In the Blogs: 18 Valuable Lessons From Pursuing the Wrong Career Path

By Elyse Gorman

There is a saying which goes, "That which is in front of you is your teacher."

You can learn a lesson from anything and everything life throws your way. And if you view life this way, you've always won. You're always receiving gifts.

That's how I see my years spent pursuing a career path that didn't sit right with my heart.

Here are 18 valuable lessons that I was fortunate enough to learn:

1. Your livelihood takes up too many hours in your life to do something that makes you miserable.

If you are weighed down by negative energy and disatisfaction in your work, that energy will inevitably seep into other areas of your life.

2. Go with the flow.

If you are not yet living your dream life, make peace with this fact while you work towards your goals. If you struggle against each day, resenting each task you need to complete, it will drain all of you energy. Do things with a happy heart and a light-touch, and you will feel freer.

3. Listen to your intuition.

Your heart knows what you really want. Your head will play tricks on you, trying to convince you to stay put, blanketed by the security of the status quo.

4. There is life outside of work.

There are so many other areas in life to find beauty, joy and fulfilment. You may find your flow in nature, cooking, travel, creativity and friendships.

5. Have the courage to live a life true to yourself, not a life others expect of you.

Not doing so is the top regret of the dying. If you have a burning ambition to experience the role of your dreams, take steps to make it happen. If work is not high on your list of things that bring you meaning and purpose, don't feel pressured to say or act otherwise.

6. Open up about your desires.

You never know what doors may open once people hear about your goals.

7. You don't need to know precisely what you want to do or have a detailed 10-step plan. 

You just need to take baby steps in the general direction of your desires. You don't need to see the whole path - just 10 feet ahead.

8. There are more possibilities and opportunities in this world than you will ever know.

Steve Jobs once advised us to look around and realise that everything in our surrounds has been created by people no smarter than us. Question the way the world works, and know that you can change it.

9. You will adapt to new situations much easier than you think.

Don't wait until you are ready. Chances are you will never feel ready. There is an old Zen proverb which goes, leap and the net will appear. You will figure it out as you go - you always do.

10. The only person who has never failed is the person who has never tried anything.

Don't be so terrified of it.

11. You are not your job title, your profession or your resume.

Your worth is not dependent on the "success" of your career. You are inherently worthwhile. You achieve your purpose on this earth by simply being you.

12. Be gentle with yourself.

Set goals and take steps, but don't beat yourself up in the process. You will accomplish so much more through self-love than through whipping yourself into line.

13. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

So if you want to apply for a role, enter a competition, pitch an article or float an idea, go for it. Because you have automatically lost if you don't even try.

14. Making big changes in your life takes courage, discipline and persistence.

There will be soul searching, late nights, hard yards, doubts and fluctuating emotions. Buckle up, because it will be worth it.

15. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

Make a decision to feel happy, successful and abundant NOW, and the world will respond in kind. Don't make the mistake of waiting for external events before you claim your happiness.

16. You are a one-of-a-kind blend of magic.

There has never been nor will there ever be anyone like you in the history of humankind with your unique set of skills and passions. Contribute your gifts to the world.

17. Emotions are temporary.

That gripping fear, those crushing doubts, may seem so intense and real. But they will slowly fade and vanish. So don't get give them too much attention. Try and let them be.

18. There is a huge sense of satisfaction which comes from following your dreams, even if you haven't reached them yet.

It feels so much better to be at the bottom of the right ladder than it does to be at the very top of the wrong ladder for you.

Reminder: "Growth Is Painful. Change Is Painful." Meme

In the Blogs: I Tried to Quit Diet Soda Four Times. Here's What FinallyChanged My Ways.

 By Maria Hart 

Sometimes it’s the little things that get you. My little thing was diet soda. It was a small, daily habit, but as Annie Dillard said, “How you spend your days is how you spend your life.” And following that logic, I was spending my life swimming in chemical soup.

Portrait of the Diet Cola Fiend: The Early Years

Here’s an easy test to determine whether you’re addicted to a substance: Do you have specific criteria for your preferred “high?” If so, you might have a problem.

