Goal Disoriented

Well, it certainly has been a while since I posted last. To be honest with you and myself, this has been a lot harder than I thought but not necessarily for the reasons that I thought it would be. I find myself 1.5 months into my hiatus from the working world more confused than when I left it and still struggling to establish concrete, actionable goals. I think this is a dark hour in this journey and I think that it is one that is commonly experience among my fellow would be entrepreneurs.

The most disheartening thing about my current predicament is that I feel like I haven’t accomplished much to speak of. I shy away from telling people that I am unemployed because I despise their next question of what I have been up to for the past month. I can easily come up with a long list of things that have kept me busy: beginning and ending a business venture with some friends, running, making my first business pitch, stretching, researching internet marketing, researching a book idea for people suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis, starting a few blogs, etc. When I think about this list, it is clear to me that I have actually been busy but I have not been productive. My activities lack focus and I quickly abandon my ideas not long after I convince myself that they are my ticket.

So, here I am seriously contemplating going into real estate for a variety of reasons and thinking that this is just another idea that I will contemplate for a while and ultimately discard like all of the rest. After only 6 short weeks, I have inherited a defeatist attitude that any idea that I have is not worth pursuing because I will ultimately be wasting my time. This is not a good trend and one that I need to correct immediately. But how?

The problem that I have realized is that it is very difficult to “work smart” when your goals are not clear. My husband and I have been agonizing over this question over the last few weeks and as we change our minds, so do the ideas that I am pursuing. So rather than being goal-oriented, I have been goal dis-oriented and have found myself chasing a variety of angles without tackling the key question of what my goals actually are.

So, what are my goals?

Goal 1: Rewards for my labor are commensurate with my work.

One of the biggest crimes of the corporate world is that the amount of work that you actually do has a very small and sometimes inverted relationship to your rewards. No matter what I am doing, I want to make sure that the effort that I am putting in will be reflected in my rewards for that labor either in my immediate compensation or longer term aspirations.

Goal 2: Have a flexible work schedule so that I have the ability to pursue other interests.

I do not want to be completely defined by my job or how I generate income. While this may seem fairly obvious, it actually took me quite a bit of time to figure out. I spent the majority of my thinking hours over the past two years trying to discover what job I wanted in order to make me happy. What I didn’t realize was that I actually don’t think I will ever be completely satisfied with a job. I think that there are actually very few “career-minded” people who do anything else except grow their career, socialize in their peer groups and spend a few weeks a year on a beach. This type of life will never fulfill me and I needed to be honest with myself about that.

Goal 3: To have enough savings that I (and my husband) never feel tied to a profession or a location.

This is really the important one because it is necessary for the other two to be possible. At the root of all of my crazy business ideas and dreams of entrepreneurship is the idea that I want to have what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls “F@#$ You Money”. While it is legitimate to say that I want to live in Brazil for at least 6 months, the more important is that I want the choice to live in Brazil for 6 months and that means having some degree of financial and location independence. I am beginning to realize that there are a variety of ways to achieve that goal and that pure entrepreneurship may not be the answer. Getting the highest paid job I can find and living frugally could easily achieve this goal.

Trimming the Fat

You would think that since I had just freed up at least 45 hours of my life per week, that I would have time do everything. This is was the fantasy that I dreamed about during my last few weeks at work-I would finally have enough time to do everything. My house would stay perfectly clean, I would read all of the books that I had always wanted to read, I would make dinner every night, work-out and in my spare time become an entrepreneur and I would still have time to socialize and keep everyone else happy. What could go wrong?

