Do you have a map for your career road trip?

By Jennifer Bowden, Training and Workshop Coordinator

In my resume workshop, I talk a lot about the importance of self-understanding as the foundation to a successful job search. The analogy I use is getting in the car and saying you’re going to drive somewhere: will you ever get there?  How will you know? On the other hand, if you said you were going to get in the car and drive to St. Louis, at the end of the day you would have a pretty solid idea of whether you’d arrived there, made progress, or decided to pick a different destination altogether. Anytime you’re headed somewhere new it helps to have some kind of map involved; the career search is no different.

Advice to new graduates tends to center around a few common themes; my last blog post was a run-down of advice from the best commencement speeches of 2014. We’ve all heard these themes before: Follow your passion. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Be true to yourself. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. You’ll regret missed opportunities later on.

This is great if you know what you want to do. But what if you’re completely lost? What if this advice is scary and paralyzing? Shouldn’t you have this figured out by now?

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I help people figure out what they want to be when they grow up. It’s meant to be humorous and encourage a little more conversation, but I’m taken aback by how often that person clutches my arm and says anxiously, “Really? Can you help ME?”

It’s hardly ever the new graduates asking.

Remember the movie “Up”? Carl and Ellie Frederickson dreamed their whole lives about going to Paradise Falls, and they had a lot of really good reasons why they never got around to it. Of all the perfectly good reasons why you haven’t gotten around to figuring out what you really want to do, the scariest one to face is the realization that you really don’t know where to start. People often feel like they’re supposed to have figured this out already, or that everyone else knows what they want to do (remember that annoying classmate who’s known what he wanted to be since the age of 5?). You won’t get the life you want if you don’t know what it is, and the best way to get there is do some daydreaming.

It’s time to get some metaphorical travel brochures and start daydreaming about the career trip without the pressure of having to do anything about it (yet). Maybe you’ll decide that St. Louis isn’t the right destination and re-route to Chicago instead. Maybe you’ll decide that you really need to be headed to Paradise Falls. Maybe you’ll decide that travelling isn’t for you, after all. But you’re never going to get closer to figuring this out if you don’t give yourself permission to NOT know the answer for a little while.

Psychology Today: Tuning Into Daydreams for Career Direction

Working Self: Job, Career, Or Something Else?

Graduation advice is for job seekers, too

by Jennifer Bowden, Training & Workshop Coordinator

As the school year draws to a close, there are plenty of people out there giving speeches and advice to new graduates. Business Insider recently posted an excellent article with a roundup of the best advice ever given to graduates from such prominent figures as Oprah Winfrey, Winston Churchill, J.K. Rowling, and others. There are some great parallels to advice for job seekers – you’re at a crossroads as well, and advice directed toward someone starting on a new stage of their life might very well apply as you figure out the next step in your career.

Know that you are in charge of your own fate. Don’t be afraid to mess up. Act with honor and integrity. Find work you love.

What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

JEFF BEZOS: Everything you are comes from your choices.

From Bezos’ 2010 commencement speech at Princeton:

“Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

“How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

“Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

“Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

“Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

“Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

“Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

“Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

“Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

“When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

“Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

“Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

“I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. ”

CONAN O’BRIEN: Success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it.

From his 2000 commencement speech to Harvard:

“But my mistakes have been necessary. I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed, your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it.

“I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of the Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

“So that’s what I wish for all of you—the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.”

CAROL BARTZ: The gloom and doom of today’s job market is not going to shape your future. The economy’s cyclical. Get used to it.

From her 2012 commencement address to UW Madison:

“Look past the gloom and doom headlines, and actually don’t believe that the events of today are the ones that are going to shape your future. Because your work life is very, very long. You’re the first generation that is preparing for a 50-year work life, and you know why. You have to support all of us.

