Our thoughts and creativity can be sparked by many different sources. Paying attention to these can result in seeing aspects of your life in a different light and learning from unexpected places.
In this case, I draw parallels from my daughters book ‘Marvin Wanted MORE’ by Joseph Theobald. It’s a great children’s book about a sheep who is feeling gloomy and wants to be bigger so he can run as fast and jump as high as the other sheep. To get bigger, he starts to eat more…..and becomes so intent on wanting more he eventually eats the entire planet. But now he is unhappy – he has no-one to run and jump with.
The story has a happy ending (of course) and I love the morals behind it. Slightly randomly, it is also a story that I relate to in my career coaching work. Who would have thought it possible to take such inspiration from a sheep!
Humans are pretty much programmed to want more too; more money, more things, more opportunities, more time…… and like Marvin, we spend most of our life trying to obtain it. The thing that changes is what we want more of, especially as we progress through life; my daughters want more Lego, I want more sleep, my mum wants to spend more time with us.
I wonder how things might work out differently if we focused on the outcome we want rather than the thing itself. It might give us a new perspective. Ultimately, the outcome Marvin wanted was to be able to play with his friends and feel confident about who he was. If he had made that his goal, rather than wanting to get bigger, he might have found different ways to achieve it, and felt happier in the process.
Think about you own life and career for a moment. Try casting your mind back, what did you want more of 5 years ago, how about 10-15 years ago? What did you do to achieve it? How is it different to today – what do you want more of now in your working life? How would you or others benefit from this and what are you prepared to compromise on in order to achieve it?
If you are feeling gloomy in your career and thinking there must be ‘more’ than this, but are not sure what to do about it, start by working out what you really want……this will help guide your decision making.