Do you know where you are going?

What is your long term goal at work? This month’s sales results? The quarterly? This year? Three years from now?

With the stresses that appear in your everyday workplace, and the fickle changes of the now global market, the pressures placed upon you are work grow with each day. Ask any worker of colleague at your office, and the the goals of each will probably be different.

In order to answer the question yourself, you will need to evaluate how committed you are at your job. If you are only working for this month’s results, maybe you are pushing your colleagues and customers too hard, and the results, although admirable, may not be sustainable.

On the other hand, if you feel that the target is more long term, what are you doing today that is developing that relationship with the people around you that will see your long terms results come to fruition?

Obviously, it’s always going to be a balancing act, tying the present into the future. But its definitely worth a few moments thought, and then writing down what your work target is.

Then, sit down when you have some free time and try to look at it from some different angles. What would your boss say- would he agree with your goals or ask you to look more long term?

Managers and section leaders look for those workers that can both get the job done and have some kind of vision of how to sustain a great work load without burning out. Is that you?

How about your co-workers? Do they know your motivations? How do you fit into the team and benefit them all by your presence?

How about your partner? Are they aware and supportive of what you are doing? If any big changes are around the corner, make sure they are well informed and supportive of what you are trying to do.

So, get a strategy, for today, this week, this month, this year.

Hey, maybe even three years. But get one, and a back up plan too.

But more later.

Cheers,

Mark

my beach, Greve de Lecq

They talk about the simple things in life. Well, I must say at this point, I agree with them.

Things we take for granted in life, 101

• health
• family
• relationships
• breathing

Wait on a second, I am with you on the first three, but breathing?

Yes, breathing. Its a simple thing that we do literally thousands of times a day, but how often do you take the time to just pay attention for even more than a couple of breaths? Maybe its time to take a little moment and pay attention to a function that is absolutely critical in your life.

Go find a quiet place, preferably somewhere out doors, at least with the window open if you cant manage outdoors yet.

Give me three minutes. Thats all, no special mood or environment other than that is necessary.

Take whatever air is in your lungs right now, and breathe it out, until the air is pretty much all gone out of your lungs. Now, lets take in that first breath. Close your eyes and pay attention to your how that breath feels, coming into your body, bringing life, nutrients and energy to your body, filling up your lungs.

Don’t hold it, just let it naturally dissolve and flow back out of your body.

Do that lets say three to five times.

How are you? Stressed? Calm? Relaxed? Tired? Whatever today is for you, just let that dissolve out on your outbreath, and breath back in energy. Lets do another 3- 5 cycles.

The reason why we choose a clean air environment, is because this air that you breathe, this sacreed life giver, can only really be appreciated in its natural state. Air conditioners and rooms with closed windows really miss the point.

You probably found that in the process of doing this simple cycle, you relaxed a little. Great.

Ok, you are busy, hey we all are these days, thats why I have said lets keep it to three minutes. But if you can, try to do this one as soon as you awake, and maybe one more time before you go to sleep at night, just before is fine.

Just connect with you for a little bit each day, three minutes is long enough. If you can really be with ‘you’ for that long, I guarantee it wil make you feel very much in the moment with what you are doing right now in your lives.

Things really tough at work? Having a stressful day? About to go blow a fuse at your boss? Take a minute to go step outside of that little stress paradigm you are living in, find somewhere quiet, and check in with yourself. I dont really care where you do it, just find some kind of private space, and check in.

Hey, how are I doing today?

Acknowledging whatever is going on is the first step in improving it.

So, take a few breaths for you today. Then get back out there and into this game we call life.

And enjoy the journey. Yes, its tough sometimes, but everything changes.

Enjoy that fact.

Cheers,

Mark

That is the question they all asked me. Friends, family, co-workers, my partner. Why leave a secure, if not so exciting job with a successful company in Japan, with great sales results and a stable life, and move half way round the world to a little island in the English channel, parked right between France and the UK? Why risk the change, the searching for new work, the chaos it would wreak on my relationship and just the added stress of uprooting everything you have, and trying to replant myself somewhere else?

Its a good question, and I have, what is to me, a very obvious answer.

There is more to life than just work for work’s sake. You may have heard this question before, but it is one that is worth contemplating:

Live to work, or work to live?

In Japan, it is most definitely live to work, and for some of you out there, that might be fine. But for me, life is about balance, the enigma of trying to keep both your private and professional life in tune with each other, dynamically interacting.

For me, its definitely work to live. To help other people, to help each other reach our goals and share in the fruits of our labour.

I love to help people. I have been ‘coaching’ now for probably most of the last 15 years, when I discovered that I enjoyed helping people find themselves. I was the person they could talk to when they were about to make a big change, the person to check with as they went through their process, the person who would listen without judgment when things didn’t quite go as planned, and they needed to stop and re-think their strategy.

“Mark, you should really get into life coaching/ career counselling! You have so much to offer people!”

I would smile, and listen, nod my head and think, yeah that is something I definitely want to do, some day.

But that day never came, and I found that after five years of gutting it out in Japan, learning their culture, adopting their lifestyle and manifesting as the best foreign employee I could be, there was still something deep inside of me that said, there is something more to life than this, where you could be really helping other people.

Events had their way. My mother got sick and I started thinking about ways of getting her closer to me so that I could take care of her. My health was going down, and I started to feel aches and pains that were both physical as well as emotional. There are only so many 130% crowded trains you can take before the cracks start to appear…

I went to Europe on business, and was taken to this little island called Jersey to visit one of the Japanese company’s regional distributors there.

And that was it. From a man who has lived in more than 12 countries, I had a feeling.

Something that I could not rationally explain, but what I saw as a manifestation of balance around me. Jersey resonates. Work, environment, nature, of openness, of possibility. I also saw and met a lot of people who were obviously doing quite well in life ( what would you expect of an international off-shore banking community) but yet were still looking for something. A meaning to their lives, a way to justify it all and themselves, a direction, a reason. A way to keep going if nothing else.

Suddenly, I had this overwhelming desire to help them get there. To find the answers they sought. And in that process, I realized that in doing so, I would be helping myself. No longer was working 50 hours plus a week enough. Not the bright lights, not the exotic foods and high sales results.

I wanted balance back in my life, where I could share this precious thing we call existence with my partner, family and friends, and have an experience that I would regret on my death bed.

To live. To reap the harvest of our hard work and lives in a genuine way.

Then things just kept falling into place. When resigning from my job, the company asks me if I would be interested to stay on as their European consultant?

Would I ever.

Needless to say, my reasons weren’t explained to such detail, but changed I have, and here I am.

And that, as they say, is that.

Jersey. Hallelujah.