“You know, that probably sounds like an eternity now, and you’re probably saying let me first get a job and then I’ll worry about working 50 years, but truly, for all kinds of reasons, health reasons, economic reasons, most of you will be working into your ’70s and ’80s, which actually isn’t all that bad. Retirement now at 62 and 65 as we think of it will be a thing of the past. You know, think of instead of this as a burden as a series of opportunities. In fact, people used to go to a job and stay in that job forever.

“That doesn’t happen anymore. How boring is that? So think of it as a chance to find and discover new things. If you start a job or business this summer or fall or a year from now, you’re going to realize how much runway you actually have. In the past, people talked about career ladders, and that’s what work felt like. If you were lucky, and you were diligent, and you sucked up and all that stuff, you went up the ladder. Do you want to do that, no. First of all, ladders are very unstable. Do a career pyramid so you have a great base, you can change your mind, you can do a lot of different things.”

STEVE JOBS: Don’t settle.

From his 2005 commencement speech to Stanford:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

BRADLEY WHITFORD: At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.

From 2004 commencement speech to University of Wisconsin – Madison:

“Take action. Every story you’ve ever connected with, every leader you’ve ever admired, every puny little thing that you’ve ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes. Learn what you can and move on. At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.

“But I do want you to be an actor in your own life. Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen — yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”

HENRY KRAVIS: Relativism is not an option; it is all about honesty and loyalty.

From his 2011 commencement speech to Columbia Business School:

“Professional integrity begins with personal integrity. You cannot get away with the idea ‘our product has fewer defects than the competitor’s’ or ‘our service is not as bad as others’.’ Relativism is not an option; it is all about honesty and loyalty. These are absolutes. Trust me, they will make your lives simpler — and they carry their own rewards.”

 

What Are You Waiting For? Procrastination and the Job Search

You’ve probably heard it said that looking for a job IS a job, and a full-time one at that. This might explain why so many people are willing to put off important aspects of the job search; the thought of spending 40 hours a week on the job search is enough to frighten off the most dedicated job seeker. When you spend that amount of time at a paid job there are tangible rewards: getting paid, the satisfaction of doing good work, recognition from your boss, socializing with co-workers, and so on.

The rewards of the job search may seem few and far between by comparison, which leads many people to procrastinate. The internalconversation might go something like this:

Starting tomorrow, I’m really going to focus on my job search!

I’m going to really work on my job search as soon as I get home from driving the kids to school.

Now that I’m home, I’m going to look for a job. I just need to throw this load of laundry in, then I’m going to focus until it’s time to take Mom to her doctor’s appointment.

I’d better check my email first – there could be a message from an employer!

While I’m online, I should check my Facebook.

Oops, look at the time – I don’t really have time to do anything, so I’ll wait until I get home from that doctor’s appointment.

I need to get dinner started. I’ll look for a job after dinner/after the kids go to bed/after this TV show.

I’m too tired to work on the job search. I’ll start fresh tomorrow.

And so on.

There are actually several different kinds of procrastination:

Procrastination is voluntarily delaying an activity, even though you know there will be negative consequences. Strategic delay is putting off a decision or activity because the benefits of doing something else first outweigh the negative consequences of whatever we’re putting off. Self-handicapping is avoiding effort in order to avoid potential failure. And there are situations we put ourselves into that help us procrastinate, like social loafing (groups of people assigned a task do less work than each individual normally would) and waiting until last-minute deadline pressure forces us to work (arousal procrastination). (Source: “Getting Around to Procrastination” by Romeo Vitelli, PhD.)

We put off tasks that are unpleasant, difficult, or unrewarding, and occasional procrastination isn’t a problem. When it starts to become a regular habit or have serious consequences, it can be helpful to understand WHAT you’re avoiding and WHY you’re avoiding it.

A favorite activity of procrastinators is busy-work; that is, doing some kind of activity that makes you look and feel busy, even if it’s not moving you closer to your goal. If you feel like you’re spending a lot of time on job search activities but not making any progress, try keeping a log and see how you’re really spending your time. Are you procrastinating more than you thought? Here are a few tips to stay focused:

Have a written plan

Know what you want to accomplish in a given hour, day, or week. Breaking down a seemingly-huge task into smaller pieces can make it feel more achievable and help keep you focused.

