What do you want?

Boss:"We need to talk.... it's not good news...... I am sorry to say this, BUT (the infamous BUT) it's not you it's the economy, we will do everything we can to make it easy..........."

Employee: - "??????????"

A conversation similar to the above can trigger what is known as the Kubler Ross personal model of change; firstly we can experience denial, then anger, followed by bargaining and depression, eventually a form of acceptance. It is fair to say some people experience all elements for longer periods than others, whilst it is possible to move quickly through to acceptance and then move on, however varying all the time depending on the individual.

When presented with such personal change, hearing the news that our job is gone, we are no longer required, and we are being paid to the end of the month, we start to ask a lot of questions, such as;

Why me? (Johnny Logan syndrome)
What am I going to do now? ("silly Mc Donalds ads")
How do I tell my family and friends? ("they do'nt talk to me anyway")
How can I survive without a salary? ("silly Mc Donalds ads")

We can spend a lot of time engineering very creative answers to the above questions and potentially keeping ourselves in the lower end of the Kubler Ross change model.However, what about if we were to add some new questions?

What do I want to do now? - "not sure"
What are my goals? - "maybe get out of bed early every morning"
What would EXCITE me? - "get revenge on the boss"
How? - "Hmm that's a good question"

The neurological response to something like "hmm that's a good question" is believe it or not thinking.....Instead of revenge, what about if we thought about all those things that excite us and how we may be able to apply our skills and knowledge to that end.

To help with the "What would excite me?" question here are a couple of suggestions;

Dublin City Enterprise Board are running a coffee morning for those considering starting a new business - check out http://www.dceb.ie/news/do-you-know-someone-made-recently-unemployed-and-thinking-of-starting-a-business

I met Brian from the Digital Hub today, he mentioned they are working with Enterprise Ireland to provide support and office space for ITC/Digital Media start up's in the Digital Hub, keep an eye on their website for details (I will post information as and when I receive it) http://www.thedigitalhub.com/

Coming up with ideas can be difficult, we sometimes need to learn how to play all over again. There is an event taking place in http://d-lightstudios.com/ on Tuesday 6th of May at 6.30pm, it is called Playgroup - A Creative Get Together. I think this is a really unique idea and well worth a visit.DCEB have some more details http://www.dceb.ie/news/playgroup-~-creative-get-together

I am no exercise guru, however I do believe getting out in the fresh air can have such an impact on our state of mind and overall performance. I have mentioned this group before, I will personally check it out tomorrow and report back http://everydayisasaturday.info/

Some of you may have heard of Robin Sharma, he has written amongst other books, "The monk who sold his Ferrari" and "The Greatness Guide". He will be in Dublin next week, Thursday 7th May, check out http://www.celticguru.com/ . A tad pricey if you are on a budget, however he certainly is inspirational (personal opinion having followed successnation.com and read The Greatness Guide).


Just remember -

"Minds are like parachutes – they only function when they open."
– Lord Tomas Dewas