Are you as Industrious as Ants?
For me, this has been the year of the yard and gardening. I have loved to garden since I was a little girl and this house we have lived in for the last 18 years, is on two lots and it is a “ginormous” yard. There’s a huge rock bed in front and side beds of perennials all over the yard as well as this tiered vegetable garden in the back.
My summers for the last decade have been spent working on the whitewater course downtown. I neglected my garden and yard. In the last two years, I spent more than 30 days on the course during the prime summer months. I didn’t even finish planting the garden in 2008 and 2009 much less keep up on the weeding.
Industrious as Ants
Yesterday I was out there building a new bed next to the rocks. As I used the pitchfork to build the berm, relocated rocks, I unearthed a colony of ants. The eggs were very visible. What happened next, I will tell you in pictures.
-
- Exposing their home
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- Starting to organize the move
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- Almost gone
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- Relocation complete
Industrious as Ants – Strategic Planning
- Almost as fast as I could refocus the camera, the ants decided on a strategy.
- Allocated their resources to determine where to move.
- Selected and engaged their best team members from their network for help.
- Executed the plan
- Kept it in motion until the objective was reached, all the exposed eggs were back under cover.
Industrious as Ants – Eye on the goal
The ants didn’t:
- hesitate
- bemoan their loss
- cry about the problem.
They took action.
Are you as Industrious as Ants?
Many job seekers or career changers are much less industrious than ants.
If you approach your job search with this same intensity as the ants, determine your strategy, allocate your resources, select and engage your best network connections. Execute your plan and don’t backslide, then your objective will be reached. You will find yourself with a new position and being able to continue with your other life goals.
If you need a strategic partner to help you make your next move, learn more.
14 Comments
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Julie Walraven
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Thank you, Ed, what a blessing you are… a born encourager! If I could manage to record my thoughts in the yard, I’d have a book, ideas flow so easily out there.
Julie,
LOVE the analogy. Applicable to all the challenges life presents in all the roles we have in our lives.
.-= Ali Davies´s last blog ..Time Management – the REAL reason you don’t have enough time =-.
Thanks, Ali, and you are so right and it looks like I better run over and read your blog soon!
Brilliant photos of the ants! Is there no end to your talents? Maybe we should put some of our gardening blogs together and create a book of life! Thanks for your inspiration, Julie!
My camera was my gift to me last summer mainly for the blog but also because I find that I see different through the camera’s eyes, Jane. Thank you for stopping by and yes, we could have a really great book. You’ll inspire me.
Julie, do you have a Flickr account? I think you would like it.
This post was inspiring–thank you!
I do have a Flickr account, Anna. I only put a few of my pics up there recently but if you read backwards in the blog you will see many Flickr photos all with credit to the photographers. My brother is a published freelance photographer so he has been the photo person in the family for years. I bought the little Canon last year and love playing with it! Hope your job search is going well!
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Are you as Industrious as Ants? =-.
When I was younger, I was fascinated with ants. Would have been pretty interesting to have studied them in more detail. Maybe I ‘should’ have had my own ant colony. Don’t think mom would have been keen though. She found enough squashed caterpillars in my bed.
.-= Davina´s last blog ..This is How You Don’t Skip Rocks =-.
You would love this then, Davina, when I was 20 or so, I worked in a savings and loan. Someone had peonies on their desk but they wouldn’t open so I brought 4 or so ants back from lunch. For years, I knew that after ants crawled on the peonies they always opened. What I didn’t think of is the possible consequences but I learned quick when I proudly showed my experiment to Eddie the maintenance person… he almost freaked out…
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Are you as Industrious as Ants? =-.
What a great post, Julie. Saying a big YES to getting on with what needs to be done and a big NO to wasting your energy on whinging! Helpful to job seekers … and many, many more! Thanks,
Gee
Thanks, Gee! Good take-aways! We all need that reminder often.
Hi,
While surfing, I stumbled on this article somehow & now it has changed my perspective to view things from a different angle.
Thankyou,
J.V
Thanks for the comment. I hope it helped you.