But challenges can be roadblocks to your journey
“Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.” (Dr Roopleen)
It is without a doubt that we are living in challenging times.
Here are just some of the challenges we most likely face in our daily lives.
- Increasing automation and transformation of jobs and tasks.
- Businesses retrenching and restructuring workers.
- Ever-changing demographics where baby boomers are holding on to their jobs for much longer at the exclusion of others.
- Housing affordability issues in most parts of the world impacting the younger generations.
- Very low or no wage growth for workers since the 1980s.
- Ever increasing cost of living and education, growing faster than inflation rates.
- Declining number of full-time jobs, the significant rise of contracting and freelancing work and the emergence of the gig economy.
- Higher unemployment rate for increasing overqualified university or college graduates and young adults.
- Growing income inequality between the skilled and unskilled workforce, and the rich and the poor.
Knowing, appreciating, and respecting these challenges will be your first step in your journey of self-discovery.
For some, knowing these challenges may also cause you to postpone your journey of self-discovery to a later date. But we know that “latter” usually does not come and will never come.
Ultimately, we need to confront our fears and turn them into opportunities to build our foundation for the future to live a purposeful and fulfilling life.
Develop a strategy to fulfill your purpose
“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” (Michael Porter)
Life is all about making choices and prioritisation.
Having a well thought out strategy will ensure that you know and fulfill your purpose in life.
Your strategy will also form the basis of the detailed roadmap to reach your goal.
The strategy could include volunteering during your free time, to acquire knowledge in a particular area, or just networking with people.
Other options could include changing jobs, starting a business, saying “no” to more responsibilities, taking a temporary role, taking a pay cut, relocating to another city, switching industries, or working in a small company.
These options can be considered as career risks.
Whatever it is, it is part of your learning and self-discovery journey to know more about you.
Your strategy will get you to your destination.
As such, you are expected to make certain trade-offs are you embark on your journey.
You may spend less time eating out so that you can save money to do more meaningful activities.
Or you may sacrifice your leisurely time to volunteer in an opportunity shop.
And the list goes on.
Always plan to future-proof yourself first
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” (Benjamin Franklin)
When we go on a camping trip, there will be lots of preparation to undertake.
What tracking route do you take, what do you bring along, what meals will you cook, where are you setting up your tent, where do you get water to drink, what are the weather conditions, are there any dangers or warnings to take note of, etc.
Likewise, there will be a number of things you need to do to prepare yourself for the journey of self-discovery, some short-term and others long-term.
Short-term things to do
In the short-term, you would want to start automating your finances after you have reviewed your budget and cash flow position.
Eliminate all expenses that are ‘wants’ and keep your expenses down to the absolute minimum, focusing on your ‘needs’ instead.
Terminate your monthly pay-TV subscriptions, make your own coffee rather than buying two cups of coffee from the local café, downgrade your mobile plan, and perhaps eating in more than buying takeaways.
Down-sizing and right-sizing will your path to long-term success. It is also good for you, regardless.
Set-up automatic payments where you transfer fixed amounts to another investment bank account (separate from your daily bank account) and into your retirement and emergency funds, setting aside a fixed sum for tithes and offering if you are religious, and don’t forget fix payments to your parents or siblings if you are supporting them financially.
Longer-term things to do
In the longer-term, you must think about two key things.
Firstly, you need to diversify, strengthen and secure your income streams and cash flow so that your basic needs of food, accommodation, and security are being met first including other family and financial commitments that you may have.
The reality is that you need sufficient money and cash flow to sustain yourself throughout this journey of self-discovery, which could take many years.
Apart from having sufficient passive income streams in the form of investments and owning business systems that can generate money while you sleep, you also need to actively generate income for yourself as an employee, a small business owner, a freelancer or a contractor.
There will be many roles you can play in order to generate income for yourself. Find one that will, at least, meet your minimum financial commitment.
It may also be out of necessity that you take up a role that may not be ideal for you in the short-term.
Do remember to focus yourself on the long-term goal.
Secondly, to continuously earn money for yourself and keeping your cash flow positive over a longer period, you should be thinking about acquiring employable work skills and regularly upgrading your skills and experience so that you can apply and transfer your skills across different jobs, occupations, industries, and regions when you really need to.
The jobs you do may differ, but the skills you have acquired can be transferable. Do focus on your achievements and value creation.
It is, therefore, vital that you continuously acquire, maintain and enhance key employable skills so that your employers will want them now and future employers will also need them in the future.
Always think employable and transferable skills for the long-term.