Category Archives: Career & Jobs

Five Career Decision Making Secrets

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We live in a black and white, yes or no society. Often when faced with a big career decision, that built-in bias causes us to stop at two either or options. That’s a mistake.

Hindsight proves that there are often multiple options available to us and just by looking at your career change in different ways and from different approaches you’ll see more of those options.

Here are five decision-making secrets that will help you to see your optimum choices in foresight rather than until it’s too late.

1). You know far more than you think you do.

You’ve been recording observations subconsciously for your entire life. You’ve taken in and retained much more than you think you have. You’re also connected to all the wisdom in the universe. So, you often don’t need more analysis or research. You do need to pull everything together that you already know and make your best decision possible from where you are with what you have.

2). Readiness to act on a new direction is more based on the existence of confident feelings than on any group of facts.

Where does confidence come from? It comes from remembering your competent experiences. Let go of your career change mistakes and look at your accomplishments. They will put you in a much more confident and hopeful frame of mind. Examine all of your options from that frame of mind.

3). Engagement clarifies. Action intensifies clarity.

By choosing your best bet and getting into action you can’t go wrong. Perspective is enhanced via movement. Often you won’t see your best career options until you take a couple of small steps forward. Look for ways to do that without fully committing to a new direction.

4). Write down multiple options and sleep on them.

When we live with a good question even for 24 hours our n mind seeks a solution. Often by coming back the next days and asking these questions you’ll see what you couldn’t see the day before. What am I missing? What else? How would a genius arrive at the optimum choice?

5). Decide on the day and time that you will commit to one option.

It’s not decision- making that bothers you and causes distress but the lack of making decisions. All unmade decisions eat away at your sense of self-respect and drain your energy. By setting a firm decision date and following through, you will make the decisions and increase your feeling of competency.

ANY decision that you can see in hindsight was there and available for you to see in foresight and you’ll increase the probability of seeing it by expanding your options to at least five viable options before you make the decision.

Actively use these secrets to increase the probability of making the right decision for you, the first time.

But also know this. Making decision-making mistakes is a normal part of the self-actualization process, the business building process and yes of the career decision process.

It’s actually valuable to recognize our mistakes. Without mistakes we would have nothing from which to adjust and make follow-up decisions. It really is all good and by deciding and acting frequently you’ll get better and better at doing what’s right for you.

Career Planning – 5 Quick Start Tips to a Better Future!

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Career Planning:5 Quick Tips to Control Your Career and Your Future!

It’s unlikely that anyone today will stay with one employer their whole working life. As you make choices regarding your career your identity comes from these choices and not your employer.

Who is making a lifetime commitment to your career? It’s surely not your employer, no matter how benevolent they might be. The person controlling your life is you, so if you take responsibility for your life and your future you’ll be far ahead of most people. It’s counterproductive to blame circumstances you cannot control or to blame your employer, your supervisor or co-workers.

If you feel powerless because of where you work, or the career you are in, wake-up and get started on your future. Everyone, with a bit of planning has the ability to quit their jobs and start with another employer, another career or start working for themselves.

The job market is relatively soft right now, but the economy will change and if you plan for a job or career change you future success starts now.

Five Ways to Quickly Get Control of Your Career and Your Future.

1. Research job opportunities all the time.

This doesn’t mean you need to send out five resumes every day. What is does mean is you are constantly looking for opportunities. Some may be internal-with your current employer-some may be external.

Some opportunities may be additional education, self-study, networking with outside organizations, and becoming a player in a career related organization. All will provide you with a constant stream of valuable career information.

If you get stuck and don’t see a way out, work hard at getting help. Career coaches are everywhere, how about a mentor or someone from your network.
Build up your support team and soon you’ll have a group of people working on your behalf.

2. Don’t use money issues as the reasons holding you back.

If you use this as an excuse for making a career or job decision you are shortchanging yourself. If you think you need a certain income to live well, there are many families living better but earning 10%, 20% and even 50% less than you do. How do they do it? Do some research.

After your research then make your plans and you’ll soon find that financial issues will drop off your worry/excuse list.

3. Honestly assess where you happiness comes from.

If it were money, millionaires would be the happiest people on the planet. And earning 25% more may or may not increase you level of happiness. Probably not as there is always 25% more, and 25% after that.

After you’ve built your career plan and you take action this is the fasted path to fulfillment and happiness, not ruminating about what you cannot control.

4. Blaming others or taking a routine negative approach to a situation is a lose-lose proposition.

How you view situations matters. If a problem becomes framed as an opportunity you’ll be well on your way to controlling the situation. Search for the best in every situation, taking the optimistic approach will put you more in control of your career and your future.

5. Do the best presenting in your “brand.”

Looking your best starts with physical conditioning. What is your ideal weight? Do you regularly exercise? Do you go out of your way to build in some physical activity into your daily routine?

Working in a three story building-how often do you use the stairs? Going shopping? How about parking at the edge of the parking lot and getting in some extra walking. You get the idea.

What you wear can make a difference. Recently I meet with a manager who was dressed in what looked like Goodwill castoffs. He didn’t impress any member of my team and he had to work extra hard to get his points across. This is not to suggest that he had to wear a $2000 designer suit, but freshly pressed khakis, with a shirt without a frayed collar and shined shoes would have made at least a neutral impression.

Need assistance with the rest of your appearance? Get help, get a regular haircut, etc.

Also, as part of your career planning work hard to improve your ability to communicate, both in writing and in making an oral presentation. Improvement in this area will also improve your “brand” and will pay big dividends.

Controlling your life, career and future is no easy task. Once you make the decision to start, work through one thing at a time. Keep it up and before you know it you will put together a record of personal achievements and career advancement. The time to start is now.