Schedule your time

Write down job search time on your calendar and avoid competing commitments. You don’t have to schedule 40 hours a week, but you do need to set aside regular time to work on your job search.

Keep your commitment to yourself

Just as you’d keep an appointment scheduled with your doctor, you need to treat your job search time seriously. Don’t let day-to-day commitments sidetrack you.

Rethink your plan

If you can never, ever find the interest or energy to pursue your job search, it may be worthwhile to examine your goals. Would you feel more motivated if you were looking in a different direction?

Be nice to yourself

You don’t have to dedicate every waking moment of your life to the job search. Once you’ve completed your scheduled tasks for the day, be done. It’s okay to have fun, pursue hobbies, and have a social life – in fact, doing things you enjoy will help keep you energized and better able to focus the next day.

Being a Good One

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Abraham Lincoln: “Whatever you are, be a good one.”

Most people who feel they’re struggling in the job search are having difficulty deciding what they want to do. With all the upheaval in the world of work in the last couple of decades, there’s no longer any such thing as a permanent job or a lifelong career, and sometimes we’re left wondering “What’s next?” Our career search plans and expectations haven’t necessarily kept up with the times.

Here’s what I hear every week: “I’ll do anything.” “I’m open to any kind of work.” “I just want to get my foot in the door.”

If we were really honest with ourselves – and not speaking from fear and anxiety – we’d admit that not every job is equally appealing. People love to use the example “I can’t even get a job at McDonald’s!” – they forget that hiring decisions are business decisions. If the manager at that McDonald’s hires the first person who is capable of running the register or cooking the burgers, s/he has solved a problem or filled a need (at least for the moment). But if that new employee is already on the lookout for something better, a few months later that manager is going to be in the same position of looking for another employee. That manager has a responsibility to find someone who wants that job, not just wants it until something better comes along. If you’re going to do something – be a good one. Be all in.

We’ve become so used to thinking about the job search in terms of what we don’t have, it can be easy to forget that we actually do have skills to offer the right employer. It’s our responsibility as job seekers to articulate the value we bring – and this starts with self-knowledge. Have you recently considered:

•  What kind of work setting brings out the best version of you? If you really love working with people, a job sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle somewhere is going to suck the life out of you. If being with people exhausts you, don’t pursue jobs that require constant contact with others. It’s easier to be “a good one” when you like where you work.
• What do you absolutely NOT want to do? Just because you’ve done something in the past doesn’t mean you’re stuck doing it in the future. While you may take a “survival job” in the short term, your job search is also an opportunity to consider where you want to go and start taking the steps needed to get there.
• Remember that it’s not the employers’ responsibility to guess what you want to do or understand what your skills are. If you can’t explain what you would bring to this new job, don’t expect someone else to do it for you. This is the foundation of your career search, your resume, your networking conversations, your interview answers – take the time to understand yourself and help your next employer see what you’ll contribute.
• Get the word “just” out of your vocabulary. “I was just a waitress.” “I was just a mom.” “I was just a driver.” You have to believe you have something to offer before anyone else can believe it. Whatever you were, you were a good one – and you can be good at the next thing you do, too.
• Know your audience. If you want to work in a particular industry or company, go into those conversations armed with better reasons than “I want a job with a pension” or “I know the industry.” Like people, employers want to feel special – why did you choose this company over a competitor? What is appealing about this industry? How well do you understand the day-to-day tasks? Going into a job search without knowledge of what you want and why you want it is like going on a blind date and telling your date, “I’ll go out with you until someone I’m actually interested in comes along.” Focus your attention on the job you want and you’re more likely to find an opportunity to do it – and be a good one.

