Happiness CCVII
Every new challenge you encounter is an opportunity for excellence.
Every new challenge you encounter is an opportunity for excellence.
Pushing beyond your boundaries, looking for the next, and realizing that there are none.
Sometimes it’s hard to let go of what we do. What I mean is that it can be hard sharing everything that you know, and teach other people what your job entails. The natural reaction is to hang on to that knowledge, be the expert, the guru that can do it all.
However, are you getting any real new chances, or does everyone believe that because you’re too valuable doing what you’re doing that they don’t send opportunities in your direction? Holding on too tight to what you know can be detrimental to learning and growing. Sometimes it’ll keep you from being able to try new things.
Hand it over
In order to gain real traction to take advantage of new opportunities, you need to start offloading what you’ve been doing. It’s time to stretch yourself, challenge your skills with something outside your comfort zone. To do that, you’re going to need to have more time to focus and learn. You can’t do that holding onto what you do today. It’s time to start mentoring those that want your job.
Create Change
To get started, you’ll need to create an environment for this change. You have new habits to learn, and you should talk with your manager so they know what your plans are. Odds are your company already has much of this in place, it’s your job to step in and let them know that you’re interested in something new. By letting your managers know that you’re interested, and by doing things like sharing knowledge and cross training staff you show that your serious about it too.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work, and it takes time to get it done. However, it’s very rewarding to see people perk up at the opportunity to learn something new. They’ll be more receptive to your ideas and you’ll find interactions with co-workers be less stressful if you’re sharing.
Sharing
This is true of nearly every successful person. Sharing knowledge and enabling others to achieve their goals makes you a valuable person. More so than if you hang onto that guru-level knowledge, keeping it for yourself in a vain attempt to make you indispensable. Sharing makes you more valuable because it demonstrates your ability to learn new things and convey them to others – teaching. Over time, you also learn the art of delegation, how to distribute workload to associates tasked with assisting you. This allows you to focus on more forward looking work – the fun stuff.
So letting go of the control over the knowledge you’ve accumulated for your job can be beneficial. There are many variations and taking some leadership, organizational, interpersonal, and project management skills classes is a must to facilitate the change you’re looking for. Just don’t be afraid of sharing that hard-won knowledge. The rewards you reap for stepping out and taking the lead will be greater than staying where you were.
Photo credit: Radvixen
Ever wonder where your enthusiasm goes after you’ve had an ‘aha!’ moment? You know, the moment when it all seems so clear. The one moment where you find the path through all the clutter, the distractions, the inhibition, the self-conscience fears?
That is (right or wrongly) what I’ve been calling the Aha! moment for myself. It’s happened more often this year than any other in my life, and it’s more frustrating then I can describe. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. I keep wondering how to leverage that moment, how to capture the thoughts. Obviously it’s time to keep a journal at hand and jot these ideas down when they come along.
I guess the big question I have is what do you do with your Aha! moments after they’ve passed? Do you try to work with the new thoughts, use them to improve yourself? Do they lead you to follow your dreams? Have you begun to question ‘why?’ a bit more because of them?
Obviously I’m asking more questions than I used to. The real measurement is if I’m growing (improving) from what I’m learning about myself and my worldview. That’s something I’ll find out later as I keep following the trail these Aha! moments reveal.
How about you – do you work to learn from your Aha! moments?
This is a difficult post for me, and an exciting one as well. There are many good times that I’ll remember from working at Michael Foods, and I have to admit that I’m going to miss working with such a great group of people. Anyone looking to join Michael Food’s IT department couldn’t look for a better team of people – seriously, the people are great and the environment is a good one – don’t hesitate.
So why am I leaving? Because it’s time. I’ve been with Michael Foods for a total of 9 years, the first two as a contract employee, the remaining as an FTE. The experiences have been numerous and varied. It is simply time for me to take the next step in my career – my goals no longer match the needs of the position I held, I simply need more room to grow in the directions I want to pursue. Simple as that.
So, to my former coworkers, and friends that I leave behind on a day to day basis I need to say goodbye. I’m sure that I’ll get a number of calls and questions on a number of topics, but for many I’ll probably not be in touch. While this is a shame, I look forward to the possibilities of working with any of my former coworkers again someday in the future. Simply to all, I want to say thank you.
There have also been many, several people that I want to thank individually – and I couldn’t fit it all in my goodbye email, so here it goes.
Again, to everyone else I’ve worked with at Michael Foods, both in IT and the business – thank you for 9 great years. It will not be forgotten. Best wishes to you and your future endeavors.
Bring It On
Sincerely,
Rick Mahn