Challenges of finding your spot

How do you find your spot?  This is a question we face from pre school through retirement.  In retirement it is what group to join or what volunteer activities to give your time to.  Lets face it, there are a lot of organizations that do good work and have good people, but some are just not a good fit for you.  I am coming to that conclusion with a group I have working with for several months.

I am also taking a very interesting class through the library.  It is called "Follow Your Heart and success Will Follow".  It is really geared to finding a career that makes you happy, fulfilled and does not seem like work.  But the class really applies to retirement and finding what your "next career" will be.  The class takes you through several exercises designed to find your skills, values and what you like.  Today I completed a session on your values and also your skills.  While doing the exercises, I came to the conclusion that I do not like disorder among those I work for.  Believe me I experienced enough of this at work.  I don't like it when there is a vacuum of leadership that says "You all work it out and I will be good with it", even when you are quite far apart.  That is what leaders are for, to set some direction.

So, I am coming to a conclusion that I need a different group.  I have put some solid effort into this group, including working on a new narrative for the tours I lead.  This was basically a redo of the entire tour to make it more interesting and more accurate, but part of the group wants to continue with a tour that is something less than a complete truth and the leaders seem ok with that.  Retirement is supposed to be fun, not frustrating, and it has been, except for this part.  So, rather than continue to be frustrated, I think it is time to finish my commitments and move on.

As I said, there are plenty of organizations, doing plenty of good work.  It is still a bit of trial and error to make sure the mission and the people match.  We do work with two other groups that do match.  They have teams with a clear message and they seem to be good people.  I think we will spend more time working with them.

We will also continue to goof off, take walks and bike rides, do work on the house and yard, plan a few vacation trips this year and be part of other fun groups and in general enjoy life.  I joined a book club at the library that meets tomorrow.  I have not been part of this type of group before so it will take me a little out of my comfort zone, but that can be a good thing.

I will keep posting on how this works out.