In a tough economy, it can be easy to fall into the trap of chasing after a job you don’t really want, just to be employed again. Think about quality over quantity – focus on the things you’re good at, the things you’re interested in, the things you want for yourself – and you’re on the way to being “a good one,” whatever it is.

“That’s Not My Job!” – Flexibility in the Workplace

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Something like this probably happens in most workplaces, at some time or another. There’s a job that nobody wants to do, because:

• it’s boring/time-consuming/gross/thankless/menial
• everyone is already busy
• it’s not in their area of responsibility
• they’ve already done it and feel it’s someone else’s turn
• they lack the skills or training to do it

In a competitive job market, employees typically don’t have the luxury of saying “That isn’t my job.” If you’re tempted to pass the buck, consider the consequences:

• Important tasks may not get done at all. When it comes to cleaning, maintenance, and other routine tasks, leaving the mess for someone else can also lead to compromises in safety and efficiency.
• If undesirable tasks get pushed down the chain of command, the people at the bottom end up doing all the lousy jobs and are less likely to stay. When those people leave, guess who gets stuck doing their jobs?
• Bad attitudes are contagious. Refuse to pitch in, and your co-workers are sure to remember it next time you need help with something.
• Be the person who says, “Sure, I’ll help with that,” and your boss is more likely to remember who looks out for the good of the company during the next round of layoffs.
• Become cross-trained in different tasks or functional areas and you’ll get a reputation as the “go-to” person. You’re more likely to be considered for collaborative projects with other teams or internal moves or promotions.
• You were hired to solve a problem or fill a need, not just to do tasks. Find a way to solve a problem and you’ve demonstrated that you can be valuable to the company no matter how much the job changes.

If you legitimately don’t have the time or training to take on extra work, look for other ways to contribute and ease the workload on the entire team. You shouldn’t be expected to take on unrealistic workloads or tasks in which lack of training could present a hazard to yourself or others, but your first response should be finding ways to demonstrate your value to the company even if it means stepping outside of your job description.

There’s nothing optional about “soft” skills

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the difficulties employers are having qualified candidates for jobs, even among candidates with great education and credentials. The missing factor? The so-called “soft skills.” As an employer told me recently: “We hire based on what you can do, and fire on who you are.” 

At a first glance that seems harsh, but let’s unpack this statement a bit more. You get hired based on your performance at an interview – a one-time (or two- or three-time) encounter that you’ve prepared for extensively. Everyone is on their best behavior. Once you get settled into the tasks of a job, the ways that you interact with others – what you’re like on a day-to-day basis – become incredibly important. Employers can train an employee on your skills, but they can’t train attitude.

So how do you know what qualities to emphasize? The following list of skills showed up most often in my informal survey of articles about the importance of soft skills:

Teamwork

How well do you work with others? Teamwork means more than just sharing a job description or dividing up tasks. Members of a high-functioning team can collaborate, resolve internal conflicts, and negotiate responsibilities. What’s your role in a team? Are you the informal leader who keeps everyone on task? The one who makes sure everyone has a voice in the process? The Steady Eddie who holds the team together? Be prepared to give examples in an interview.

Flexibility

In a competitive job market, you never get to say, “That isn’t my job.” How do you react when someone asks you to do work that’s outside your area of responsibility? How do you prioritize equally urgent tasks? Can you hit your deadlines without a supervisor telling you what needs to get done? Are you dependable? Having a can-do attitude and prioritizing appropriately shows that you understand the importance of your role in the company – and others will, too.

Communication skills

Communication is more than just the ability to talk to other people. When you talk, do others understand your message and priorities? Are you a good listener? Are you paying attention to your body language and non-verbal communication? Can you convey information in writing? Are you good at explaining things to others? The communication skills that are called for will vary by environment; having solid examples ready for an interview shows your self-knowledge and demonstrates your understanding of the job for which you are interviewing.

