There’s a number of great ways to get around these mental barriers:

Read more at my Workbloom blog»

In the end, I grabbed a flight home yesterday, which oddly enough wasn’t even full.  I’m still scratching my head over that one.

But here’s the important thing I learned:  The universe handed me a great opportunity through all this.  Rather than focusing on what I had lost, I put my energy into taking advantage of the situation.  I stayed with some colleagues outside London, met some wonderful people, built some relationships, and even tried a number of great local beers.

Last week I was able to give a couple of workshops on Building Your Resilient Career for a bunch of my great former colleagues in HP.  It was challenging for me, but also tremendously rewarding to be able to make such an important difference for so many people.  The energy was quite remarkable.

So here’s my advice for the day:  Surprises happen, things change, and life hands you unexpected challenges.  Within each of those lies an opportunity for responding in a way which will give you some value.  Even if it’s just learning about yourself.

No, I don’t buy it either.

Read more of my post on the WorkBloom blog>>

What’s the best that could happen?

Here’s the deal:  When you have to look for the upside, then it becomes more real.  Those scary scenarios start to take a back seat to the more positive energy that flows from this kind of question.

Let’s say that I’m trying to engage with a potential business partner.  Normally my fears start creeping in:

• What if I lose some control?
• What if the partner doesn’t like me?
• What if I invest a whole lot of effort and it doesn’t work out?

Perhaps you recognize this voice too.  This gremlin is sometimes screaming during these times of economic uncertainty.

So I ask myself the question:  What’s the best that could happen?

• I could get more business than I had possibly dreamed of.
• I might find that this partner really is awesome and energizing to work with.
• This could create wonderful surprises and opportunities that I’d never even thought of.

At this point, there’s a danger that I might become over-optimistic, so now I temper it with a deeper grounding:

• Connect with my core principles
• Trust in myself and my capabilities
• Realize that there are always risks in life, but many are worth taking

Now I’m feeling more comfortable to move ahead with conviction and energy.

I’ve had a few defining points in my career where I chose to stand on principle, for the long term and the big picture.  I find these hard to explain to other people, though, so I’ve come to the conclusion that each of us has to face different tests during our lifetime.  What might have been a big deal for me may only be a big deal because of what went on in my mind – a permanent shift in my attitude.

Perhaps to others it merely looked like a minor decision, but that’s not what matters.  It was a big decision for me.

Imagine this:  You’re in a situation where you see a serious injustice being done to someone else.  You could choose to:

• Ignore the issue, “it’s not my problem”
• Pass by the issue because there’s too much personal risk for you
• Be supportive in the background, but in a way which doesn’t expose you too much
• Offer your direct help to fix the situation
• Take it up as your own personal cause to not only fix the injustice, but also the larger underlying causes

As you progress through this list, you’re trading off the risk that you’re taking with the impact that you might have.  I can’t say which might be the best choice – not only because we haven’t defined the issue, but also because it’s your own choice.

But here’s the big question for you to ponder:  In which areas would you stand up for your principles, even to the point of taking big risks?  What would be so important that you might even bet your career, or your life?

We’re all human.  We have fears, and the general responses are Fight, Flight, or indecision and paralysis.  Basically, paralysis means we’re hoping for a difficult problem to “fix itself” and go away because we don’t know how to deal with it.  Losing your job can require a redesign of your life and all your relationships, and that’s an extremely scary prospect for most of us.

But there are ways to deal with these deepest fears.  The first step is to put a name to the fear, and recognize that you have a deeply emotional response to it.  Let’s say that I’m afraid of losing my job.  Fine.  It is what it is, and the feelings of anxiety that I have around this are real, they exist, and they’re mine.  They’re even rational – I should feel anxious about such a big change in my life.

By stating this, I can now move beyond the fear.

One of the most useful tools I’ve found is the “Career Plan B.”  Here’s the key question:  What direction would you take your career if you could no longer do your current job?

There are many interesting answers you might have for a question like this:

• My first priority would be to relax for six months, because I’m so incredibly stressed right now and need to get some perspective.
• I would explore that other career I always dreamed about.
• I’d go back to school and work on my next degree.
• I would look for a job that’s quite similar to what I’m doing right now, because I enjoy it and am quite good at what I do.
• I would talk with my spouse about becoming a stay-at-home parent.
• I would leverage some of my existing skills but take a significantly different job.
• I’d climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Now here’s the interesting part:  Just having that answer in your mind helps you to make useful decisions right now, even if you’re not particularly interested in changing your career.  And even more fascinating:  It helps to reduce that fear of change which keeps us paralyzed.