Changing Directions...

11 years ago, I found myself frustrated with my work environment.  At the time, we were building a new service and my boss had me reading  Start Up: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Launching and Managing a New Business by William J. Stolze.  The light dawned!  Everything we were doing in order to start this new service was teaching me how to start my own business.  Soon I was making notes at night about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.  Along the way, I read more and talked to a few independent consultants.  In February 1998, I quit my job and launched my own business.  I had changed direction.

Changing directions can sound quite scary, when people tell us that we have to do it.  However, when we decide to change directions, it can be liberating, thrilling, adventurous, inspiring, and life-changing.  Unfortunately, we don't always see the clues to tell us that we should change directions OR see the new path being laid out in front of us that we should follow. Looking for the clues or seeing the path isn't difficult, we just need to be aware and open to the "possibilities."

There are books, articles and blog posts about becoming more "aware."  Often the advice is to spend time in quiet, which will help you listen to the voice deep inside you. Perhaps all you need to do is to not dismiss those thoughts about a new idea, a change, or a different direction.

So here's my advice.  Today and for every tomorrow, take time -- in however you decide to do it -- to  be aware of the information around you.  Are there clues to a new direction?  Are you suppose to be changing directions?  Did a book catch your eye, but you dismissed the idea it posed?  Is there a new direction in your future?