Reaching your career goals when you’ve lost motivation

By Jessica Salerno-Shumaker, OSCPA senior content manager

While facing obstacles in your professional and personal life is inevitable, these challenges don’t have to stop you from achieving your dreams.

“Everyone has been through deeply challenging experiences in their life,” said Bevin Farrand, executive coach, professional speaker and founder of the Take the DAMN Chance Movement. “And those can make it hard to move forward on our big goals.”

Farrand is the keynote speaker at the July Women, Wealth and Wellness Conference, presenting her session, “Take the DAMN Chance.” She’ll share how she persevered through some of the most challenging obstacles in her life to bring her dreams to reality.

“I understand that feeling of when something happens, whether it's in your personal or your professional life, asking yourself if you should just stop and accept status quo,” she said.

To get through challenging times and still meet your goals, Farrand recommends applying something she calls the “DAMN Framework.” It stands for:

• Decide and declare

• Attend your own party

• Moments not minutes

• Now is the time

The two big elements of “DAMN Thinking” are movement over mindset and decide and declare. Movement is more important than mindset, she said, because instead of waiting around to get in the right mindset to achieve something, you can begin making progress, however small it might be.

Farrand calls this type of progress “micro-actions,” which are the smallest possible actions you can take. It might mean sending an email, or even typing the first sentence of the email. Because eventually those micro-actions will build momentum.

And if you still find yourself stuck, Farrand says to think about priorities. You might not have the clarity that’s needed, but once you know your top priorities you can begin to work toward achieving those goals.

“We hear all the time you have to fix your mindset first, and that thinking positive thoughts will make good things happen,” Farrand said. “We can never get to a point where we only think positive thoughts. But we can get into action no matter what our mindset is.”

This allows inspiration and creativity to flow from action, she said, as opposed to waiting around for the right mindset to strike. She compared it to pushing a merry-go-round on the playground.

“Once we get our feet moving, then the momentum starts to pick up,” Farrand said. “Those first few steps are the hardest and take the most energy and focus. But once you get into motion and jump on, you’re spinning, and the momentum keeps you going.”

Go to ohiocpa.com/www to register for the July 20 Women, Wealth & Wellness Conference.

Jessica Salerno-Shumaker, OSCPA senior content manager