I had a brand of choice, and I always wanted to drink from a can for maximum coldness. Never with a straw, I wanted to plant my lips on the can like an extended kiss. And I lived for that kkk-shhhew sound of the can popping open. (Years after kicking the habit, hearing that sound will kick off a reaction. Dr. Pavlov, you knew your stuff.)

My love went deep. Diet soda was wonderful! Every can was a mini celebration. The jubilant bubbles! The hit o’ sweet! That pick-me-up perk of caffeine. A can alone was enough to turn a crummy moment around.

And when I didn’t have soda… well, I was no fun at all. Headaches from the lack of caffeine and sluggishness were my standard physical symptoms of withdrawal. But worse was that dull, gray feeling like my day had flatlined into a treat-free zone with no pick-me-ups on the horizon. So very sad.

What started as an occasional trip to the vending machine became a four-to-five-can-a-day habit at my first post-college job. The work, answering phones and doing filing, was dead boring, but I had a vending machine just steps away from my desk. And it had my cola of choice. Dangerfood, enter stage left. I had one with every meal—including breakfast—and one or two with snacks. It got to the point that I’d filled an entire filing cabinet with cans. Taking them home to recycle was my soda walk of shame: these discarded silver husks clattering around in an oversized bag were a reminder that I was out of control.

99 Reasons to Quit, but Flavor Wasn’t One 

I justified my addiction in many ways; my primary rationale being that diet soda seemed so innocent. I didn’t do drugs or smoke, and I hardly ever drank alcohol. Soda was my one and only vice, and didn’t everyone deserve to have one of those?

As far as bad habits went, my diet soda dependency certainly didn’t make me special. Around, oh, 63 million Americans drink diet soda on any given day. And I can tell you, no one ever wrote a compelling character for a prime-time drama with the description, “Hard living and years of diet soda had colored her past.” Basically the monkey on my back was neither interesting nor cool. (Picture Don Draper hitting a supersized fountain soda instead of his bourbon. Bye-bye sex appeal.)

Plus, there were plenty of compelling reasons to quit. Artificial sweeteners have been linked to many serious diseases: metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease. The caramel coloring has even been linked to cancer. What if I let vanity be my guide and decide a little chemo was worth a little waist? Bad news, cola lovers, studies show diet soda actually adds several notches to your belt loop. And new research proves diet cola can prompt you to go gaga on sweets, negating those “no calorie” claims. 

So I finally decided to quit. And failed. And failed two more times. And then failed again. Finally, on my fifth go, I cracked the code on my addiction. And that’s where I am now, living free from the cola cuffs that once bound me.

If you’re struggling with quitting this saccharine brown stuff, learn from my attempts, both the repeated failures, and my final triumph.

My Four Failed Attempts, in Brief

Attempt No. 1: Moderation

"Moderation" is a nice word, right? It’s warm and inclusive, where “quit” is so harsh. For me, the trouble with moderation is that the boundaries are so fuzzy. What does it look like? What are the rules? When I’m guzzling down four to five cans a day, is moderation one can? Or three? And which cans do I sacrifice? Surely not breakfast—it’s the most important meal of the day! And not lunch. I need my lunchtime boost! And not my snack time. (You can see why this didn’t work.)

Attempt No. 2: Cold Turkey

OK, moderation was a bust, so I needed to get tough. And the tough go cold turkey. Tap water became my new diet soda. The only hitch was that I hate tap water. Every sip felt like a punishment. And was I really going to have an afternoon cookie with a glass of tap water? That just seemed so, so sad. Where was the celebratory sparkle? The fun? The party in a can? 

Cold turkey didn’t last.

Attempt No. 3: Change of Environment

By now, I’d figured out my environment had a lot to do with my addiction. I needed a diet soda rehab center away from my corner store and my vending machine. And I had the perfect moment to bust out of my routine: I was going to remote Alaska for two weeks. There, I could measure the distance between me and diet soda in nautical miles. I could go through my caffeine withdrawal in my little cabin far away from diet soda’s siren song of sweet relief. Sure enough, after a week, I was off the stuff. Here’s the problem: I hadn’t laid any groundwork that would help me navigate the difficulties of my soda abstinence once I was back in my day-to-day life. I assumed I’d breeze by any shelves and coolers of diet soda I came across. But as soon as I had my first stressful day at work, I was back in the warm glow of the vending machine.

