Career Freedom Guide: July

embracing ambiguity Be Like Waterembracing ambiguity Be Like Water

Happy July! We’ve been half-way through 2018, how has it been for you?

For me, I would use Disruptive to describe what I’ve been through in the past 6 months.

Course-correcting in the sense that I have too many ideas to implement that on some days that I don’t know what exactly I’m doing, and where exactly I’m heading lol

But slowly and steadily I’m learning to trust how the process of unfolding.

Don’t worry, nothing particularly dramatic happened in my reality, but as I’m becoming more conscious of what’s happening in my everyday life, I literally get “downloads” of AHA moments every single day.

Whatever happens in my everyday life can be an inspiration, a sign or a clue to show me the next step, or to remind me of something fundamentally important to me.

Like a song that came to my ears when I was in a taxi prompted me to call an old friend – and with synchronicity, she was terribly in need to have someone to talk to.

Or when I was wandering in a shopping mall (I live in Hong Kong – and malls are everywhere!), I feel so blessed that I can now decide how I spend my time to avoid the crowd during weekends.

In the midst of all the changes, whether voluntary or involuntary, there comes a melting process to shake things up in your life, in order to make space for the new possibilities to happen.

Like if you want to turn an ice cube into an ice sphere, you’ll have to melt it back into WATER, it’s original and authentic form, so that you can change the environment, and ultimately change its shape.

So, how are you handling the messiness in the melting process?

Embracing Ambiguity – Be Like Water

What kind of emotional energy are you attaching to the ambiguity and the uncertainty of the unknown future?

Let me ask you: If you are to assign a BACKGROUND music to your current transformation journey, what music will you pick?

This is the ONE TECHNIQUE that I’m sharing with you today – if you are in a change process, having anxiety of your future, worrying about what might happen, feeling unsure of yourself etc,

CHANGE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC in your head.

Because literally, all thoughts that you are having IS a movie in your head.
Your mind is in an empty space when you are in the here and now (that’s what mindfulness means – a mind full of emptiness), so whatever thoughts and chatters you are having in your head, it’s a CREATION of your mind.

Worrying = An imagination of what might happen in the future in a negative way
Dreaming/ Hoping = An imagination of what might happen in the future in a POSITIVE way
Anxiety = A strong emotional reaction you developed towards a negative situation that might or might not happen in the future
Excitement/Anticipation = A strong emotional reaction you developed towards a POSITIVE situation that might or might not happen in the future
Self-Doubt = Questioning your capability based on your past records, not necessarily in the same arena though
Regret/ Guilt = Resentment developed over a past action or decision that you cannot go back to revert it, so you create this emotional burden to “punish” yourself

Again, it’s all in your head. And as I always joke about, a world-class worrier is someone who has the strongest imagination and creativity haven’t yet put to good use.

So WHY NOT leverage your mind power to let it UPLIFT you instead of demotivating you?!

Let’s say you are watching a ghost movie like Ring, with a girl in long hair covering her face climbing super-slowly out from a well, and you are changing the background music to “Jingle Bell”, would the movie feels the same?

You get the idea, don’t you? 🙂

Now let’s do a quick visualisation exercise together. Ask yourself,

“How will my future unfold in the coming 5 years?”

And then play each of below background music when you are visualising, and see what’s the difference:

Emotional Piano

Upbeat

Song of Butterfly

Epic Journey

And take notes on what images, feelings, and visions that might come to your mind.

Have fun with this and tell me what you’ve discovered!

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HAVE YOU MISSED?

Here’s my latest article published on Thrive Global: 4 Major Reasons That Stop You From Taking The Leap in Your Career

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