As you begin your day, what’s the first thing that comes into your mind? Is it the same thing every day, or are your thoughts random? Maybe it’s a little of both.
Now, what comes to mind when you think about your work? First word. Say it out loud. Maybe shout it. Particularly, if no one else is around.
At any given time, research shows that we can think about four different topics at once. Similarly, we can only remember three or four things at a time. Yet during any given day, approximately 60,000 thoughts cross our minds.
That’s a lot to think about.
When we look internally at our careers, oftentimes it’s the day to day, hour to hour, or maybe even minute to minute which most often gets our attention. We analyze what’s in front of us; assignments, deadlines, meetings, customers. Our thoughts may even be about the mundane; office supplies, upgrading the WI-FI, ordering coffee pods. We may sit down and consciously develop or adjust our business plans a couple of times each year or schedule our calendars out for six to twelve months, but we probably spend the majority of our time trying to maintain positive outcomes on a day-by-day basis.
With tens of thousands of thoughts running across our brains in any given 24-hour period, it’s amazing what we accomplish. Remind yourself of that when you feel a deadline crunch or tell yourself that you just can’t jump onto one more Zoom meeting. That you’re not giving it one hundred and ten percent. That there are days when you’re phoning it in.
If you’re reading this, you ARE killing it. You are thinking about your profession, your career, and what’s next on the proverbial check list. It might be the job in front of you. New next steps. Or a drastic change.
Think about it.
Categories: Consequence