Jobseeker Columnist (February 2010)

The recession is easing, so what's your excuse now?

Lots of people put their plans on the back burner last year. There was doom and gloom in the papers, in the TV, in the radio and I was even getting messages of economic disaster from my Facebook. In 2009, lots of people thought that: -

However in 2009: -

• I have a friend that changed jobs and got 3X her previous pay
• I had a good buddy who made a lot of money from the stock market and went to Paris with the money
• I started up Education Republic, a corporate training and adult empowerment organization and I have other close friends who started their own businesses as well.

Here’s the message, there will never ever be a good time to do something significant. There will always be challenges, there will always be people who tell you that you are crazy, there will always be people who will try to stop you and there will always be challenges with time and money. What’s stopping us is fear and fear stems from our reservations of the unknown. Fear comes from not knowing what is going to happen to us. Are we going to lose all our money? Are our relationships going to go down the drain? Are we going the wrong direction and wasting our time?

The way to defeat fear is to defeat uncertainty by replacing it with certainty. Decide what it is you really want and research the bejabbers out of it. If you are thinking of switching jobs to a different industry that you are passionate in, do your research, learn everything about your new industry, perhaps even take a hobby in your new industry or hang out with people on the inside. A good example comes from an acquaintance of mine by the name of Linda. Linda is an accountant and she has been an accountant for the past 10 years. However her first love is aquaculture. Here’s what she did: -

• Bought every publication about aquaculture and immersed herself with knowledge
• Hung out with aqua culturists
• Got involved with aquaculture meets
• Made acquaintances with aquaculture business leaders

Soon after all her research, she found the certainty that her dreams were worth pursuing, her fear disappeared and she started her own aquaculture business. My own story is very similar, only that the word aquaculture is replaced with training.

The recession in 2009 did not affect me at all in any way. I suspect that most of us still had our jobs and that the recession was something we only saw in the news. Just imagine what we will be able achieve in a good year like the Year of The Tiger. Even though 2010 is predicted to be better than 2009, 2010 will still challenge us like it did 2009. So stop thinking about taking action and take action. There really are no more excuses.

Cheers,

Edmond Yap