May, 2022 - Vicki Znavor

May 2022

May 24 2022

Make A Decision or Someone Else Will

Vicki Z Authenticity Reawakened, coaching, MyBook 0

Anne Carson has said, “Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.” Here’s what my mom would’ve said after reading that one: “Ain’t it the truth!”

It’s human nature to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Pain is often associated with change regardless of whether this change is part of our work or other aspects of our lives. I’ve seen countless instances in my own life and in the lives of others where we do all we can to hold onto the status quo and avoid deciding for fear that having to do so will be too disruptive.

Unfortunately, the reality is that not deciding is a decision on its own. In my book, I shared that Oprah talked about being frustrated with countless guests for not paying attention to their lives. She mentioned that not listening to our life’s whispers results in the whispers getting louder and louder until eventually something comes crashing down. This is what it’s like when we don’t own our lives and make deliberate decisions. When we step back and let someone else decide for us what we should become, what we should do, what we should wear, say, be, etc.

I’ve met with countless people over the years who have been frustrated that someone didn’t offer them a job, despite the fact they never expressed an interest. Others have stayed in a job that they clearly dislike but they don’t leave because they’re afraid to leave. Often what happens is that they don’t perform well, or they become so nervous about failing that they don’t exhibit their strengths and lose their jobs because someone else decided their fate for them.

Owning your life takes effort and courage without a doubt.

In my blog, I share a lot of information about knowing what you want. It’s so important because when you know what you want, you start trusting your own instincts about what’s possible for you and how you can go about getting it. You stop relying on others to tell you what you want or when you should leave or what you’re worth.

Owning your life takes effort and courage without a doubt. It also takes effort to tolerate other people diminishing you, squashing your dreams, and paying you less than you’re worth. I hope you put your effort into going forward and realizing the life you want to live. It’s really the only way to understand and realize your purpose.

May 17 2022

Love What You Do

Vicki Z Authenticity Reawakened, career, coaching, Mindfulness, Motivation 0

I wholeheartedly believe that to be good at anything, you must put in the work required to do so. Some must work harder than others but it is work, nonetheless. I have found that everything in my career took work. I had no experience with even ever talking to someone in a corporate role before I found myself in a corporate environment. I did not understand corporate culture or politics. I did not understand the role that shareholders played or even what role the stock market played for corporations. I knew absolutely nothing.

My ignorance aside, what I knew without a doubt was that I loved business. There was something so exciting to me about it. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to work in business. But because I knew so little about business, “working” in business meant typing. It was all that I knew existed and that was good enough for me. I just wanted to be in the mix; I did not care what I did while there. All this is to say that there was a passion for that world that existed before I knew what was possible for me in it.

“There is great possibility that we simply are not doing the work that speaks to us.”

Of course, once I got into the business, I could not get enough of it. I still cannot; I will forever be fascinated with how organizations operate.
Steve Jobs gave an inspirational speech at Stanford University years ago. This is one of my favorite quotes from that speech:
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

It seems that in recent years we have found countless things wrong with organizations and their leaders. I’m not saying they’re not without fault, but I wonder if sometimes when we’re pointing out all of the problems with “them”, that we’re not asking ourselves why things aren’t working or why they’re not fulfilling us.

There is great possibility that we simply are not doing the work that speaks to us. Sometimes reaching this conclusion is painful, especially if you have spent thousands on your education or are trying to fulfill someone else’s dreams for your life. I started this blog today with the hope of conveying that everything good in life takes hard work. Relationships take work. Long relationships take an enormous amount of work.

Achieving excellence in work takes hard work over many years. If you are going to work hard and perhaps work hard for many years, shouldn’t that work be fulfilling? And if it is not fulfilling, is it possible to be exceptional at it? I do not think so, but that is not really what makes me sad. What makes me sad is that people spend a lifetime doing something they do not like only to find themselves inevitably feeling like they wasted their lives doing something that did not really matter to them. In other words, they did not live authentically. Of course, we all must do whatever it takes to put food on the table and pay our rent, but please find time to do the things that fulfill your soul. Do the work to understand what it is that you find fulfilling and then do it.

This is your life. You deserve good things.