Positive attitude

Nobody wants to work with someone who’s always negative, cranky, or brings their personal problems to the workplace. Positivity is contagious – stay optimistic and upbeat and put your best foot forward at the start of each day. Maintaining a positive attitude in the face of deadline pressure, external pressures, or personality conflicts shows confidence and reinforces other soft skills, including teamwork, integrity, resilience, communication skills, and more.

Creativity

The ability to consider problems in a new light is valuable in any line of work – unexpected issues always come up, and being able to think on your feet and solve a problem quickly can make a huge difference in a company’s bottom line. Are you a problem solver? Can you try alternate approaches until something is done right? Can you look past “the way it’s always been done” and consider new solutions? When a new project or process is rolled out, you’ll be the person that leads the way for the rest of the team.

Accepting feedback/having accountability

The way in which you accept feedback and take responsibility for your actions says a lot about the quality of your character. This is an important thing to remember in interviews! If you were faced with a difficult situation, such as being terminated, what you learned from it and how you handled yourself afterward can give a potential employer confidence that you can learn from your mistakes and become a better employee.

Wikipedia defines soft skills as “personal attributes that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance and career prospects.” Soft skills can be a differentiator between equally-qualified candidates, and can determine who stays with a company during tough economic times. Technical skills are important to launch a career, but soft skills are essential to maintaining one.

Career Lessons from LEGO

Change consultant Ken Perlman wrote a great article in Forbes this week called Leadership Lessons from LEGO. It’s a smart take on leadership, especially for companies in the midst of change, but there are some applicable lessons for job seekers too.

Lesson #1: Start with what success looks like. Perlman points out that “LEGO provides a complete – and existing picture of the final product right there on the box. It always looks AWESOME.” You know that success is around the corner and you have a really clear idea of what it looks like, thanks to that picture on the box. “People fall in love with the idea; that makes them eager to spend their time putting all the pieces together to make it happen.”

Does your career path have an AWESOME end result? Can you picture it clearly in your head? Are you in love with it? Will that excitement help you get through the rough parts of your job search? If you’re having trouble feeling excited about your job search or career, do an “awesome check.” Does the end result of your career excite you? If not, consider how can you shift focus and inject that kind of energy. A little daydreaming can go a long way.

Lesson #2: Consider interchangeable parts. When a LEGO set is missing a block, you can pull out another set or some spare blocks and keep building. In an organization, we often come up with new solutions instead of going back to a previous item that we could find a new use for.

The career search makes a lot of people think about reinvention, but sometimes it’s about realigning your current skills rather than going out and building new ones. What have you liked about previous jobs? Why did you choose your career field? Rather than looking at the reasons why it hasn’t worked out in the past, consider those transferrable skills and parts of the job that you’d really like to focus on in your next opportunity. This is a helpful approach if you’re struggling to reframe your past experience in a more positive light.

Lesson #3: Instructions are only so helpful. Experienced LEGO builders know that the instructions only get you so far; at some point you just have to start building and see what happens. Perlman points out that “fearless experimentation is a critical element to accelerating innovation” and asks “What’s the worst that could happen?” Fear of looking wrong is often our biggest obstacle.

If this isn’t applicable to the world of work, I don’t know what is. Are you looking at jobs doing the same thing you’ve always done? Did it make you happy? Is it the only option out there? The job search can be scary and demoralizing, but it can also be exciting and – yes – fun. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” You could try something and fail and go back to the job search armed with more information about yourself and what you’re looking for. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Throw away your instructions and see what happens when you experiment.

Lesson #4: It’s more fun when more people are working together. On any big project, getting lots of different perspectives and having more people collaborate makes the work go faster.

Do you have career collaborators? Are you reaching out to other people and getting new ideas, perspectives, job leads, and industry information? Don’t fall into the trap of getting stuck behind your computer and feeling isolated in your job search. Tap into your network – or build one – and remember that the world is full of people who want to help you get what you want, if only you can ask them for it.

Lesson #5: The quality of the final product relies upon the input of imagination. Again – the instructions only go so far. If the end result falls apart or doesn’t work the way you need it to, a LEGO builder can take it apart and make it better.

