Whatever you want to achieve this year (and beyond), you have to be intentional about.
What’s luck got to do with it?
So many stories of success seem to have an element of “luck”. It just seems like things just fell into place for this wildly successful person that you happen to emulate, look up to, or want to model your life around.When I was a bit younger I thought it was ridiculous how many of these stories just seemed like “being in the right place at the right time”. I rubbished the fact that I too could be successful because I didn’t see how I could achieve this “luck”.
But, we can create this “luck” by being more intentional. If we want something we have to work towards it, align our lives in such a way that we begin to present our own opportunities.
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While doing my Masters program I quit my job as a sports reporter. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was done but I knew FOR SURE that I did not want to continue in media.
So, I did the things I loved, I volunteered as a communications intern with a local non-government organization (NGO). I wasn’t there very long before I got another opportunity to be an intern at the United Nations Environment Program. Through doing what I loved, while freelancing (because these volunteer gigs were all unpaid) I realized that I was passionate about two things – helping people (through advocacy) – which I fulfilled through the first internship; and learning more about the human impact on the environment – which I did in the second.
Be open to the lessons
Sometimes you have to take a pause. Just top doing “things” to be able to see where your new path lies. The path you’ve always wanted. While I was working at the radio station as a sports reporter I dreamt about doing advocacy work and potentially working for the United Nations. It was scary to quit my job, do a Master’s, try my hand at freelancing, and seek out volunteer opportunities that seemed more in line with what I wanted to do. Looking back at it all it’s so funny because I thought media was exactly what I wanted because it would allow me to effect change in people’s live on a mass scale – even if it was just sharing scores for the latest games. But it only took a year or so for me to realize that while this job BARELY paid the bills (and I was still living with my parents ! ), the only reason I would continue to do it was out of necessity. I stayed for a bit longer because I really liked my coworkers, but the overwhelming nudge to leave became something I could no longer ignore.
Be open to the lessons, even when you think that you are living your dream. Because shortly after this when I started working with the UN Environment Program – for a 3-month stint as an intern in the Communications, Education, Training and Awareness department – something I had wanted to do all my life, I realized that working with the UN was not what I wanted either. I had volunteered with a local grassroots organization – one that really had its hands on the ground working directly with affected groups – before the UN internship and I realized that that kind of advocacy was what I wanted. I wanted to be at the site of the wound, bot in a glass office prescribing remedies for wounds I had never seen.
Then as I was closer to completing my master’s degree, but not that much closer to figuring out how to approach this new realization that I wanted to use my skillset in a more impactful way – I got a call. I got a call, from the NGO I volunteered with first saying they had a position open and I would be perfect for it. This job turned out to be one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done in my life. I had cultivated my own “luck”.
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It was a hard decision to leave a paying job, especially while studying, but I knew that I did not see myself there. I took a leap and did some volunteering. Of course, I would have preferred to do a lot of other things that essentially work for free, but even for those few hours a day I felt alive. I felt like I was making some kind of change and I was meeting interesting people, who would impact my life forever.
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“I’m not motivated”, and other Millennial musings
Move in the direction of your goals
We have to move in the direction of our goals, even if we don’t know what we want YET – we can move away from what we are sure we don’t want. So, even in setting goals for the year now I am very intentional about what I write down. I used to have a long list of things I wanted to DO…but now I focus on who I want to BE at the end of the year. I keep the list shorter – because if I am focusing on being better I can do small things overtime, I don’t need to do everything at once especially since You never stop growing and learning.
Download this FREE resource to start planning the year you dreamed about ⬇️:
Goals template