Let limitations guide you to creative solutions
There’s never enough to go around. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough people.

That’s a good thing.

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage.

This is a timely reminder for me. I am working at growing my own coaching business, Key Coaching, and I at times think along the lines of “there’s not enough of….”. After reading the text above I shall embrace these limitations and start working with what I have.

If we want to have any hope at making our dreams a reality, we have to carve out our own path. We have to find a way to get paid to be ourselves. We must drop conventional wisdom (collective assumption) and break away from the herd.

Jonathan writes about two things in this post:
• Stop caring, and…
• Break our uncertainty threshold.

Getting outside our comfort zone is scary but necessary if we want to grow. As I posted, I have decided to walk my talk and will work in order to make that dream a reality.

Coaching is often about change, a new career, better balance in life or adding something new to “spice up” life. And in those contexts we often talk about finding ones passion and following ones passion.

Mike over at ZenDonut has a really interesting post about 3 Steps To Develop Your Passion … Not Just “Find” It.

I hear inspiring phrases like, “Follow your passion”, but I have difficulties describing that passion, let alone following it.

I agree with Mike, if you not have figured out what you are passionate about then you have nothing to follow.

Mike concludes that:

My concept is that a passion is not just floating around waiting to bump you in the head (i.e. “to be found”), but rather, by taking an active approach, you can develop your passionate interests proactively.

A passion will not be something new to you, something that you know nothing about. But it does not have to be the result of proactively developing your interest. Your passion might be right under your nose but not clearly visible. I will explain that by using myself as an example.

How did I find my passion?
Once upon a time.. Not really that long ago but I have been working with IT and computers for a long time. Due to the progress within that area my work was my passion, learning and doing new things at a pace that kept me on my toes. But I have always been doing other things in my free time, being active in organizations and learning new things – more or less related to what I worked with. Personal development, my own and others, has been a running thread in my life.

Eventually my passion for IT and computers started to fade, I wanted something else but could not figure out what. Like Mike says, I could not describe my passion yet I knew it was within reach. That was rather frustrating but I trusted my intuition, did let it take the time needed to settle. I worked with describing my own personal profile, in terms of knowledge – experience – interests etc, using mind mapping and other techniques to connect the dots.

After a while of connecting the dots I realized that several of my different interests tended to overlap to some extent. That made me curious and I focused on that common ground, the core area that united things. I started to describe that core area, realizing that I had found my passion. I want to help people be the best they can be.

I had been coaching friends and workmates before but in August 2007 I joined a coaching course at CoachCompagniet (Sweden) which made me a professional coach, see Key Coaching. I love being a coach, I help people find out what they want and achieve it. And I learn something from each session.

Update July 17, 2008
Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen has a great post about 15 Questions that Reveal Your Ultimate Purpose in Life.

Update March 26, 2009.
Alister Cameron has an interesting post about If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you!

Credit: Photo by Sarah-Isua-Amber.
Get this and other articles from the source at fortyplustwo.

If we know what makes us feel alive, why do we resist it? Why do we avoid doing what we love to do?

There are some important lessons in here:

Failure is fundamental to the creative process. If you don’t fail, you’ll never improve.

Respect the fact that mastering any skill takes time. Instead of thinking about all the things that aren’t right, think about what you can do now to improve.

There is also a part about when we have turned our passion into work and what we can do to re-ignite our passion.

Anytime you feel that you must do something, you lose inspiration. You lose your sense of excitement.

Jonathan is the author of the blog JonathanMead.com, a blog I follow.

I am following my passion and have started working as a professional coach, see Key Coaching. Another passion is sharing and gaining knowledge, a reason for my blogs.

Spiders are centralized, command and control, organizations. Historical examples are the Spanish army, the Aztecs and the Incas. Today most companies and organizations still work like this.

Starfish are decentralized with no hierarchy and no headquarters, an open system with no designated leader. An historical example listed in the book are the Apache indians. Modern examples are Craigslist, Wikipedia, Burning Man, AA, Skype, Kazaa and open source software like the Apache server.

An interesting part of the book is when they give examples of the spiders problems when they have to compete or combat against starfish. The Apache indians (starfish) managed to stand up against the Spanish army (spider) but the Incas and Azteks were spiders too and could be beaten. Todays music industry (spiders) fight against filesharing (starfish) and will most likely not win.

A hybrid approach means companies gain from both world, spider as well as starfish. There are examples of companies like eBay and Amazon that decentralize customer experience. And there are centralized companies like GE that decentralizes internal parts of the business.

If you want a quick look at some of what’s inside the book, see Lessons from a Starfish World.

There is a booksite at The Starfish and the Spider with links to reviews. Wikipedia also has a page about The Starfish And the Spider.

Goals can be useful but you mustn’t depend on them to define yourself. We are taught that if you don’t have an aim in life, you’ll end up nowhere. If you don’t have concrete goals and work towards them, your website will never grow. Not true.

Goals are pathway markers and destination points. But they are also simply thoughts, conjured up and made concrete in one decisive moment. You can change them as easily as you flick a light switch. It takes less than five seconds. Try it.

So for 2008, be flexible and open. Grow. Take a chance and do something beyond what you consider to be realistic or practical.

Maki points to Bruce Mau who has written An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, that list has a lot of good points.

I totally agree that goals shall not be set in stone, we need to review and change if needed.

Maki at Dosh Dosh also has a post titled How to Prepare Yourself for the New Year. There is a list of eight things to consider and a great final paragraph:

Think of yourself as a machine. You are a woman or man of enormous potential. Everything is possible in the new year if you have the heart for it. What you need to do is to grease the wheels, make sure you’re all well-oiled and ready to roll. Take care of the periphery details and you’ll find that you’ll reach your goals a lot faster.

Note: Photo by JoF.

In September about 20 executives, mostly from Scandinavia, hopped on a plane for a trip designed to shatter their notions of how to do business. The group, comprised of the first batch of students at a new Danish school called 180°academy, jetted off to South Africa. There they worked with a group called the Business Place to help would-be entrepreneurs realize such dreams as opening a hair salon or starting a toy business, though they had no relevant experience or skills.

The program isn’t anything like business school, where students focus largely on areas of their expertise. And that’s the point. Conventional business education leads executives to build on their strengths—improving profit margins, boosting efficiency, and benchmarking the best practices of rivals. This school aims to teach midcareer executives something many think is unteachable: how to be innovative. “We’ve got to break them from what they know best,” says Anne Kirah, the academy’s kinetic, gum-chewing, American dean. “When you’re only focused on your competition and what you know best, you don’t innovate.”

The 180°academy does turn things upside down, just look at the picture. Their concept sounds really interesting.

At 180°academy we educate Concept Makers™ who have the ability to develop, design and execute radical business concepts. Traditionally innovation has been technology driven. At 180°academy we believe in people-driven innovation. We want to revolutionize traditional education by merging together students with different competences and thinking styles in a praxis-oriented learning environment.

Their tag line says a lot: Radical innovation comes from moving outside our comfort zone.

I like this concept, mixing business and art. This is an intersection that is good for creativity.

It says that Britain’s commuters have the worst deal in all of Europe. They spend longer in their cars and trains than anyone else. But now there’s a revolution going on among the workforce as more and more people are moving to Europe and still keeping their job in the UK.

Brits move to France and Spain but keep their work in the UK. They commute to their work on a daily, weekly or monthly basis depending on distance and type of work. This combination of living and working in different areas sounds really nice to me.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)