Fleeting and unpredictable, life is a balancing act. When it comes to your career, hunger for success often overrides your ability to spend time with family. Long hours and inability to leave work at the front door means less personal life and inevitable loathing for the office. But what if the office wasn’t a traditional office?

With massive advances in digital technology, the remote workplace is becoming ever more popular. Former office slaves are enjoying an epiphany. The liberating feeling that becoming a freelancer brings and being able to work on your own terms is slowly destroying the monotony of the nine to fiver. The office no longer needs to be the sad, grey building at the end of a soul-destroying commute, but rather it can now – thanks to technology – be anywhere, and that includes a beach in the Bahamas.

In our attempts to articulate this thing called life, one commonality rings true: we are all sculptors of our own fulfillment. Whether remotely or traditionally, what trials must we overcome to accomplish a prosperous professional and personal life?

Focus on the positive

Bills. Unexpected expenses. Illness. A huge pile of spreadsheets your boss just laid on your desk to be finished tomorrow. Life throws curveballs that have the tendency to throw our mood into the gutter. But unhappiness aside, perhaps it is our matter of perspective that we should be tweaking. Rather than allowing the bad to pervade your thoughts, focus on the good. Perhaps you had a slower than normal week with client assignments and marketing strategies that didn’t come full circle as you had hoped, but the beauty of tomorrow is that it welcomes the opportunity for a second chance.

Flourish in your career

Take a good, stark look at your job self. Is the quality of your work mediocre or superb? Are you punctual or a procrastinator? And the chief question: do you enjoy what you do? If the answer is hard to come by, then you already know you’re not completely fulfilled. Start by making a list of wants and needs for your ideal career. Educate yourself about the resources available to help you reach your goal. Read job boards daily. Revamp your CV. Be pro-active – knock on doors and channel your ‘inner-hustler’. The resources are there to help anyone become what they aspire to be - it’s just a matter of taking ambition by the horns and running with it.

Realise that the only person you’re in a race with is yourself

Too often, we compare ourselves with colleagues, family members, or friends. When we compare our life to that of others, we lose sight of what’s going on in our own corner of the world. Channel that energy expended on the lives of others and concentrate on your own. What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? Assess where you need to develop personally and then create a strategy to achieve your goals – become your own self-made success story. Essentially, it is you vs. you.

By Camille Todaro