Do you approach your job search thinking there is only one right way to do things? We’re all unique individuals, with different goals and skills and aspirations – our job search shouldn’t fit into a cookie-cutter mold. While there are some best practices to keep in mind, what works for a friend or a colleague may not work for you. Don’t judge your success with someone else’s ruler.

Forrest Gump said that “Life is like a box of chocolates,” but I’m inclined to think it’s more like building a really excellent LEGO set. Your path is limited only by your imagination – throw away those instructions and start building something AWESOME.

The Habit of Unhappiness

An article I read recently stated that stated voluntary job change is at its highest level since 2008. Obviously there are a lot of people who are still looking for work who don’t currently have jobs, and there’s no shortage of horror stories about lack of opportunities, bait-and-switch tactics from employers, job postings that disappear halfway through the hiring process, lowball offers, the abundance of 1099 jobs vs. direct hires, the frustrations of working with a 3^rd-party staffing agency, and so on (and on and on). In spite of this, there seem to be a lot of people who believe that the grass is actually greener on the other side of the fence.

You could reasonably argue that most of the usual job thrash since 2008 has been dampened down by the economy, and that anyone who was lucky enough to keep their job was going to stay put until conditions improved (as, arguably, they appear to be doing). Why do people leave their perfectly good jobs for new ones? Generally speaking:

• more money /better compensation package
• promotion
• better geographic location
• getting away from a failing company
• better fit for education/skills/career goals
• getting away from a bad boss, unpleasant coworkers, or other work situation
• lack of appreciation
• desire for new challenges/boredom
• habit.

OK, so this last one actually isn’t on any list that I could find. But I’ve been wondering lately how much of the widespread career discontent I’ve seen lately is restlessness or habit, rather than an actual desire for change.

In the classic self-help book Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz states, “To a large extent we react to petty annoyances, frustrations, and the like with grumpiness, dissatisfaction, resentment and irritability, purely out of habit. We have practiced reacting that way for so long, it has become habitual. Much of this habitual unhappiness-reaction originated because of some event which we interpreted as a blow to our self-esteem.”

Think about this in terms of your career, if you’re considering a change. Are you generalizing everyday events and building up a perception of unhappiness? Do you understand the root cause of your professional unhappiness, so that you can avoid jumping into the same situation at your next job? Are things truly as bad as you think? Will they be improved through a career change?

Here are 7 Common Habits of Unhappy People from The Positivity Blog:

1.  Aiming for perfection
2. Living in a sea of negative voices
3. Getting stuck in the past or future too much
4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives
5. Focusing on the negative details in life
6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you
7. Overcomplicating life

Do any of these habits show up in your professional life? Do you need a career change – or a perspective change?

Dealing with Critics

We’ve talked a lot lately about re-setting goals at this midpoint of the year. Goal-setting tends to be a pretty internal process; many people reach out to their networks for advice or information, but the process in something that you really have to do yourself. Once your goals are set and you’re ready to start moving ahead, what can you do to keep critics and nay-sayers from derailing your progress?

Nobody likes to be criticized, but there are some lessons that we can learn from even our harshest critics.

