I'm not counting weekend days, by the way. I know it's a little confusing, but that's how I see it.
It's been five weeks since my last day of work. This week has been the first week that I have felt even a little "normal." The first four weeks felt more like a time for watching and waiting. Watching what and waiting for what, I'm not sure. But that's what it was.
I did get some things accomplished in those weeks. I've lost some weight and, more importantly, gotten stronger and healthier by making a good workout the focus of each day and by taking the time and energy necessary to build other good habits like eating healthier. I have also spent some great time with Dan, took a couple of road trips to see dear friends and my Mom and to see my youngest son play a gig up near Lake Tahoe. Dan arranged for us to see a mid-week, mid-day ballgame at AT&T which was one of the decadent activities I identified early on as a must-do. I have also spent time with several dear friends at dinners, lunches, happy hours, and ballgames. Yes, I'm blessed.
The whole process is fascinating to me and I find myself not only experiencing it first hand, but also having a sort of out-of-body experience with it. I'm an objective observer of my own journey. As I continue to read "Finding Your Own North Star" by Martha Beck, I can't help thinking that there really is something to this that I need to explore further.
The process of looking within and evaluating what you are really meant to do with your life is so profound and basic and energizing and exhausting and valuable and undervalued.....From an HR perspective I find myself thinking about how great it would be if we could, as employers, give everyone at our companies a couple of days a year (at the very least, once a quarter would be better) off of the regular work schedule to have focused time to be introspective and ask some of these difficult questions. Time to be strategic about our lives. Time to stop and breath and re-focus. How much more engaged would our employees be?
Sure, some of them might ultimately decide that what they are currently doing isn't what they were really meant to be doing, but better to find that out and deal with it than to have an employee work for several years only partially engaged. Could I make a living at helping people and companies along these journies?
Is it a career coach or a life coach? Is it in-house or as a consulting practice? How to I gain the expertise needed to do this? Education? Experience? Where do I begin?
I've already begun, really, by taking my own journey and learning first hand the power of the process. Could this be the thing I was meant to do? I need to try it on and see.
Recent Comments