My illusions of success… Simmering and then dying OR Bubbling with Life!

Read on for more….. The story of someone who came to me recently….

I was walking into my office on a Monday morning and I had this sudden urge to turn back and go home. The same old building, the same entrance, the same colleagues, the same cup of tea, the same cubicle, the same routine, the same stories, the same work…! Heck!

What happened to what I really wanted to do. When I first joined this company, on the first day, I still remember I had stars in my eyes. My introduction to my team sounded exciting, my job and my cabin looked so cool and reeked of Power and that foreseeable taste and smell of winning and achievement. I had switched my company as the role sounded great and I was rearing to go. It was a prestigious role, way more critical to my life than anything else I had ever done!

Then what happened in the last 4 years?

I remember when on the second weekend after joining, I felt that weekends cannot be off as there was too much work. I was working at a crazy pace, lunch in the evening, dinner at midnight. Wasn’t sure when I slept! I had started giving my life and soul to my work. I should have been enjoying my work then.. Right? I should have been feeling appreciated and satisfied and happy, right? The stars should have been twinkling, right? Alas! No! The stars were not twinkling. On the contrary! They had started to incinerate me in the process.

People at home now were upset. I barely saw them or spoke with them. Sometimes, I didn't even feel like going home as the feeling of dejection or failure was writ large on my face! I had a dream: Sometime in life, I wanted to help old people live a life of dignity, fun, value, self respect and love. I had thought that I would spend 2 to 3 hours every weekend thinking this idea through. Forget, the dream, I wasn’t able to spend time with my parents and in-laws also.

I thought I would gain as much experience as I could in the area of social work. I deliberately took up a CSR role in a large corporate so that I could connect with like minded people and organizations to learn more about social service. Little did realize that, slowly my role involved more of lip service and false publicity in the name of CSR. I got so involved that I lost track of what I always wanted to do. It was then that I started to go to work with heavy feet and an equally heavy heart! I came back home also with even heavier feet and a sadness and disappointment-soaked heart!

This is not why I came to this world. I didn’t want to quit the job world, that was for sure! But neither was my goal or aim. Over the last 4 years, where did my dreams, conviction, and the ability to segregate right from wrong disappear? I could have done something to make immense meaning of my job too, but now I feel I just let it go! I let it go because I started to feel that It was tough for a single person to pursue these kind of dreams. I lost trust in myself and gave up way too soon. I didn’t reach out for help. Just turned inwards and wallowed in self pity, felt lost and dejected and got caught in that spiral of self inflicted blames of failure.

I have reached out now and life has started to look up bit by bit! There is a spring in my step. I started to make changes at my workplace. My team looks up and sees a happy, confident and excited face. The old me had gone!

If I had to summarize the few things that I had to do to make this change…

* I froze and crystallized my dream and then broke it into bite sized dreamlets and took help.

* I analysed where I was going wrong and rectified the steps. * Reworked my entire plan and discussed it thread bare with people in my environment.

* Starting focussing on quick wins and sought help from my family too

* Reviewed my progress every week.. Some weeks I hadn’t done anything but that instilled a deeper resolve to do what I wanted to!! Other weeks I celebrated.

* Started putting forth my ideas with conviction at work and the turnaround was miraculous! I wasn’t intimidated by people with stronger ideas, and I learnt how to convince others to do genuinely progressive work! What a change! I now sing and dance when I reach a milestone!

I purposefully started to move towards what I wanted to do. My present and the future seems to be nicely tied together.

My Illusions of Success are bubbling with life now! Wonder why I did not do this earlier!!