Well, the first thing that I realized after I left my job was that making it all happen was going to be difficult. But my reason isn’t the conclusion that you’ve jumped to. It isn’t because I don’t know how to prioritize or how to manage my time. It was because I realized how many activities that I participate in that are
superfluous to my values and priorities. I realized how often I made excuses in order to avoid doing things that I didn’t want to do with people that I didn’t want to interact with. You know those conversations. It is that perpetual conversation with a co-worker that you keep promising to go to happy hour with but somehow you never have the time. It is the friend that you keep saying that you should call but somehow never get around to calling. I always made excuses in these situations. “I am just so busy right now; I have been meaning to call you. I promise that I will do it soon”. I found myself in these situations since I left the job and realized that I could no longer fall back on this excuse. It was nerve-racking. These were my friends, right? Why didn’t I want to spend time with them? Am I a horrible person?
What I realized was that I do like these people. But hanging out with people because you think that you should is a horrible way to exist. Now, this is so natural when you have the 9-5 mentality. As an employee, you become the master of killing time and coming with seemingly legitimate reason for doing so. Pointless meetings, unnecessary status updates, mindless emails are common staples in the corporate world. It only makes sense that this mindset would transfer into your social life and interactions. You go to meetings because that is what people in business do and you go for drinks because that is supposed to be how you socialize.

I didn’t realize how closely related my professional actions were tied to my personal life. But immediately after quitting, I started trimming the fat, so to speak, from the rest of my life. I realized that I had developed some horrible habits in how I spent my time and that those habits were going to be hard to break. I was going out to coffee with that girlfriend who, while a nice person, is a complete drain on my energy and my time and I knew that if I didn’t start eliminating these activities from my life, that my new found freedom would be nothing more but a blur of meaningless small talk and cocktails.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I am abandoning all who I care about. This is not a manifesto for “hermit-dom”, nor is it an argument that no one is worth my time. Far from it! The difference is that it is so easy to fall into doing activities just because we think that we “should” do it not because we “want” to do it. I am still laying around in my PJ’s with my husband on Saturday morning—but I want to do it. I am having lunches with my professional contacts and friends—but they are the only the ones that I want to see. I am catching up with friends and family and making sure that I call my grandma—the difference is that I do it when I actually want to and it is much more rewarding.

I am still far from where I want to be. I still find myself playing Spider Solitaire every now and then although not as bad as before. I am still slightly addicted to home decorating shows—I just watch them now only when I am folding the laundry. I still have a hard time saying no to a friend who invites me out and feel slightly guilty for rejecting the invitation. I find myself ready to make excuses and justifications for my actions. I don’t like disappointing people and I know that I am going to lose some friends because of these choices. But if I don’t have the courage to reject a lunch invitation, how can I expect to have the courage to achieve my goals. My time is precious and it is mine to spend and also to deal with the consequences of how I spend it.

Mental Laziness

I have noticed a phrase that has angered me to my core recently and I haven't been able to pinpoint why. The phrase is simply:

"I am a laid-back person".

The idea of being laid back is something that our culture generally respects and most people admire. I looked in my handy Webster Dictionary and the official definition is "having a relaxed style or character". It seems perfectly reasonable that someone would describe themselves as "laid-back". I had to ask myself the question, if being "laid-back" angers me, then would I find the opposite satisfying? If you were to ask me what the opposite of laid-back is, I would respond that it is being uptight. Now, no one likes someone who is uptight. What does uptight mean according to Webster? "Tense, nervous, uneasy". Well...that doesn't sound like someone that I want to hang out with at all.

After some brief reflection, I decided that the phrase itself doesn't actually bother me. In fact, I actually strive to be more on the laid-back side of the spectrum. What I find abhorrent is the use of the phrase by people who use it as an excuse for being indecisive or taking action. Being relaxed is not synonymous with indecisiveness or being indifferent. I can best articulate this with a recent example from my own experience.

I recently sent an email to a group of women, who I enjoy spending my time with, expressing my interest in redirecting our regular meetings. While the responses were generally positive, there were a few that I received which stated "I am pretty laid-back so I don't have a preference". Initially, I couldn't decide what I didn't like about these responses. I would actually agree with them: they ARE laid-back people. So why does the declaration of that fact aggravate me so deeply?

