Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

June 25, 2007

Change the World: Start a New Job

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 6:12 am

Change My Job with a Thought

Change the World!

Ever hear someone talk about a brand new job? Whenever I do, it takes be back to those nice first day of school feelings.

Life seems light. The world is fresh. Even the kids that that we knew from last year start to look and act better. Everything is new beginnings — new desk, new paper, new pens, new problems to solve, new ways to solve them, a chance to see what I can do. New jobs are like that.

I bring myself back from the new job fantasy by recalling how long it takes to get familiar in a new place. Every new job takes time to learn the culture, the people, and how to get things done when I need to. That’s a lot to give up once you’ve gotten there.

New beginnings are wonderful and fresh, but being around a while offers the relationships, credibility, and support of a familiar place. I want the values of both without lose the downside of each.

I wanted that enough that I figured out how to make it happen. The trick is to blend the old and the new together.

All it took was a change in the way that I see.

Today, I start a new job, doing the job that I did last week. I let go. I wipe the slate clean. I imagine that I inherited this busy desk from the busy person before me. It’s a good feeling to put that distance between now and Friday.

All of the tasks on this desk held no romance for the person who sat here on Friday. But the new me walks into this job looking at them as filled with promise and so exciting.

Thoughts of someone who isn’t delivering turn from an ongoing headache into the challenge and opportunity that a fresh mind sees. That situation has just become information the person previously in this job shared before leaving. It’s simply a fact on my radar that has no past feelings attached to it. The problem solver in me knows that I’m more than ready to smile into a new approach.

A clean slate is like the first day of school filled with new beginnings– new desk, new paper, new pen, new problems to solve, new ways to solve them, a chance to see what I can do. I take a new look and my old job becomes new like that too.

The people I work with notice that I’ve got a new outlook and soon they have one too.

I’m taking a new job to work with me today. I can feel it already.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.


Filed under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog |



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8 Comments to “Change the World: Start a New Job”

  1. June 25th, 2007 at 6:30 am
    Karin H. said

    Morning Liz

    Don’t forget where the person from last week filed the files though ;-)
    Otherwise your new job stumbles the first hour.

    Like the idea of new starts, a new fresh look at the job every week. This way you can even find new, better, practical, efficient ways to do them.

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  2. June 25th, 2007 at 7:46 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Karin,
    In my case, that person from last week didn’t file the files, that’s why she’s gone. :)

    The new me needs a new look to feel ready to clean up what that person left. :)

  3. June 25th, 2007 at 7:47 am
    jarleh said

    I’m all for new beginnings :-)

  4. June 25th, 2007 at 7:48 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Jarieh!
    Welcome. Yeah, new beginnings can be sweet. :)

  5. June 25th, 2007 at 10:26 am
    gp said

    your intrepid innkeeper gets a smile out of this. We had guests last eve and usually mondays are a set sort of routine… NOT

    They arrived and seemed real nice although she was nursing a bout of altitude tummy.. nothing that a glass of Cab Sauv probably didnt hurt. And as I looked at them i reminded myself.. who I see walking in the door, is not who walks out. True enough , while still a bit queasy, they came up for the breakfast, more like relatives visiting… ah, success again with “come as a guest, leave as a friend”.

    Monday looks different today 2
    gp in montana returning to her load of laundry

  6. June 25th, 2007 at 10:41 am
    ME Strauss said

    Ah GP!
    I can see you smiling! You’re going to romance me there yet! :)

  7. June 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
    Chris Brogan... said

    I’ve done this a slightly different way ,but really more a matter of semantics. I’ve worked with a project-only focus on all my jobs, such that everything has a discrete start and end. This has helped me realize that it’s not forever, not ongoing, and that I can finish a project and move to the next piece.

    I’m very compartmental that way. At least mental. : )

  8. June 25th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Chris,
    Yep that would be the same thing. Well, maybe with a little more head involved. :)

    I find when I get too project focused. I forget about the people and then they remind me that they are people. :)

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