PHOTO BY: Blimpy

This is brilliance which I forgot about until I hit the button in my reader.

Thanks Google Reader for always saving the good stuff for when I remember. Thanks Havi for being. You’ll find her stuff on personal ads here.

What’s a personal ad for your stuff you may ask?

You do a bit of asking here’s what I want, here’s how I want it to come to me and here’s what I commit to do to make it happen. The gravy part is checking in with yourself to see what you might be learning about how you deal with your stuff.

I’m struggling with my job situation.

I graduated a year ago with my MBA and certainly thought the job fairies where going to be begging me to come work for them. That’s not happening and I’m more than a little disappointed. However, I can’t let it keep me down, so I’m working on stuff. Here’s my personal ad to have a fulfilling and meaningful work-life, right now.

Here’s what I want: I want to love my 40+ hours a week I spend at work. I want to be powerfully moving toward my tangible goals. I want to positively impact the people with whom I contact.

Here’s how I want to receive it: I want it to flow with multiple purpose. I don’t want to work on one thing in isolation. I want my stuff to be layered and thick with meaning. I’d love it if working with Bob and Betty over there gave me something tangible over here. I’m not sure how it looks, but that’s okay.

Here’s what I’d rather not have: A list of shoulds and shame telling me that I should have different work or different goals. I don’t want other people’s renderings of what my work-life should be.

My commitment: My goals will be to take care of me and my family first, but also to provide growth and development to other people in my community.

What I’m noticing: It’s harder than I expected to lift the vale of shame I placed around me, I value stuff harshly and need to be more forgiving. My work is important and I can do it exceptionally well if I take responsibility for being accountable to it and the people I impact.

So what about you? What might you need to create a personal ad around? Got some stuff holding you back? Need some clarity? Are you a SWF searching for same? I shouldn’t type that, because you can’t find it here. But you know what I mean. If you were to do the exercise, what might you ask for?