Well, there are a few reasons. The first, I did not appreciate that the statement of my opinion or my intent was somehow associated with being uptight. I was neither uneasy, nervous or tense. I was completely confident and comfortable with expressing my opinion. However, the argument that they were ultimately making was completely unrelated to my statement of opinion. It was the fact that they were absent of opinion and that this was somehow an indicator of their "laid-back" personality. Now, I have mentioned that I enjoy spending time with these women so my intent is not to bash them at all. I am not taking issue with them , but the cultural pretenses which allow this type of thinking to exist.

Being decisiveness and opinionated should never be demonized nor should it ever be confused with being uptight. It is possible to have a relaxed disposition AND have strong opinions and express those opinions and thoughts.

Likewise, being laid-back should not be used as a substitute for being indifferent. Say you are indifferent if you don't have an opinion--being laid back has absolutely nothing to do with it.

My Cognitive Surplus

I watched a fascinating video clip of Clay Shirky at the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo that I felt compelled to share (you can watch the video clip below). The talk that he gives at the Expo is about the cognitive surplus that exists in society and how that surplus is being carved out by social media which he refers to as an "architecture of participation". He talks about the cognitive surplus that has been created by our modernized economy since the end of World War II and how that surplus has been managed and controlled by passive media. Now, in the twenty first century, we are witnessing a social shift due to the fact that society is waking up from its stupor of merely consuming media and wants to participate with it. While this is fascinating as it relates to the role of media and information in society, this is not the reason for this post. I feel that the same principles that Shirky discusses in the context of media, have relevance for me and for people despite their relationship with social media.

"Doing something is better than doing nothing". Shirky argues that spending hours in your basement playing World of Warcraft is better than mindlessly watching TV. Why? Due to the level of participation. Now, I do not think that spending time playing WOW is a worthwhile use of my time or my cognitive surplus, but neither is TV. But let's break outside of the confines of media to pursue this line of argument further. The assertion is that producing is better than consuming and that sharing is better than absorbing. Almost everyone has a cognitive surplus that they consciously (or unconsciously) decide to spend engaging in a variety of activities--most of them passive consumption rather than active production.

I was a dance major in college and while I believe that I have lost the desire to dance professionally, there is an essential quality of dancing that I miss greatly--the act of creating. I created 8 pieces of choreography my senior year of college. While none of them would be considered masterpieces by any standard, I held an enormous amount of satisfaction in that achievement. Since graduation, I have lost my creative nature. I don't necessarily mean in the entirely artistic sense either. I mean it in the sense that I no longer engage in the act of creating whether that is creating a dance, a flower garden, or a blog post. When you are involved in the act of creating you are not just producing for the sake of production but you are acting with purpose.

I quit my job!

If anyone ever reads this blog (which I find highly unlikely), they will read through the archives and figure how lame I actually turned out to be for the month of April. On March 31, I wrote a lengthy post about my procastination and the fact that blogging was going to play a role in relieving my quarter life crisis. After my claim on my own blog, that I was going to blog to get out of my rut followed by a month void of any activity, any reader would think wow--she really turned it around...

Despite my lack of follow-through in blogging, the month of April was actually quite a pivtoal month. While I am not trying to make excuses, I think that I am somewhat justified (oh wait, I just made an excuse) in ignoring my blog. Writing that first blog post was actually the first in a series of life-altering decisions. The most important of which is:

I quit my job.

And it was awesome.

So, how did I go from being marginally unstimulated to quitting my job? Here's how it happened:

My husband and I had several conversations over the past few weeks about my current work situation including my anxieties, frustrations and general disillusionment with my career. During these conversations, there was one word that kept creeping into the conversation: "helpless". I felt helpless that I had no control over my own job growth because I was stuck in a position that required me to do all of the dirty work. I felt helpless in actually realizing all of the promises that had been made to me. And I felt helpless because I felt that I couldn't make myself happy.

