What a terrible time to make life-affecting decisions the twenties are! Who to marry? How should we know, at age twenty they all look alike to us. Where to live? Well, we only know one town, the place we grew up, so how should we know if other places are better? What should we do for a career? Search us!

But apparently, many of us pick the wrong career. You know because you hear so many forty-year-olds groaning: “This isn’t what I wanted to do!” “Boy, if I knew then what I know now!” “If I had it to do over again, I would have stuck to plumbing like Dad told me to!” and my favorite, “I’m getting too old for this!”, at age 42.

Well, here’s yet another quick career guide. Maybe it will help you, and maybe it won’t. But given how every other method for determining the outcome of your life seems to have the same odds as a coin toss, maybe it won’t be any worse than any other method.

• Step One: Completely eliminate this self defeating phrase from your vocabulary: “It is too late”. Live with how good it feels to change your life perspective. It is never too late to have your own dream career. It might be difficult for you to go after it. It might be one of the greatest challenges of your time, but if you desire it, that is when it is never too late.
• Step Two: Dare to dream, dream big, and dream deep. You do have a dream to call your own? Do you imagine yourself pursuing some other path and working in a brand new career or field? What is it that you see? How do you want to spend your days and weeks? If you already enjoy your career, how could you make it that much better? Brainstorm your ideas on a sheet of paper and think about these questions. If you are spending an inordinate amount of time dreaming about another, different way to work, it is time to do something deterministic about it. You do not have to run right out and quit your current job; in fact, please do not. But there is no harm in investigating the many possibilities.
• Step Three: Take a few moments to design your ideal career life. Now match it with your real life which you have around you. Doing the “wheel of life” exercise is great for this test. With this exercise you can visibly see how much closer your ideal and actual life really is, and determine how comfortable or uncomfortable you are with this new match. Now, design your perfect, ideal day. What would have to change in your life so that you could live more of your dream days? What are you willing to do, how far are you willing to stretch to make it a promising reality?
• Speak with those closest to you about your career ideas and dreams. Ask them to come on the journey of discovery with you, but be sure to listen to and validate their concerns and fears. If you choose to change careers it is likely that you will not be the only one who is impacted. Talk about the other possibilities. Anticipate the obstacles and leave the discussion wide open. Allow your partner the chance to sit with it for a while, and then realize that although you may have spent the past six months or ten years or so wishing you were doing something else, this may come as somewhat of a surprise to this person and you have to let him or her absorb all of it.
• Step Four: Listen to your inner intuition. What do you do better than anybody else? What comes the most naturally to you? What is effortless for you to do? What is the one thing, or many things, you can do today to let your unique gifts and talents shine? What can you do today that will make your heart sing with joy? What is holding you back from it? If you feel some fear about changing your secure situation, what is behind the prohibiting fear? What is the worst that could happen if you decided to make just one single, solitary small change? Choose to do something today that would move you ever closer to your dream day or ideal life and see how that feels to accomplish it. If it works for you, then take another step.
• Step Five: Now that you have asked a lot of these tough questions, answer this for yourself. Where do you want to be in terms of your career in another five or ten years? If you were to fully live your life’s true purpose, what changes would you then have to make? If you were doing the same thing in five years that you are doing now, how would you feel then? What regrets would you have about your path? Is that all right with you? If it is not, do something about it.
• Step Six: Evaluate the barriers that might be getting in the way of your making a defining change. Think about the role that money, expectations, time, confidence, and guilt all play into what you expect of yourself. Now take those factors away and what do you hear that remains? Imagine that you have decided to pursue your inner passions. What is the first step in your journey? Who could you talk to that could help illuminate your goal forward? What does it feel like to live in that personal space for a while? Pay attention to how that dream feels; the more you want it, the more determined you will be to get it!
• Step Seven: Do like they teach in business school, only this time working for yourself, and create an action plan. If you have decided to stay in your current career position, speak with your boss or supervisor and come up with a plan to help you get more skill invested in your work. Maybe you could ask to work on a special project? Or ask to find a way to use your strengths and experience in a new way to pick up new responsibilities. If you have decided to pursue a different career path, identify the necessary steps you need to take to make your dream a reality.

