Looking for Work, but...

I'm not jobless, but it's no secret that I'd like a better job. There are things about my job that I love.

• Everyday is different.
• I get out and see people. 
• I don't sit still.
• I can help people. 
• I get to see all sorts of old friends, former students etc.
• I've made lots of new friends. 
• I get compliments, even by total strangers.
• It's pretty easy.
• I don't take it home with me. It's a sign-in and sign-out, not like teaching.
• There's a great variety of things I can do at work.
• It's pretty easy to get to and back.
• I can sometimes be creative.
• It's rarely boring.
• The salary is automatic; I don't have to hustle for clients or free lance jobs.

The negative:

• The salary, minimum wage.
• It's cold and rainy in the winter, since we're not in an enclosed building. 
• The upper echelons of the business don't respect the opinions of the sales staff.
• There's no real challenge left for me. 

I'm a certified EFL teacher with experience and training as a remedial teacher, too. My expertise is working with very small groups, but those jobs are hard to find. My attempts to teach in a regular classroom were disastrous, and at this stage in life, I do not need the stresses required.

Years ago, I taught women's exercise classes, both in Jerusalem, when we lived there and in Shiloh. Nobody at this stage, considering my age and how I look would pay me now for such a thing.

I have recently edited a book and an internet site. And I've also sold a few photos. In theory, and I have thought about it a lot, I could open a business of writing and editing, but there are three big disadvantages to it. 

1. I'd have to constantly hustle for work and clients.
2. I'd be home without the fun and stimulation of other people.
3. There would be constant clerical tasks, bookkeeping taxes etc to deal with.

And a number of years ago, before it was a popular field, I took a course to qualify me as a Life Coach, but working at that would also demand hustling etc, like any private service business.

At my age it's very hard to find work, especially work that deals with the public. I'm old; I'm retirement age, but I do not have a proper pension.

I've been working in Yafiz, Sha'ar Binyamin for close to four and a half years. It's the longest I've ever had as a non-teaching job ever, and as much as I'd like a change, I'll probably staying as long as I can.

I just needed to vent; thanks for listening.

Organizing My Way To Success

G-d willing, I should add. And I mustn't forget to thank yahoo and its calendar.

I set up a couple of daily reminders which appear at the top of my inbox every morning. One is to send an update to Yehudit, my Life Coach. I've been doing this for a couple of months, and it's very helpful.

As I've blogged before, I start my day at the computer, drinking water and then coffee and then "eliminating." I get up very early, so that I can do all this without pressure. Once I read that you must "eliminate" old food before adding new each day. It makes sense. Constipation is a cause of all sorts of medical problems. People who are too busy and too rushed slow down their biological systems and clog their bodies with toxic poisons.

This gives me relaxed computer time for emails and blogging.

Over the past few years, like many closet/amateur/would-be writers, I've begun quite a few books and never finished any. One got close, but then a computer virus eradicated it.

Recently, with the encouragement of my coach, I prioritized and decided which book should get the focus. But I still had trouble forcing myself to write. Procrastination is my middle name!

Then it hit, I just need to set up another daily reminder. So now, I try to follow it and write a few lines, barely a page, sometimes more and sometimes less, but I write. As soon as I finish my daily lines/chapter, I email it to my gmail account, which automatically goes to my yahoo, too. That way it's stored and saved.

Maybe It's The Coaching?

Last night I had a very strange dream. It's the sort of dream that, in the past, would have caused my day to begin in a total physical panic.

I dreamt that I was in New York and going to a Broadway show. Tickets to these shows are very expensive; heavily discounted they can still cost $60 or more.

In the dream, I got to the theater and couldn't find my ticket. I remembered having it in my hand, but suddenly it was gone. I checked my pockets and bag and pockets in the bag, but I was somehow calm.

"It's only money. It's not the end of the world."

And then I woke up, calm, but curious about why I kept my cool and didn't go into anxiety panic mode.

For the past few months, Yehudit has been coaching me through my anxieties. I still have this week's assignments to do. I hope the dream is a sign that I'm on my way...

Dieting Irony

Davka, just as I discovered how badly some of my newer clothes fit, due to weight loss, the scale showed a shocking change. It went up, my weight, that is. Certain that it was some sort of fluke, the next day I weighed myself again, and the number was even higher.

Over and over in my mind, I've gone over the foods I've eaten the past week, and I can't figure out what's wrong. Maybe I haven't snacked enough or exercised. I could have eaten too much protein. I don't weigh my food. For five months, the weight went off steadily. Maybe one week didn't show a weight loss, but there had never been a gain.

Yesterday, I spoke to Yehudit, my coach, and she suggested that I stay away from the scale for at least two weeks. I hope I can wait that long. Considering that prior to the diet, I hadn't weighed myself for about twenty years, I hope to succeed in being patient.

In the interim, I'll try to exercise a bit more and pay more attention to portion size. Luckily the frozen salmon I had in the freezer and now cooked is in much smaller pieces than the fish I had been eating. I had noticed the large size, but I didn't think it would make a big difference. One of the general principles in controlling one's weight is that everything makes a difference, and that includes stress.

It's time to buy this summer's tickets to New York, and I have to find another travel agent. Veteran readers of this blog may remember that I had written the same thing last year. In the end we used the old agent, and he fouled up big by not notifying us about our return flights being cancelled. The El Al office insisted that our agent had been notified. I think that the guy doesn't read his emails. He had never replied to any of mine; all communication was by phone. So the time has come to find someone else.

Yes, stress, but G-d willing...

Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach

May You Have A Peaceful and Blessed Sabbath

Life Coaching, Being Coached

I only heard about Life Coaching when I took a course in it a few years ago. It seemed like a great way of counseling, helping people. But par for the course, or typically me, I never had the guts to go out and do it, open a business.

It's not like I haven't used the skills and techniques over the years to help people, but I always just "did it as a friend."

Now the time has come to start the next phase of my life. I no longer have the physical and emotional strength to control a classroom, not that full-sized classes were ever my specialty. My teaching success was always more in the problem-solving needed to tutor, whether individuals or small groups. I can easily see what skills and knowledge are faulty or missing, and then I have creative ways of explaining/teaching it.

To help me, I've taken a coach, Yehudit. From what I've experienced with her in contrast to the course I took, there's a lot of room for individuality in coaching. Each coach brings with him/her different skills, techniques, personality etc. That's reassuring.

Honestly, Yehudit's coaching techniques, at least as far as we've progressed is extremely different from what I had learned. That's not a criticism, just an observation. Yes, I'm an observer, which is a skill I also use in my political articles. My out of the box mind makes me see things differently from the conventional. Sometimes that's a problem, but I think that as a coach it should be a great advantage.

I've begun my own "internship," stajj, in Hebrew, with a diet support group. I don't take any payment. G-d willing, in a few months, the participants will enthusiastically recommend me to others, and then I can open a business and charge money.