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Are You Sitting In the Wrong Room?

By April 14, 2009How To, The Business

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It finally feels warm here today, so I’m allowing myself to think about spring cleaning…the business.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been working away at this for awhile or you’re anywhere in between – I encourage you to take a good look around and ask yourself honestly how things are going. If your answer sounds anything like this:

Things are going okay. I’m doing all that I can. I’m doing everything I’m ‘supposed’ to be doing. This is the most I can hope for in this economic climate. What else could I possibly do?

Then, I invite you to listen to this story.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with my daughter, we found out that she was really small. Everything else about her looked fine, other than the fact that she was tiny. By the time she was 35 weeks it seemed like she just wasn’t getting what she needed in her internal home – at all. So, the doctors wanted to take her out.

The very idea of this turned everything we knew on its head. She wasn’t fully cooked! Babies are supposed to thrive in the womb for a specific amount of time. All of the conditions on the inside are ‘supposed’ to be perfect. So, how could bringing her out make it better?

All I know, is that it did. When we brought her out of the womb and into the room 5 weeks early at 2.8 lbs., she thrived. Gained 2 oz. per day, hightailed it out of the NICU in a week and a half, floored the doctors, never had a thing wrong with her.

Think about your business, your creativity, your productivity. If it’s moseying along, but not flourishing. If you think there could be more – even though you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Think about doing something else. Find out if you’re sitting in the wrong room.

Maybe you need to:

  • Switch professions
  • Find a niche
  • Join a social network like Twitter
  • Attend some live conference or workshops
  • Shift your workstyle
  • Change the physical space where you usually work
  • Collaborate with other creatives
  • Write in a new medium, like blogs, white papers, annual reports
  • Get a new computer
  • Combine forces with another freelancer who complements your work (a writer and a web designer, for example)
  • Go directly after a company that you’d like to work with…

There are so many ways to ‘change rooms’…What could it do for you? How will you do it?

FYI – Flexpaths is a great resource, if you’re thinking about changing careers or creating a flexible work environment.

Image courtesy of RBerteig

Join the discussion 6 Comments

  • Todd Jordan says:

    Wonderful suggestions. Lots of folks never ‘move’ out of where they’re at. They just keep hoping something will change on it’s own.

    Love the idea of shifting your work style and changing your physical work space. Both can really affect your work habits and your mood.

  • Stacey says:

    What a coincidence! I’m sitting in my new home office today for the first time! Moved upstairs, bought a big monitor, added a plant, etc!

    I have the job I’m “supposed to have” in Boston, but I’m working from home on Cape Cod a lot more now and definitely pursuing what I hope is a future in pet photography. I admire the 24-year olds who had the skills and guts to go into the biz right away and are doing extremely well, but at age 32 I’m just as proud of myself for starting to “shift” my own life and career toward personal fulfillment!

    Great post!

  • Julie Roads says:

    Stacey – that is fantastic! I agree about the 24 year olds, but I don’t usually use the word ‘admire’ – I’m jealous as hell! I started later like you, and lookey-there – it’s all worked out! But, yeah…if I knew then what I know now? I would have started this gig in college!

  • Mary Lawler says:

    We were just talking about this very thing. The office needs to have it’s energy cleansed and shifted around. We need a new perspective. Changing the energy in here will change the energy out there. It never fails! So move it!

  • Anne Mayhew says:

    Great Post Julie! I am going to share with my team here at Sandpiper and with my business friends! We all need some motivation to think outside the box!

  • Janine says:

    Wow. Just. Wow. Very cool way to look at it.

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