Monday, June 13, 2011

Pain, change, results & happiness

After attending a training on change in behavior, it was interesting to see that this had recently applied to myself.

I worked in food & beverage from early on in life and recently I felt it was time for change. Mostly because in my new work environment I could not implicate the passion I have for the product. Suddenly the sacrifices for the job became more and more obvious... It was a strain on my marriage as I was never free/home to do anything as a couple. 

So I decided to apply for business school and use this to open the doors to a different life. The pain from my job had gotten big enough to make a change, so I took the leap, took the GMAT, wrote essays and got accepted. 

Then I got moved to a different department. More food & beverage related, more passionate co-workers and interaction with guests as well as more responsibilities. I even had a regular schedule; starting at 8 AM daily. The pain was gone. My new boss was talking promotion and hinted towards a position that I would love... Was it the right choice to leave now?

A company I worked for loves "7 habits of highly effective people" and regularly trains their managers on the concepts in this book and I attended one too right when this was happening. This training made me realize why  I was motivated to make the change. I also realized that this initial motivation was no longer there, which fueled my doubt. Yet it taught me that even though my motivation for change was the 'sacrifice reward' balance. 

The 'pain' had pushed me to consider change - the fact that the situation changed and the pain was gone did not change the fact that the change stayed what is good for me, my wife, or marriage and our future lives together. Then a friend and co-worker, asked me what choice I had made. She told me to consider the implications of each decision and she asked me what my goals in life are. It was eye opening. I realized my goals had changed but I was still working towards my 'old' goals - I was on the verge of change and clinging on what I had built up. No matter how good I was at what I was doing, staying would not help me achieve where I wanted to go.

The key in this conversation was that she made me realize that in order to be successful you should evaluate your goals on a regular basis. If they have changed, evaluate what you need to do differently to obtain these new goals. Working backwards and inventing everything twice, like most of us do in our professional world, can easily be applied to our private life and will help obtaining that happiness. 

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