Attempt No. 4: Back to Cold Turkey

Obviously the problem was my lack of willpower. But I really wanted to change! I would redouble my efforts. I would avoid… oh who am I kidding? It didn’t work the first time, and it didn’t work this time either.

Seeing the Light: My Fifth and Final Attempt

What was different this time? I turned to science. I started studying the pattern of habits. Habits are largely unconscious, which is why they’re so hard to break. Your brain is so used to treading the same path that it’s hard to forge new ones. That goes double for something that’s a daily habit, which has worn deep grooves into your brain’s carpet. The trouble with stopping that behavior is you’ve already conditioned your unconscious mind, which is almost impossible to undo.

I read Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, and I started to understand something he calls “the habit loop.” In the book, Duhigg breaks down the unconscious cycle of habit into three steps: cue, routine, and reward. Subtle cues we read during the day will trigger our behavior and that in turn will give us a reward. The reward cements the behavior loop. That means once we see the cue, our brain has already hit fast-forward, and it’s reaching for that treat. Often you’re not even aware of these cues, you just find yourself surrounded by empty husks of diet soda all over your desk (to use an entirely random example).

The bad news is once the habit loop is in place, it’s incredibly difficult to dismantle. But there’s hope. You can hack the habit loop. The key is to keep the same behavior and reward, but change the routine.

Hacking the Habit Loop

Duhigg uses the example of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here’s what an alcoholic’s habit loop looks like according to Dunhigg:

Cue: Tough day at the office. 

Routine: Hit the bar HARD. Shots! Sing-a-longs! The bartender so gets me.

Reward: Feeling good, supported, and stress-free.

Now the alcoholic joins AA:

Cue: Tough day at the office. 

Routine: Hit AA. Stories! Donuts! My sponsor so gets me.

Reward: Feeling good, supported, and stress-free.

Now my habit isn’t as damaging as alcoholism, but it’s easy to apply the same principles. Here’s my typical diet soda run:

Cue: Tough day at work, I look up from my inbox to see it’s 4 p.m., diet soda o’clock. Time for a treat! 

Routine: Walk away from my desk to the vending machine. Crack open a cold can.

Reward: Ahh! Sweet, sweet soda. Pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

My mission was to keep the same habit, but replace the outcome. Afternoon “treat time” could not be undone. But it could be another routine.

My problem: the reward needed to be the same. That’s when I took a hard look at diet soda itself. 

Breaking Down the Formula: Bubbles and Sugar and Caffeine, Oh My!

What could give me that same kick in the prefrontal cortex? I examined the formula and tried to replace those components. In diet soda, I get three things: bubbles, a sweet treat, and caffeine. Finding all three in a natural beverage was tricky. But I could find a substitute for each. Seltzer could give me my festive bubbles, iced tea or coffee my caffeine, and milky-sugary additions to that would be my sweet treat.

Real talk: That last one wasn’t exactly healthy. When I first started hacking my habit loop, I was basically swapping diet soda for cake-in-a-cup: I drank coffee or tea with a giant splash of milk and heaps of sugar. But, it was all natural, and that was my starting point. Step by step, I pulled back on the sugar, swapped in almond milk, and my treat became a bit more healthy.

This took time. My brain was wired for a big wallop of sweet, and yanking that away wouldn’t give me the reward I expected. The game plan was to shift my palate slowly so I’d still “read” the beverage as my treat and my brain would be fully fooled. 

Meet My New Habit Loop

My reward in place, I subbed in my new routine into my habit loop. It unfolded like this:

Cue: Tough day at work, I look up from my inbox to see it’s 4 p.m., iced tea o’clock. Time for a treat!

Routine: Walk away from my desk to the coffee shop. Grab an iced tea with a splash of almond milk and some Stevia.

Reward: Ahh! Sweet, sweet iced tea. Pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Success!

