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Turning Productivity into Passion, Part 2
A while ago I wrote about one of the greatest benefits of increased productivity: the extra time it allows you to give back to a cause you believe in. I am fortunate to be on the board of an Austin non-profit called GENaustin (Girls Empowerment Network). GEN’s mission is to foster healthy self esteem in girls by engaging them to explore and define their personal values and to build skills that empower them with confidence and the courage to make wise choices. They do an event every year called Career Week, where they invite professional women in to share information about their career path, with middle school girls. It’s a great opportunity to meet some fantastic girls, learn a bit about the work that GENaustin does, and share wisdom. This school-year the events are being held the weeks of October 25th and February 14th. The only qualifications are that you are a woman, that you live in the Austin area (or will be here during either of those weeks) and that you can speak about your career in a way that is engaging to middle-school girls (GEN staffers will give you tips and information to help you prepare). It takes only about 90 minutes of your time and can be scheduled at an Austin-area middle school that is convenient for you. GENaustin is targeting some professions specifically because they have been under-represented in the past, but anyone is welcome. And if you know any fabulous women in the following industries, we’d love to invite them to speak: financial/banking, doctor/nurses/medical professionals, STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) careers/high tech professionals, veterinarians, teachers, business owners, women in uniform (police, fire, military, etc).
If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to be a volunteer for a worthy cause, now is your chance! If you’re interested, please contact me directly at maura at regainyourtime dot com, or the Career Week Coordinator at GENaustin, Tiffany Merkel, at tiffanym at genaustin dot org.
Here is a little more about my involvement in GENaustin, and please check out their website!
The Secret to Getting What You Want
“Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.”
If I had to pick a quote that summed up my approach to life, that would definitely be it. And coincidentally, it overlaps with my work quite nicely. The sentiment, phrased another way, is basically, “be proactive.” I’ve never been very good at being patient, and waiting for things to happen. I prefer to make them happen.
I teach this to people in my work every day, as it relates to their to-do list. It’s only when you make the time to take the actions you deem are important, that you finish your projects and achieve your goals.
But being proactive offers benefits to many other areas of your life. When you are not proactive, you are essentially passive, allowing life to “happen” to you instead of creating your own experiences. In the words of my friend Julia Cuba, Executive Director of GenAustin, you either approach your life with the attitude of “how am I going to impact my world today?” or thinking, “how is the world going to affect me today?” If your approach is the latter, it means that you aren’t in control. Taking control, being proactive, doesn’t guarantee you’ll always get what you want, but it greatly increases the odds. In the words of Wayne Gretsky, “you’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
I’m sure you can think of a time in your life when you thought something wasn’t going to work out in your favor. But then you took some action, which tipped the scales in your direction. It doesn’t always work out, of course, but it certainly never happens when you aren’t proactive.
Be proactive with your to-do list, make the time to complete the things you want to get done in a day, rather than constantly reacting to emails, phone calls, meetings, and everything else that calls your attention during the day. But also finding other opportunities to be proactive and take control of the situations of your life, will likely have a drastic impact on your experiences. I know it has on mine.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Tony Robbins: “The difference between those who produce positive results in their lives and those who do not is the ability to take action.”
If you’re constantly reacting, to emails, Twitter, the phone, instant messages, etc, you never have time or space to be proactive, and therefore can never take action.
Thanks for reading!