career mojo | jannwattdrake's Blog

For no particular reason I forgot to bring my mojo to work with me today. In fact I have forgotten it every day this week. I felt really flat and my personal radio station had found itself tuned in to “your a failure” chanel. I headed off to a session with my trainer at the gym and as often happens I enjoyed it way more than I had expected.

On the way back to denovo HQ I popped into the supermarket. Just in front of me a man had pulled up on his pushbike. He chatted with a homeless man at the entrance and I overheard them talking about a drop-in centre.

We both headed down the back of the supermarket and as we walked through a number of the staff acknowledged him and he would reply in a chirpy hello. He collected 8 loaf’s of white budget bread and headed to the checkout. I ended up standing behind him in the queue so I asked if he was planning on making lots of sandwiches. He smiled and said sort of. When it was his turn to be served I followed him up to the checkout and said ” let me pay for bread today”. Next came a look of shock and disbelief. He hesitated and asked me if I was serious and if I really wanted to pay for his bread. He explained it would be $8. I confirmed it was my intention to pay and it was just my random act of kindness for the day. He started beaming, saying he would pray for me and sharing with anyone who would listen to never give up on people, as good people see the good in other good people. I was beaming with happiness, the checkout operator was also smiling and as for my new friend whose name I don’t know and life story I don’t know left with an extra spring in his step.

I am now back behind my desk feeling more peaceful and grateful for my life. Pretty cheap investment in my book!

Small investment to give you that feel good feeling

Up until my late 30’s (a few years ago now) I never really understood why people always asked what your career goals were. Around this time I was encouraged to read Anthony Robbins book by my mentor while on holiday in Fiji. I wasn’t really into reading big books and the only thing that ran through my head was how on earth she expected me to read such a big book in six days. Well to cut a long story short I did read it and not only did I read it, I also did the exercises. It all seemed to make sense and I suddenly found myself setting goals including a number of career related goals.

I realized I had some vague career goals but what I was missing was –

writing them down.
chunking them into bite sized actions to ensure I stayed focused and on track, and to get them across the finishing line.

As a Leadership and Career Strategist Coach I am regularly reminded that the difference between those who have their career mojo and those who don’t, is the mojo guys have their goals written down, chunked into smaller actions and they make time to review them (not always weekly, but at least every couple of months).

I am sure you will all agree that most of us say we are going to do this and that, but never sit down and plan out how we are going to do it? My challenge to you is if you have never set goals or it’s been ages since you have, give it a go and set yourself some career goals for the next six months. A little quote that might help you along the way is “if it is to be it is up to me”.

There are plenty of books and website resources on setting goals and I believe the best approach is finding a goal setting framework that works for you. I now use a combination of Keith Abraham, Anthony Robbins, and Jack Canfield in setting my goals. I have wobbles along the way like anyone else but I can put my hand on my heart and say I do make better progress in being the best I can be when I am focused on my career goals.

Your challenge this weekend is to check out Keith Abraham’s Passionate People website http://www.passionatepeople.com .There are some great goal setting tools available. You could even go one step further and set some goals for the next six months so that by the end of 2014 you can say you had a great Career Year.