Maintaining The Flow

By now you’ve covered a lot of ground. You’ve created your life vision and identified myths, signifiers and fears that block you from making your dreams real. You’ve built your reinvention toolkit and generated a reinvention strategy. Your mindset and actions are now moving in a coordinated direction.

So how do you keep your momentum going?

What strategies can you use to stay in the flow, continue moving towards your dream, and not get derailed?

Habits

The first step is to focus on actions that produce favorable habits.

Charles Reade, an English novelist, said:

“Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”

Your habit-forming actions should include both self-care (getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, and taking time to enjoy yourself) and career-reinvention aspects (writing a daily success list, pursuing one new contact per week, and surfing the job boards for 30 minutes each day).

Positive habits create positive energy that will propel you forward. In the words of Hafiz, a 13thcentury Persian poet: “Habits are human nature—why not create some that will mint gold?”

Once you’ve put supportive habits in place they become your character; your character then defines who you are. For example, if your habit is to take one proactive step towards your new career every day, you become a person that makes things happen.

By reinforcing the image of yourself as a person that makes things happen, you begin to shape your destiny.

Other Ways To Build Momentum

As you learned in previous lessons, you must take these steps to maintain the drive to reinvent your career:

• Form your own ‘Reinvention Team’. This, simply, is a community of people that will help you along the path. Make sure everyone in your circle is positive and supports your reinvention process.
• Ask for help from your world. If your loved ones are supportive, give them specific ways they can assist you. Perhaps that writer friend of yours will guide you in crafting a cover letter, or your buddy, who knows everyone, will put you in touch with a few key contacts.
• Enlist those who are closest to you to keep you on track in a supportive way. Ask them to check in with you on a weekly basis, or request that they give you a daily pep talk.
• Each day, invest 15 minutes in your dream. Read a chapter in a book, reply to an online job-posting, make a call, have a meeting, or stop by an industry event.
• Once a week, have fun in a way unrelated to your job search. Joy generates energy, and having energy is instrumental to a successful reinvention launch.
• At the beginning of every week, read your Life Vision. This will keep the image fresh in your mind and keep your enthusiasm up.
• Post your top-line objective in a place where you can see it on a daily basis. Placing your goals front-and-center increases your chances of success.

Coaching Action Steps

Go back through your Daily Success Journal. What new habits have you created during your reinvention journey? How have these new habits served you in your reinvention?

Spend a minute thinking about what additional habits you’d like to create. What steps can you take to create these new habits?