Was your training worth the effort?

May 8, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
9 Comments

I left school at the age of 15 and for the next four years undertook a cooking apprenticeship.  I’m a qualified chef but apart from doing most of the cooking at home I don’t use my training in my job as a radio announcer.

I’m wondering how many people use their original career training in their current careers. Are you working in the industry you began your working life?

Please vote in the poll and then leave a few thoughts in the comments section of this post.



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How to make resolutions that work

December 31, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
5 Comments

2009.jpgYou might think you’re making New Year’s Resolutions but are you really just compiling a wish list?

Did you make a well intentioned list of resolutions at the start of 2008 which have failed to bear fruit? Could you take last year’s list and simply change the 2008 on the top of the list to 2009?

How do you make resolutions that work? What’s the difference between New Year’s Resolutions and a wish list?

I’ve had an Amazon Wish List for quite some time. It’s a list of things I’d like, but simply listing those things doesn’t mean anything unless I, or someone else, decides to take action and buy someting from the list. The stuff on the list now is the same as the stuff that was there when I created it. Wishing doesn’t make it happen.

If I say that I want to lose weight in 2009 that’s a wish. If I set out a sensible weight loss strategy with achievable short and long term goals though the year it’s a resolution.

If I say I’d like to make family time more of a priority this year, it’s a wish. If I book time in my diary and plan to give up activities that would otherwise get in the way of that happening, that’s a resolution.

If I say I’d like to read more over the next twelve months, that’s a wish. If I select some books, create a reading plan and then move other activities out of the way to give me the time to read, that’s a resolution.

Resolutions need a concrete action plan with achievable, measurable goals. It can also be helpful to find someone who will keep you accountable to your goals. Maybe there’s someone with a similar goal or resolution who will work with you so that you can both achieve your plans. It might be someone who is already doing well in an area in which you’d like to improve. Ask them to help keep you moving towards your goal and to give you any advice you need to get there.

The other thing to keep in mind is that if we’re making lifestyle changes we’ll probably fail now and then. The aim is to keep going rather than just throwing in the towel the first time you trip up. Even if you don’t reach your goals at the set time, you’ll still be further down the track if you get up after a setback, dust yourself off, and start moving in the right direction again.

If you are going to see 2009 as an opportunity for change you might like to break down your resolutions into various categories such as Health and Fitness, Spirituality, Family and Relationships, Finance, Career and other areas that touch your life.

Who do you want to be on the first of January 2010? What will you do during 2009 to make that a reality?

As 2008 draws to a close, are you going to make resolutions or a wish list for 2009?



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Living with Regret

July 18, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
8 Comments

If a new survey is correct, you’re probably dissatisfied with your career or study choices.

This story from The Sydney Morning Herald suggests that a lot of Australians are unhappy with the way things have turned out for them. The findings come from a worldwide survey undertaken by global recruitment firm Kelly Services.

Among the key findings of the survey, 71 per cent of Australians wished they had studied further while 48 per cent wished they had studied something totally different.

Another 16 per cent said they chose the wrong career, while 25 per cent were still unsure about their career choice.

The global survey sought the views of 115,000 people in 33 countries including almost 19,000 in Australia.

It wasn’t only Aussies who were found to be regretting their choices.

Australia ranked in the middle of the 33 countries with 50 per cent happy with the way the country’s education system prepared them for working life, slightly higher than the global average of 49 per cent.

So are you happy with how things are turning out for you? Do you think you’re in the right career or that you undertook enough study to get you where you want to be? If you could do it all again, would you?

The ache of regret

Regret is an interesting thing. Our regrets are often based on an unreal idea of ‘what might have been’. We become dissatisfied with an area of life and decide that life would be so much better ‘if only’. If only I’d studied more. If only I’d taken that other job. If only I’d married sooner. If only I’d stayed single. If only I’d traveled more. If only ….. and the list goes on.

Of course we really have no way of telling if life would have been any better or worse if we’d taken a different path so it’s an unfair comparison. It’s a comparison that will never let us see our life in a positive light because our imagination tells us that other choices would have turned out so much better. It’s a comparison that will prevent us from living this moment and moving forward. Regret can be such a damaging and paralysing thing.

Regret can be a helpful thing when it informs our choices for the future and lets us move on but when it holds us to the past it can steal our joy and destroy our lives.

If I had to start all over again there would probably be a few things I’d change but when I look at how life is working out I’m pretty satisfied. That doesn’t mean that things are perfect or that nothing goes wrong in my life. There have been ups and downs but my life is full of people I love and it doesn’t get much better than that?

I guess a lot of it comes down to whether we let life’s circumstances hold us back and dictate the way we see life. If we start regretting our choices every time life throws up some kind of difficulty we’ll be disappointed most of the time.

I like what Paul said when he was writing to the Philippians.

I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Are there regrets you need to let go? Is it time you stopped living with ‘what might have been’ and started living with ‘what’s still to come’?



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