1. Consider the source. What is the person’s stake in the outcome of this goal? A spouse may be concerned the financial outcomes of your path will affect the family; a parent may feel disappointed that s/he can’t brag about your impressive job title anymore; a colleague may also be a rival; a manager may fear losing a valued employee; a friend may fear that a change in your priorities will also change your relationship. If the criticism feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, take a moment to consider the situation from the critic’s point of view and see if their reaction makes more sense. It’s rare that someone is actively out to get you.
2. Don’t panic – dig deeper. Is there some merit to the criticism? If you take away the negative emotion, are there some good questions in there that you need to consider? Even negative feedback can hold some great insights and new ways to consider your choices. Countering the criticism helps you feel more confident that you’ve set great goals for yourself and have a solid plan for reaching those goals.
3. Put things in proper perspective. Do you value this person’s opinion? Do you need their approval to follow your chosen course? A criticism of a goal or an idea is not the same as a criticism of you as a human being; be careful not to inflate the actual words to feed into your inner fears and insecurities. Will this disagreement still be important tomorrow? Next week? In 5 years? Choose your battles and let go of the small stuff.
4. Practice being a bigger person. If your first reaction is to get angry or react strongly, this is a chance to learn how to rein in those strong emotions and keep from further aggravating the situation. Listening to a negative opinion or criticism doesn’t mean that you agree with what is being said, but it does indicate that you can put your own ego aside long enough to hear what is being said. You can learn how to listen to things that make you uncomfortable without taking it as a personal attack, which builds resilience and gives you practice dealing with adversity – a great skill to have in any walk of life. It gives you a chance to forgive someone who has hurt you instead of holding on to anger and resentment, and be a role model for respectful disagreement.
5. Consider your loyalties. If a relationship feels toxic – if this person is always criticizing – if staying in contact with this person makes it more difficult to stick to your goals or resolutions – it may be time to end the relationship. (Obviously this is more challenging if the person is a family member.) If you can’t end the relationship, develop a strategy to put more distance between you. It’s often helpful to tell the person why the relationship is changing, so you don’t add hurt feelings to an already-complicated situation, but beware of getting into an argument or defending your choice.

It’s probably not realistic to think that everyone will automatically be on board when you decide to make a major life change or switch career direction. Know that any criticism that comes your way doesn’t have to derail your plans or ruin a relationship if you keep things in perspective and treat criticism as a chance to strengthen your commitment to achievable goals.

Re-setting your career goals – it’s not just for the New Year

So now that we’ve rounded the corner and are headed into the second half of the year, you might have decided it’s time to hit the Reset button and rethink some of those goals that you set at the beginning of the new year. Whether you’ve decided to look at your goals with new eyes or wipe the slate clean and start over, all the various approaches to goal-setting agree that the best way to make progress is to make progress toward your goal part of your everyday life, instead of something you visit occasionally. Here are some tips to keep you on track:

1. Consider whether this goal is something you care about. If you haven’t been working toward your goals on a regular basis, it might be that your goals aren’t something you’re excited about or that really matters to you. Consider what you want – not what you *think* you should want – and set your goals based on that.
2. Do a reality check. Do you have the information and resources you need to achieve your goal? If not, identify what you’re missing and make overcoming those obstacles part of your goal. Be specific and you’ll have an easier time visualizing and achieving your desired outcomes.
3. Keep track of your progress. Consider how often you want to work toward your goal, based on how complex it is, how important it is, and your overall time frame, and pick a way to keep yourself on track. An app? A spreadsheet? A notepad and pen?  A Goal Buddy that keeps you accountable? Make checking in on your progress a part of your regular routine and keep your commitments to yourself. Setting a goal helps reinforce that you have control over your life and can achieve things based on your own efforts, which can be very powerful motivator when you’re in the midst of a job search or career change full of factors that you can’t control.
4. Break your goal into manageable, measurable, and realistic pieces. Having smaller goals along the way to bigger goals will help keep your goals in the front of your mind and make sure that you’re making progress. Build on small successes – and remember that demonstrating success in one part of your life can translate into greater probability of success in other parts of your life.
5. Keep it positive. Put your goals in positive terms so you see it as something to reach for, rather than something you have to avoid. Be sure to reward yourself for sticking to your goals (but not by straying from them!)  As you progress and reach your milestones, you’ll find that you’re more motivated to continue working toward your larger goal based on the successes you’ve had along the way.

We tend to look at setting goals during certain parts of the year, like birthdays or the new year. Don’t feel that you have to wait for a specific time or starting point to get going; there will never be a perfect time to start. By setting goals that you care about and not expecting perfection, you’re more likely to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself and take control of your career path.