for even small organizations; all members have to be aligned in order to achieve the best results. But considering the fact that we’re talking about dealing with yourself and yourself alone, why bother with a formal mission and vision statement? Aren’t you always going to know what you want and where you’re going without the need to reference an articulation of those ideas?

Well, sure. It’s not impossible to achieve great results without formalizing the state of your being and your aspirations. Many have done it throughout history and many will do it into the future. However, I happen to believe that stating and continually updating your mission and vision will keep you moving toward actualization at a faster clip while helping you monitor your own progress along the way.

If you look at a photo of yourself now compared to when you were ten years younger I imagine you can immediately notice some differences in your physical appearance. Maybe your hair is darker, maybe your jaw line is better defined. Whatever the differences, they’re obvious and easy to point out in this ‘then and now’ comparison.

But can you point to a day in that ten year span that you noticed your hair color had changed from the day prior? A morning when your jaw could cut glass whereas the night before it was hard to distinguish? Of course not. The change was gradual and not detectable on an ongoing basis, even to yourself.

What about your worldview over a four year span like high school or college? Between being a freshman to becoming a senior you probably engineered a different take on things societal, political, romantic – but was it an overnight epiphany that made senior-you unrecognizable to freshman-you? Probably not, and you would find it difficult to point to the individual and isolated moments that came to inform your new perspectives.

If such physical and mental change is happening to you without your knowledge, would you not like to have some manner of control over it? Some ability to reel it in and steer it in the direction of your passions rather than let it be carried away by a current of indifference moving toward the status quo?

Your personal mission and vision statement can be that tool.

Defining your mission and your vision will allow you to do what you could not do while comparing ‘then and now’ photos: track your progress while it’s ongoing. How does this work? Your aspirational vision will be incorporated into your mission once it’s been accomplished. Say, for example, that your vision is to become a politician that serves the people of your precinct. You work toward this goal until one day you are elected. Now your mission becomes the present form of what was once your vision for the future. Now you are a politician that serves the people and your vision must be revised (within the frame of your mission).

If you revisit your mission and vision at regular intervals, you will be able to see how you have accomplished your visions and enhanced your mission over time. More than ticking boxes on a to-do list, this is a visualization of your road to actualization. It’s the same concept that those who keep journals and diaries are always talking about: the ability to track the subtle but often tectonic shifts in your personality, character and priorities.

The most important component here is the integration of your achieved visions into your current mission. By doing this you can track your progress toward larger, more ethereal goals (vision) while further fortifying your foundation (mission). Your mission serves as your rock, allowing you to remember who you are and what you stand for. It’s an inventory of the artillery you have at hand to defend against crises of character and attacks from would-be corrupters; the ever-expanding fortress from which you venture out daily in search of actualization.

A good way to get started with your first mission statement is to take stock of where you are and what factors in your life actually define you. If you don’t want to be defined by your job, leave it out. If you do want to be defined by your love of animals, make it explicit. Your mission statement might look something like this:

As an educated and professional accountant, I will deliver the very best service to my clients by making their priorities my own and ensuring my job is done correctly the first time. As a husband and father of two, I will prioritize the happiness of my wife and children by separating my work and home life and celebrating their successes as if they were my own. As a citizen of West Virginia, I will take an active part in local politics by being an informed citizen and encouraging healthy debate on my political blog.

Your vision, though, can best be thought of as “how would I like history to remember me?” A vision statement for our hypothetical accountant might look like this:

By the age of 40 I will have achieved a junior partnership at my firm. By the time my children graduate, I will have saved the tuition costs for them to attend a state school. Using my knowledge of business and local policy, I will provide ongoing support for my wife as she aims to open her own business. By 2016 I will have expanded membership on my blog to 10,000 and readership to 50,000 unique hits a week and by 2018 I will use the blog as a platform to campaign for a seat in the West Virginia state senate.

When you’ve crafted your personal mission and vision, write it down somewhere. No need to laminate it and hang it on the wall. Put it on a card in your wallet. Make it a reminder on your phone that becomes the first thing you see each morning. Commit to it and strive to live by the mission and achieve the vision. After a year, revisit it. How far have you come? Can any of your vision be integrated into your mission? Have you deviated from your mission in whole or in part?

If so, rework your mission and vision accordingly. Over time you’ll have documented verification that you’re making real progress toward becoming your ideal self and that the status quo does not apply to you.

Next week I will take a look at how businesses develop and execute various strategies and how a little strategic thinking might pay dividends for YouCo.


Don’t Be Surprised By Good Fortune; Be Ready For It

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is watching.

On Monday I talked about prioritizing your own happiness. The idea ties into one of the main themes for this blog: that we have to make the most of opportunities that arise. If a door opens and we’re not prepared or willing to walk through, the opportunity has been missed. Unfortunately, some opportunities may not come around again.

Considering all of this makes the story of Bryan Donaldson (via) all the more compelling. Donaldson was a modest IT guy in the midwest living the American Dream with his wife, child and big yard. His way of blowing off steam was to post one-liners on Twitter that were a bit too edgy to share in his professional corporate workplace. Over time he amassed more than 40,000 followers including Alex Baze, head writer for Late Night With Seth Meyers. When the time came to assemble a writing team for the yet-to-air show, Baze called Donaldson in for an interview that led to his first professional comedy writing gig.

Donaldson’s story is unique in that he wasn’t even trying to get a comedy writing job. He says himself that he never really took the Twitter posts or followers all that seriously. But when the opportunity came to get paid for something he clearly loved doing, his entire family helped him take the jump.

If a similar opportunity presented itself to you, would you have the courage to do as Donaldson did? Sometimes you can anticipate these opportunities and sometimes you can’t but you should never be surprised when good things happen to you.

Instead, be ready to walk through the door.

Give Yourself A License To Prioritize Your Happiness

Posted on by Greg

Fin!

Hello again! Things have been a touch quiet on the site recently while a few exciting things took place behind the scenes. Chief among them was my graduation ceremony at the University of Technology, Sydney, where I received my Master of Business Administration degree in Sport Management and Marketing. My parents made the long trip to Australia for the occasion – their first journey down under – and so we all enjoyed some well-earned rest and relaxation during their stay.

I commenced my graduate studies in February 2012. Originally the program was to take me three years to complete while I worked full-time and studied part-time, but after my first three semesters I made the decision (with a little nudging from external forces beyond my control) to reverse those commitments to study full-time and work part-time. I was presented with a rare arrangement of circumstances that allowed me to make the choice that was right for me and it’s a decision that I’ve never regretted.

While working full-time I found that I would often be nodding off during my three-hour lectures. Something was fundamentally wrong with the situation: I had made the decision to return to school and I was paying for that privilege out of my own pocket, yet I was continuing to prioritize a job that I had long since stopped viewing as my career. When I made the decision to prioritize my studies – to get from them what I had envisioned when I first enrolled – everything changed. I was more alert in class, had time and energy to study my notes and readings, and was more available for group meetings with my classmates. I made the right decision for me, and the result was even better than I could have imagined it would be.

I’m sharing this story today because it showed me that I am truly the master of my own fate. I didn’t have to be content with “going with the flow” and you don’t have to be, either. Naturally, circumstances may not always be on your side. Bills must be paid, children looked after, responsibilities tended to. But where you can, give yourself the license to actually prioritize your priorities. I promise you’ll be happier for it and you’ll certainly reach new heights along the way.