One of the blogs I read regularly is Seth Godin’s blog. This morning, he made a thought provoking post about the decade in retrospect in which he describes a friend’s lament at looking over the previous seven years at his job with regret, because after working seven years at something he didn’t enjoy, he had nothing to show for it.
At the end of his post, Seth asks:
Maybe ten years is too long a period of time to plan for. So how about seven?
Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you’re doing right now?
If your answer is, “not much,” perhaps you should consider a new plan, one that might generate a different answer, or, at the very least, be a more fun way to waste seven years.
This continues a theme that I first covered in the epilogue for Way of the Turtle, the idea that it is more rewarding to define your own future and live your life according to your own particular set of priorities and principles rather than any that are handed to us by our culture. In the end, you’ll be the one wasting your own life if you don’t enjoy what you are doing and you don’t accomplish any goals that you yourself find worthwhile.
Hard work itself can be fun if you believe in the goals you set and you are doing something for which you are well suited; if you have the skills and motivation to perform well, even a marathon or triathlon can be fun.
Making changes takes a willingness to risk failure. Change is disrupting and can be scary. The alternative is known and concrete and seems safer but often leads to a place you don’t want to go.
So how about you? Are you doing something you believe in? What will you do different in the next decade? Will you make sure it won’t become a “lost decade” for you?
Trading From Your Gut
Way of the Turtle
Inside the Mind of the Turtles
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I just left a secure well paid position to pursue other ideas including more time for trading. it was a hard decision and I feel like i am on a surfboard at the top of a giant wave at Maui so you know that I am not totaly without fear yet I would not change this decsion. Why? because I know in my depths that it is the cottect decsion. I planned it for a year so it was not an impulsive decsion and much is uncertain yet I have a strong feel that it will be a succesful outcome and whenever I have had this feel in the past it is a succees. I have just finished your book trading from the gut and those ideas do apply in life. regards
Kieren