Yes, my fellow diet soda fiends, the system works. Miraculously my brain picked up this new flight pattern knowing the reward would be waiting, and I managed to dupe myself into my new MacGruber-ed faux diet soda. The happy ending is that years later I can confidently say I’m in diet soda remission. I can walk past the vending machine with my head held high. 

To all the other diet soda fiends out there I can say, it gets better.

The Change/Acceptance Cycle

Turn And Face the Ch-Ch--Changes

I've returned to Dallas after my month-long visit in Anchorage.

I'm now making the adjustment to the mind-bending three-hour time change. Traveling East is a bear. In the old days, the switch was even more radical -- a four-hour change -- but Alaska actually was forced to change its time zone, permanently, in order to extend its business hours with the East Coast and elsewhere.

I now also have to reset my super-sensitive circadian rhythms which are largely light-based. Those 19.5 hours of daylight in Anchorage were a bit manic -- you tend to stay up waaaaaayyy too late, because -- hey, it's still light outside. The old Alaskan joke is, "Oh, don't go home yet, it's hardly dark."

I've swapped pleasant 70-degree highs for 100-degrees scorchers in only eight short hours of near-miraculous air travel. Then there's the freefall in overall air quality -- towards the end of my visit I was roughed up by a tree pollen explosion in Anchorage, but in Dallas, aside from my year-round pollen, grass, and mold allergies, there's also the added cascade of air pollution from cars and trucks, massive "Orange Alert" loads of ozone, and of course -- the aforementioned source of this debilitating ozone overload -- the oppressive, hot, humid air.

To sum it up -- in the Summer, Dallas is filled with hot poisoned air. If the city ever rations its artificial, air-conditioning life-support system, I will be forced to abandon this Smogalopolis posthaste.

Each time I return from Alaska to Dallas, I re-evalulate my lifestyle here. It's a ritual -- my own personal period of New Year's-styled resolutions.

Yes, once again, it's really time to grow and get my s*** together.

Navigating Change

Resistance is futile. In life, change is one of the few certainties we can count on; we might as well learn to welcome or at least accept it.

If holding on is fruitless anyway, we might as well let go and flow. What if we stopped flailing and struggling, and instead of desperately fighting the current as we try to swim upstream, we just let go and allow the current to take us?

Remember who we are. The part of us that resists and is threatened by change is the ego or personality -- a minuscule part of who we are. Our true, deeper nature is that of cliff-divers. That part of us has been waiting to let go of aspects we have outgrown, looking for the next cliff from which to dive. It knows that a net will appear or, better yet, wings will sprout, allowing us to soar.

Emotions are just energies coursing through our bodies; let's not give them too much power over our lives. We can learn to take charge of them. The energy of fear is very similar in the body to that of excitement. We can reframe our emotions as if flipping a switch, transmuting energy from overwhelm ("OMG, I have nowhere to live as of the end of November and am on the road until the 20th!") to anticipation ("Wow! What a fascinating turn of events... Wonder where I'll land next?").

Trust. There is always a silver lining, always opportunities for growth, learning and expansion. It will all work out somehow, one way or another, and perhaps we don't need to know all the details right now. Maybe that's not our job.

What is our job, then? We take action and participate fully. We make the phone calls, check out the Craigslist posts; we do what we can. We activate and explore possibilities and pay attention to where doors open and opportunities present themselves. We follow where the energy leads, without attachment to outcome.

We learn to abide. Abiding is not passively waiting, but a conscious and alert state of mind. We remain actively aware, looking out for signs, synchronicities, "coincidences," until we have clarity.

Signs may come from surprising sources -- unexpected calls or emails, even billboards or a song on the radio. Tuning in to the signs is a natural process, but one that requires presence and attention.

Going within helps. Take time alone, ideally in nature. This is a time to dive deep and ponder the critical questions: Who am I, really? Why am I here? What kind of legacy do I wish to leave behind? What can I learn from this situation so that I don't have to continue recreating it?

Deep breathing helps to handle stress and gain perspective. Remember: Who we are is so much bigger than the circumstances of our lives.