Now, if you know my husband, you know that helpless is not in his vocabulary. After I would mutter the word, my husband would quickly (and rightly so) challenge me on my so-called helplessness. Like most times when he is right, I quickly turn defensive and argue that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Well, I finally hit a low point and realized that the spineless coward that I had become was not the person that I wanted to be. I wasn't going to be helpless and I had to take action to make my life better. No one else was going to do it for me. I decided to give an ultimatum: make it right or I am going to quit. Anyone who has ever considered giving putting themselves in that situation realizes that you have to be ready to walk away. We decided to look at the numbers and figured that I could bring in income for 6 months and we would be fairly comfortable. It wouldn't be fancy dinners and cocktails anymore but it was possible especially if we gave up certain luxuries. The result of that investigation was not only that I felt comfortable giving my "or else" speech, it made me realize that I actually did just want to quit but felt that I couldn't for financial reasons. Once I realized that I could take 6 months off and we would be OK, there was no turning back. I stayed up the rest of the night thinking about all of the great things that I could do and accomplish in that time period. The next day, I told my boss that I was leaving.

About a year ago, I read "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss and since then I have fantasized about becoming an entrepreneur. After reading that book, I felt strongly that I had the drive and the instincts to make it happen but what I didn't have was the guts to take the risk. It wasn't until I reread the book this spring that I realized that not only had I taken no action in achieving any of my goals, but that staying at my current job actually prevented me from every single goal that I have in life. My life goals did not include a mediocre career in Public Relations. My frustrations at my job and my sudden financial freedom created the perfect opportunity to put up or shut up. This is the moment that I have been waiting for and now I would have six months of free time. No excuses, no procrastinating.

So the month of April, I quit my job and have been focusing on transitioning out of the position.

This Thursday is my last day in the office and then I will be free to explore and work for my own ends. As I continue this journey, this blog will serve as the outlet of my accomplishments, setbacks and lessons learned. Who knows, maybe some aspiring entrepreneur will stumble across it and get inspired.

The Blog is Back

When Josh and I began this blog, the main intent was to serve as a way to communicate to our family and friends. We soon realized that a quick phone call was by far the more efficient way to communicate about the comings and goings of our lives. Looking back on it now, the idea that we were going to create a blog that merely tracked our day to day lives is really such a romantic little dream. We so naively believed that our lives in suburbia were going to be interesting enough to chronicle in a blog. So rather than fruitlessly attempt to recreate our old blog, I return to this project with a new approach. Allow me to explain.

Part of the reason that this blog has remained void of entries is that this past year has been a year of intense introspection for both of us. I find myself 25, recently married, gainfully employed, living in a 4 bedroom house in a wealthy suburb and completely unsatisfied with this status. While this list may look like an impressive collection of accomplishments it is merely a cover for an existence that is numb at its core. I waste the majority of my energy and enthusiasm for an employer who is only too willing to exploit it. My reward is a regular cycle of buying things I don't need, decorating my too large house and drinking too much. I have entered the hell that almost all adults face-boredome. I spend half of my time being lazy and the other half of my time trying to figure out a way to correct my newly found bad habits. I have a seemingly endless cycle of creating an elaborate plan to rectify the situation and then promptly abandoning that well crafted plan 24 hours later. My introspective tendencies have created zero results and I find myself at the end of the year empty handed and feeling even more pathetic.

If you're expecting me to dazzle you with my keen insights into my new found reason for being, I am sad to say you will be sorely disappointed. My only epiphany after a year of introspection is that I must break my cycle of actionless introspection and begin doing the things I want to do (doing being the operative word). It sounds simple but it took me over a year of anxiety to reach that conclusion and probably at least another few months to do anything about it. In fact, I was going to post this blog entry next weekend until Josh called my bluff and said there was no reason that I shouldn't write the post tonight.

So, what does writing a blog have anything to do with my desire to reignite my passion for life? Good question. I am hoping that this blog will serve as a forcing function to explore and elaborate on ideas, record progress towards my goals and create a space that is entirely my own. I am not expecting anyone outside of my grandma to actually read this. This blog is an entirely selfish exercise designed to force me to come up with something interesting to say. Hopefully, one day soon, my travels, ideas, arguments, observations, and accomplishments will actually be something that someone outside of my immediate circle will find relevant or interesting. Until then, I guess this blog will just be our little secret.