Did it work? Well, if it did, glad to help, and if it didn’t, what did you expect from an online article?

How would you pay your bills by teaching Yoga for a living? Everyone needs a certain amount of income to live on and Yoga teachers are no different. Yoga jobs may not instantly “fall into your lap.” So what can you do to make a painless transition into becoming a Yoga teacher full time?

The keyword is full time because this is a very big step. Most of us got into teaching Yoga gradually, on a part time basis, and gradually built up a student base. This is the safest way to approach teaching Yoga. You get to perfect your teaching skills, while you are an independent contractor working at health clubs, corporate fitness centers, senior centers, ashrams, or Yoga studios.

Some Yoga teachers have home businesses. You may decide to open a small studio in your barn, loft, back yard, garage, den, or a separate building on your property. This is not for everyone and does have a few drawbacks.

Some Yoga teachers may not want to give their students the “run of the house.” Also, some female teachers may feel uncomfortable with male students in their homes. Think about this scenario: When you have a home business, it is hard to separate business time from personal time.

Let’s say you decided to take Memorial Day off. Memorial Day is always celebrated on a Monday. You tell all of your students class is canceled, but one on them drives up for a Yoga class on Monday evening, at the usual time.

You have family visiting and explain that there is no Yoga class tonight. Now, you feel uncomfortable because your forgetful Yoga student does not remember it is a holiday, until you tell him or her. Do you think this could never happen? Think again, and you would be surprised how many times you may be “on call.”

Home businesses have the advantage of no commute, low overhead, and convenience for the Yoga teacher. However, the drawbacks of being expected to teach anytime can make a home based Yoga studio inconvenient. If you decide to go this route, make sure you draw the line when it comes to your personal time.

Back to getting part time work as a Yoga teacher: Many Yoga teachers gradually build their student base to a point where there is a decision to bring in a partner, limited partner, junior partner, hire an employee, jump into teaching full time, or stop at a few Yoga teaching assignments per week.

You see – The final decision is up to you, and only you know, whether you want to keep teaching Yoga on the side or expand into teaching Yoga full time.

© Copyright 2006 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Do you enjoy practicing Yoga? Does teaching Yoga seem like your ultimate dream job? Does the thought of becoming a Yoga teacher feel like a “calling from within?” How would you pay your bills teaching Yoga? If your life mission is becoming a Yoga teacher; let’s look at a few practical solutions to your obstacles.

If you feel like a “fish in water” during a Yoga class you are not alone. However, when teaching Yoga becomes your own long-held aspiration, your spirit will not be fulfilled in the “daily grind.” You begin to feel frustrated in commuter traffic, and during office hours, when your dream job of teaching Yoga seems out of reach. So what do you do next – if you really want to become a Yoga teacher?

Apparently, you are focused on your goal, so you are far ahead of the majority of people who do not have a clue about what they really want. Here is a formula, and sequence of events, for you to consider: Focus, action, plan, envision, pace yourself, and goal realization.

Focus: It seems like you already are focused on becoming a Yoga teacher, but you should do some research on what teaching Yoga is really like. The types of Yoga teacher training courses will vary, according to style, hours required, on-site training, or correspondence course. Also, the preparation for a 90-minute Yoga class is something the average Yoga student is unaware of.

Action: Most of the world’s population never gets to this point. Most people fall into a “rut” and never take any action to move forward. This requires even more research about what you plan to do, how you plan to teach Yoga, and who you plan to teach Yoga to.

Plan: Write your goals down and only share them with people you can trust. Look at your goal of becoming a Yoga teacher as often as possible. Write down the exact chain of events required for you to become a Yoga teacher.

Envision: Visualization is important in reaching any goal. When you practice meditation, you should see, feel, hear, and possibly smell, what your new career of teaching Yoga will be like.

Pace Yourself: There is a saying, “Rome was not built in a day.” If you try to get to your goal of teaching Yoga too quickly, you will “burn out” along the way. Life is a journey, not a race; “stop and smell the flowers” along the way.

