I heard this quote recently when watching a Ted Talk by Tim Ferris called Why you should define your fears instead of your goals and it feels like the perfect quote for career development:
“Easy choices, hard life.
Hard choices, easy life.”
Jerzy Gregorek
What Ferris meant by this was you need to face and define your fears to get to the life, or in this case the career, that you want to get to. He said the biggest challenges and problems we face will never be solved by comfortable conversations. And that includes the internal dialogue you have with yourself.
When it comes to career development and being the best you can be you can do the work of identifying what you love and what you’re great at, basically become very clear on what you want and what makes you happy in your career, and focus in that direction. I’m a complete advocate for identifying, understanding and following your strengths for a fulfilled career.
That said, you will still encounter set backs, challenges and hurdles. I’m not aware of anyone who hasn’t. This, to me, means that resilience, drive and continual development are key to strengthening your professional self, your professional brand and guide your own potential and career motivation.
Going back to the quote above, this can often mean facing your fears, making choices that are the best choices for you but understanding and accepting that these choices may be hard choices that may also scare the life out of you. When you do that, when you learn how to walk through the discomfort and fear and keep yourself composed, will those hard choices lead to an easy life? Personally I agree with Jerzy Gregorek and Tim Ferris, “hard choices, easy life.”
What is an “easy” life for you’? What hard career development choices do you need to make?
What you need to determine for yourself is what is an “easy life” for you?
Staying in a company because its easy, the hours are good, you know the job inside out and you don’t have to face the fear of starting fresh and not knowing everything, is that an easy or hard choice? Easy. Does that easy choice lead you to a truly easy life? Or does it keep you from fulfilling your potential, bringing out the best in yourself, potentially earning more money and having more influence to have a real impact on positive change? Or do the hard career development choices, the stepping out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to make choices and attempts at efforts that aren’t guaranteed to succeed and pay off, do those hard choices lead you to the easy life? The life and career that is fulfilling, makes an impact, give you the flexibility and freedom you want and access to the opportunities you would love?
Resilience, drive and hard choices are a winning combination.
Over to You
What hard choices do you need to make for an easy life ?
Originally published at www.nicolaclemmitconsultancy.com