Finding my path

Maybe I am the only one who gets like this. Then again, I don't think I am alone.

I sit at work, on my lunch break, staring into the blank pages of my pocket notebook, wishing for something more. I get so caught up in setting goals for myself and when I look back and assess the goals, I am looking at only 25% of these goal achieved in the time frame I set for myself.

Did I give myself enough time to get accomplished all the things I am accomplished? Were my goals realistic? As I go through them I don't think I am giving myself the time I need for each goal.

Like most people I never thought that I would have taken 2 steps back in my career from 1 year ago. My goal this year was to grow into a larger role, but there were some things holding me back. I have talked to a few people at length about not being able to get beyond that glass ceiling. All of a sudden, in this world, being a middle aged white man is a disadvantage when it comes to moving up the management ranks. That being said, I haven't moved up, because I was holding myself back. Not my manager. Not my wife. Not my dog. Not my social media habit. It was me. It was MY lack of focus that brought me down. It was the constant pressure I put on myself to perform at such a high level, I forgot about the basics of the job that took me there. It was my choice not to go to a 4 year school. It was my choice not to continue on the career path I was on. All of these things have played into the reasons that I am not at the level in my career that I want to be.

So what do people do when they realized the biggest goal they had for themselves has had an epic flaw? Sulk? Yeah, I will for a moment. I mean this IS my blog after all. Most people just sit around and become jaded. Many people in my profession do it, and I have gone back and re-read all my thoughts on this matter. I am slowly becoming a jaded retail worker. It is not hard to do, but it is hard to get out of the funk.

I went over to myspace the other day and pulled up my old blogs from close to 5 years ago. Oh my how I have grown and oh how I have not grown at all. I read the blogs about my first days on my current role 3 years ago, and I was happy to have a job after being unemployed longer than I would have liked. Where did it go? Where did my optimistic view of my job go?

I read my blogs about how people who have worked for my company over 3 years develop a sense of entitlement and they lack the ability to adapt. I saw my current self in the words from years ago. I have become what I didn't want to become. It's easy to remember your thoughts form years past if you write them down.

Having read this, I decided to go back to the drawing board. I ripped my goals out of my pocket notebook and shredded them. I am realigning my goals. I am revamping my personal plan of growth.

One of the major reasons I am stuck is my lack of 4 year degree. I can speak the language of business, I get the concepts, but I haven't the proof that I know what I am talking about. There isn't enough experience in the world that makes up for having a 4 year degree. I know. I have been there. It doesn't matter what I have done in my career, I still haven't finished college. So I am going to fix that. I enrolled to start my undergraduate degree in Business Administration last Friday.

So I hope to start classes in the Winter. My employer has a great program where they pay a considerable amount of my tuition. This leaves me with a bill of $0.00 at the end of the day. Why not take advantage of it?

I am started in the right direction.

My second goal is to get my manuscript, I have been working on, published, and then get paid for it. This goal is my short term goal. It is so close I can taste it.

I am hoping to be able to start researching and put together a presentation to the publishers soon, but editing is the toughest part of the process.

With the end of this post, I noticed I have more pages filled in my pocket notebook that I had ripped out. Maybe I am onto something.

It's time to stop worrying about the past, and focus on making the future I want happen. Sure there will be many road blocks, and wrong turns, but my co-pilot is there with me.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Behind every good man, is a great woman.

It hit me

You can feel it. It's that elusive thought. That next great idea you have. You spend your days thinking about that single thought. It's like sitting in your room all day thinking about how you are going to spend you lottery winnings before you win them. You see the end, but never see what it would take to get there.

This week is a week that makes you question why you do what you do. [Thanks @muse012]

I have just gotten back to work from a lovely 4 day weekend. It's always hard bouncing back from more than 2 days off. It's like your body adjusts to not working, so by the time you get back you are tired. I'm not sure it is that I am tired, or that customers at work are really as pissed off as they have ever been. It's not very often to get a customer to tell you that they think you are lying, but to have back to back to back customers say the same thing? That's eerie.

So it's weeks like this that makes you think to greener pastures. There is nothing like cleaning up a mess that you did not create to help you think about doing something else with your life.

Truth be told, every job I have held I have started to feel that 3-4 year itch. Is there something better I could be doing? Is there something that has a better work/life balance? It's just past my 3 year anniversary with my company now, and with a inundation of customers who feel it necessary to take out their frustrations on me, it got me thinking again.

After a few blog posts later, a friend of mine offered a suggestion. She recommended a book. I took her up on her advice and started to read. She was absolutely correct. It struck a chord with me. I find inspiration in the words in this book. It makes me think that somethings CAN happen, but I need to find MY thing first.

So tonight while I was walking the dog, it hit me. I have been trying to write a book for sometime, but every time I start writing, I lose that scent. I have equated writing something longer than a blog post to finding lost children in the woods. But this is different now. I have written the better part of a book already and didn't realize it. I went back and looked at all my blog posts. If printed it would represent 250 + pages of 8 1/2 x 11 paper.

That is a ton. But the book I am now working on isn't just printing my blogs. It's about telling story. I have come together and started reading what I have, oh and by the way, I have officially written three times more than any other idea. I have so much material, and it has been at my finger tips the whole time. It's like the dude who invented the little plastic tips on shoelaces must have felt when he came up with THAT idea.

I will let you know how it goes. I haven't had this much inspiration before and it hasn't been so easy to write before. I find myself constantly coming up with the next part of my story.

When it hits you, it knocks you down. Just wait, you will want to buy this book of mine. So if you are, or know someone who is, a book publisher, literary agent, or otherwise, let me know. I will pitch you my book idea.

Until then, I have to announce that my latest guest canceled on me, so I am scrambling to put together the next podcast. Julie gave me the best idea and since some other people seem interested in helping me out, I will open it up to YOU.

Next Thursday July 30th I am going to be calling fellow Twitter pals, Facebook Pals, and blogger pals and I want you to tell me a true story in 2-3 minutes [this isn't a hard time limit]. I am going to record it and edit it down to a show. If you live near me, we can have you over and you can do it right here in the Couch Potato Studios. If you are interested, let me know via e-mail [it's on the right hand column of the blog] and we can set up a time I can boot up Skype and call you or you can stop by and sit down and hang over some beers. I am off all day so I got nothing but time on that particular day. If I get enough material or volunteers, I can sut it up and use it in multiple shows through out the rest of the season.

The inspiration never ends.

In other news. At least for today, you just read a blog written by the #1 Sales man in my district at work. I am in the top 10 in the whole state of Ohio. At least for today. It makes me feel good.