Is an intense and financially rewarding career misleading you?

Regret and realization are two words never used in the present tense, only the past, and this is unfortuate as we would be undoubtably better off if we could access them as a guide to the future. What I want to say is that only after a result has occurred that we do not want does the emotion of regret become realizable in our minds and then we start with the attempted emotional salvage, consisting of 'next time I'll do.." or "I should have or could have done....".

In my experience, based on my studies and work with clients, key drivers of regret always stem from (but not restricted to) a lack of purpose in what is being done (leading to low motivation), lack of clarity (meaning no vision of clear goals or objectives) and lack of refined knowledge and skill (that you are not so useful and have served little purpose to the community and society). No one wants to face the emotion of regret and it can manifest into a darker path if not addressed but the challenge is to be aware of the direction your life is taking and take the appropriate steps to make change where necessary.

Many clients come to me already mentally exhausted and emotionally weakened because they have just come to the conclusion that the direction they are taking in life is not want they want. I'm told because of the 12-16 hour days and large financial rewards that they never really had time in their 20's or even 30's to stop and assess where their life was heading and it's purpose. When they do stop and assess they don't always like what they find and even worse, where it is heading. As Maslow, an eminent psychologist hypothesized, it is every humans' goal to achieve a state of self-actualization and purpose, and this may appear at any time. What you want at 45 is different to that at 35 and definitely different to that at 25. Whilst you can change your mind in an instant, changing your life's direction can take considerably longer - thus need for pre planning and consideration.

Life management is about defining and managing your personal brand and identity in society - and on a continual basis as society evolves around us. Now whilst there is not yet any scientific approach to this process there are some obvious steps you can take; work with a life coach and psychologist to understand your values and motivations, identify your key interests and passions, know and understand your personality (refer to Myers Briggs) and from common sense point of view, dress and act as you would want to be perceived. Clean up your online profile and manage that the same as you would manage yourself in the real world. What this will provide you with is a basis for your being and create a framework of the principles within which you want to live your life.

The key point I want to make is that you need to be consciously aware of the path you are taking in life and the purpose you have. Hoping it will all turn out is simply giving up control of your existence to fate and losing control of your life is not an emotional state you want to experience

Would you use an 'expert' if they knew only a little more than you?

There are experts offering services in pretty much all areas of our lives and as non-experts we use them to achieve goals in particular areas of focus. There are experts in accounting, recruitment, investment, tax, personal development, relationships, law, health...the list goes on and on. Now the basis for being an expert is generally two things, either one or both; accumulation of knowledge based on study and application of skill due to experience.

Now you would expect an 'expert' to be much better and a whole lot more knowledgeable then you are in a particular area before agreeing to utilize their services. Why? Because they cost a lot and you need a quality result - otherwise why use them in the first place. However what I have determined recently however is that many people claiming to be 'experts' in particular fields have little expert knowledge and two cannot provide you with a result that you would expect. What they are good at is convincing you of their quality and that you are getting value for money. The problem is it is difficult to validate a result or outcome from their services unless compared against something else - and many of us do not have that luxury.

I see it as 90% self-marketing and 10% of actual useful knowledge transfer. Experts have recently appeared in investment, coaching, personal branding, personal development, career management and personal training to name a few....where society as a whole are not quite aware as to what constitutes a valid qualification. Would you believe there are many investment advisers who only sell and advise on the 10% of potential investment strategies that they know or life coaches who cannot manage their own lives and have absolutely no formal training in psychology or coaching techniques. What about a personal trainer with no formal knowledge of nutrition or physiology? What benefit would you receive from someone who 'tells you what they think' rather than 'what is proven'? I know people out in the market consulting on personal branding - inherently not a new term but the growing individualism of the economy has brought it to our attention. Some of the advice is practical, extremely worthwhile but mostly commonsense - it is not proven to produce a predefined result and there is no established framework to produce a 'particularly perceived' personal brand image. Further there is no formal knowledge required or certification - so how can you validate the result? The answer is you cannot. Perception and effective marketing is a huge part of being an expert in many new fields where you simply have to convince people how good you actually are.

I do digress and in no way mean to slight any of the many experts in the above industries as I am friends with many, respect for many more and am involved myself. What I do want to focus on is the fact that so-called experts perhaps know only a little if nothing more than the rest of us. It might mean reading a book or magazine article to know someone more than the person next to you. If you want to manage your career for example get want some advice and direction go to someone with recognized knowledge and experience - and ask for evidence of this. But also research what qualifications and experience this person has. The internet has laid rise to a huge number of 'self proclaimed' experts and in our quest for success and wealth, we're tending to grab at anything and dilute the 'expert' brand. This may indirectly lead to the death of education as who needs formal qualifications if your word is accepted by the rest of society? It may also lead to a society that does not develop as quickly or in the direction that is best.

Benefiting from the poor decisions (mistakes) you make

Okay so I used the word 'mistake'...if I had used 'errors' instead I would have been told there is no such thing as an 'error', rather an unwanted/unexpected 'result'.

However back to the heart of the matter how do you benefit, from a personal development point of view, from decisions that do not produce the intended results? Or should I be asking 'do you benefit' from decisions that do not produce the intended results?

Decision making is the basis of our we live our lives, determines the path in life we take, the quality of life we have, and the goals we achieve. But more important then the actual decision made is 'how' we made the decision and 'what' made us choose one decision out of many we could have made? How often do we regret the decision we had made, not only during the next minute, hour or day but years in the future. In relationships, investing, career, business and health...the decisions you make are extremely important.

Now there are many drivers of decision making and the purpose of this piece is not to look at that in too much detail. I will add it is important to recognise that physiology, emotional well-being and living conditions can all impact short term decision making that may or may not be aligned with your inherent life values and motivations. However whilst you cannot guarantee your decision will not always produce the intended result, it is important to learn from what you get but do not want. Why? Because if you continue to follow the same decision making path it is common sense that tells us that the results may again and again not be what you wish for.

So the question you have to ask yourself is whether you are learning from the decisions you make that do not produce the intended results? Are you achieving your goals at work, in your business, your investments and in your relationship and if not are you reviewing the decisions you are making within each to determine how you can improve the decisions you are making? What is it you need to do to improve your decision making? There are a number of things that can contribute to this process - improve your skills or knowledge in a particular area, contemplate whether the 'rules of thumb' you recognise as true are in fact not correct, update your internal 'meta-level' framework and do the opposite of what you are doing to get the result you want.

To truly benefit from poor decisions can be challenging as it may mean altering the principles by which you have been living your life. There is nothing wrong with this as continual personal development should be the goal of every human on this earth. But it can be difficult and life and business coaches with backgrounds in NLP and psychology can make a difference.