Permission Granted: How to Focus on You

Practical Guidance for Balance and Success 

In the fast-paced world of business, it’s easy to lose sight of our individual goals and get caught up in comparing ourselves to others. As a certified woman-owned staffing company, we understand the unique challenges and triumphs of carving out your own path. Inspired by the timeless wisdom of Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata,” we invite you to embark on a goal-driven journey of self-discovery and growth.

To get 2025 or any new endeavor off to a great start, exploring the “Desiderata” (included at the end of this blog) can help you focus on your own strengths, values, and progress can lead to attainable personal and professional fulfillment.

Three ways the “Desiderata” can help focus, balance, and ground your career:

Avoid Comparison: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter.” In business or personal life, focusing on your own goals and progress is more productive than constantly comparing yourself to competitors. Create benchmarks that are relevant to your growth.

Be Yourself: “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.” Understanding and embracing your strengths and weaknesses can lead to more authentic and effective leadership. Create a plan tailored to your unique strengths and experiences.

Value Simplicity: “Keep interested in your own career, however humble.” Even in complex business environments, appreciating the value of simplicity and staying grounded can lead to sustainable success. Create a calendar or checklist that holds you accountable to goals that move your career forward, without losing focus.

Grant yourself permission

As you step into 2025, give yourself permission to focus on you. Embrace the principles of “Desiderata” and let them guide you towards a more authentic, grounded, and fulfilling career. Remember, your journey is unique, and your progress is a testament to your resilience and dedication.

Think about past successes. What steps did you take? How can you use those steps to recreate success? What strategies or habits helped you stay grounded to keep focused on your own path?

At SC Staffing & Consulting, we are here to support and empower you every step of the way. Let’s create goals that will make this year the best one yet!

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann ©1927

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.