Education

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” – Thomas Alva Edison

I traveled out of town recently for a four-day visit with extended family. Knowing that we would be spending our time enjoying each other’s company, I packed light and brought very little work with me. Yet, during my first day of travel, I received an intriguing email. It was a professional opportunity with a time-sensitive element. I decided I wanted to respond, but realized I would need immediate access to two pieces I had written several months ago on my office computer.

Bingo! Despite being seven hundred miles away from my office, I realized I had instant access to the files. At the advice of my tech consultant last year, I began saving all of my documents online rather than on the specific computer I was using to create them. My greatest motivation, at the time, had been the ability to access a document from different computers while I was still working on it.

Training myself to follow that one tip, though, ensured that I had everything I needed when an unexpected opportunity arose. Once I landed at our destination, I pulled up the documents I needed, drafted a response, and sent everything on its way. With that handled, I was able to return my full attention to spending time with my loved ones.

Make sure you are prepared when opportunity knocks! To learn more about storing your documents online, read this helpful article.

 

 

Ask any writer the ‘secret to her success,’ and she will likely tell you the same thing. “Show up.” I am a huge advocate for road maps, strategic plans, and anything that helps set the intention for where you want to go. Yet, sometimes we hit a point where we are not entirely sure what our next step is. We know we need to write something, but we aren’t sure what we need to say. Or, as one client recently told me, “I know I need a career change, but I have no idea what I want to do!”

Sometimes, taking one small step in some direction helps clarify where we do (or do not) want to go. The key to this is being willing to engage in some type of action before we feel complete confidence. The other essential ingredient is engaging with enough grace and openness that we are able to see when miracles unfold.

Having just wrapped up several video blog series, I found myself wondering what would be the best content to include for a written professional blog update. Taking my own advice, I finally sat down, despite my lack of clarity, and began writing. The first draft I wrote was a descriptive narrative that told a story I wanted to share, but felt stiff and forced. I changed formats and experimented with writing the story as a poem. Bingo! The poem expressed, concisely, fourteen years of personal history with the depth and breadth of emotion I wanted to convey. It did not, however, fit within the structure or purpose of my professional blog. Yet, the process I traveled through in sitting down to write, giving myself the grace and patience to move through a few different drafts, and the final product that you are reading now did answer the original objective. In addition to having a professional blog update, I also have a new poem in hand. (I’m happy to share the poem with anyone who would like to read it. Just send me an email request with “Fourteen Years” in the subject line.)

Hopefully, my client will choose to tell you her own story of miracles here soon. For now, let’s just say that within a couple weeks of her choosing to take action, despite feeling neither clear nor confident, a new door of unexpected opportunity flew open! I look forward to seeing how her path unfolds.

Wishing you a wonderful week!

Sarah