Goal Realization: Once you become a Yoga teacher, do not “rest on your laurels.” Continuing education will be an important and valuable part of your life. A Yoga teacher is a student of healthy living for life.

© Copyright 2006 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Every time the economy expands or dips, executives who are tired, bored, displaced, or in search of above-market earnings come out of the barn in droves looking for “greener pastures”. They frequently assume that their experiences running a “real” company qualify them to provide insight and expertise as a consultant to other companies. Meanwhile, consultants looking for financial stability have thoughts of going corporate. Consultants are often confident of their abilities to lead organizations. Who could be better qualified than them to run a company from the inside? After all, they have been the guiding hand for many companies strategic, financial and technology direction. They have been trusted counsel for their top executives. Unfortunately, grazing in the other “greener” pasture is more complicated that it seems on the surface.What Life as a Consultant is LikeThe defining characteristics of the consulting environment are remarkably similar from firm to firm, regardless of whether it is a large global firm or a small local firm. First and foremost, at a senior level, success is based on the generation of sales revenue. Dollars equal power.As a consultant, engagements are driven by thought leadership and strategy. Your clients typically have a list of problems that need to be solved — and the list changes frequently. Corporate decision-makers assure that consultants have special access to people and resources. After all, they have already or will shortly write a very large check for their services.From a delivery perspective, work is often standardized and methodology-based. Engagements have a beginning, an end, and a defined scope. Often little or no responsibility for implementation or outcomes is specified. But, there are some exceptions. Certain contractual arrangements have shared responsibility for results and that is reflected in the fee. Secondly, the consultant handles implementation of a system or process. However, once it is “done,” the consultant still leaves and doesn’t have to live with the consequences. Supervision and personnel responsibility is usually limited to performance on the project by the team members.Should You Be a Consultant?* Are you energized by smart people doing interesting work?* Do you enjoy a continuously shifting landscape of new problems to solve?* Are you easily bored?* Do you like providing “advice and counsel” with little responsibility for operational activities or outcomes?* Is selling fun? Do you like the thrill of the chase?* Do you enjoy socializing and building a network of contacts?What Life as a Corporate Executive is LikeIn corporations, whether public or private, profitability and shareholder value are the bottom line. For most executives, success is based on contribution to operating results. Organizational leadership, from vision to planning through execution, drives performance. Decision-making and risk taking, with accountability for choices, is fundamental. Outcomes are everything. Activities are heavily implementation and results driven. Few projects are intellectually stimulating. Most of the work of the organization is continuous and predominantly operational. Much is policy and procedurally based. There is a broad distribution of people in a corporation, with a tendency to gather around the mean in intelligence, motivation and interest in their work. Comprehensive personnel management is required by line and most staff executives to maximize the contribution of all employees in the company.Should You Become a Corporate Executive?* Do you like being on the front lines, directing others, making choices?* Do you like to see things through to the end?* Do you gain personal satisfaction from positive, measurable results that you had a significant role in delivering?* Can you keep focus on the long-term while dealing with tactical and operational concerns?* Are you willing to stand behind your decisions and be accountable for and part of outcomes with continuing consequences?* As an insider, can you gain the respect of others for your business acumen?* Are you energized by motivating and leading groups of people to successful achievement of common goals?* Do others follow you and support you?How to Align Yourself with the Career Choice You Make If you are a consultant and still think you are a candidate for a change to a corporation, consider whether you are most suited for a consulting-like role or for an operating leadership position. Your business acumen, facilitation ability, and communication skills are key skills that will be valuable in a corporate role. If you are an executive and still want to try your hand at consulting, consider whether you are most suited for a partner (translate that sales) role or for delivery management (translate that project or multiple projects). Your experience of making things work in the real world and your ability to negotiate complex organizations will be helpful in a consulting role. Remember, both consulting and executive roles have challenges and rewards. Neither is as easy as it looks from the outside, looking in. As long as you find the one that works for you, you will be where the grass is greenest.