Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
Deliberate practice means that you take one skill you don’t have and work on it over and over and over and over. And then work on it some more. You work until you’re exhausted. And then some more.
You may not have the time or patience to do this kind of practice, but you may be able to get better results by applying yourself in a more deliberate way. Here are some tips for setting up a more deliberate practice, whatever you do.
CBS Moneywatch recently released a list of the college majors with the highest unemployment rates. Five of the list of 25 majors are related to psychology. “Ironically,” the accompanying article goes on to say, “Psychology is the fifth most popular college degree.” Those numbers are probably related, of course; I try to convince jobseekers that they should consider professions where competition is less fierce. In college, that usually means where the classes are much more demanding. There are always a few seats left empty in advanced Physics classes.
If you’re working, (or looking) do you know the mission and vision of the company? Does it resonate with your personal values? Do you feel that the work you’re doing makes a difference? If you can’t answer yes to any of these questions, you may be in the wrong place, even if you’re doing a good job.
One of the characteristics that set humans apart from most other creatures is our ability to see into the future; to travel ahead in time. It’s what helps us plan. We can for instance, make a decision to go grocery shopping even though we just eaten a big meal; we know we’ll be hungry later, and we’re out of eggs, so we shop.
Cottle has been featured in motivational books, and her GUTS formula for success is a popular topic for her presentations to groups. I caught up with her by phone to ask about her coaching process. She says it took her about ten years of observing successful people to come up with the formula. She has worked with people all over the world (she’s currently coaching clients via Skype from as far away as Hong Kong and Belgium) and sees a pattern in the way they manage their lives and careers.
It’s not all about you. Really. Sometimes, it’s not even a little about you. Yet taking things personally is one of the most frequent causes of conflict in the workplace – and in life. It’s easy to fly off the handle when someone gives you a hard time. After all, you fume, it’s not like I haven’t had a bad day / bad year / bad life myself. Who is she to snap at me when I ask a simple question? Before you give her a piece of your mind, take a deep breath and ask yourself these questions.
Monday Night Football’s game was a Green Bay Packers blowout over the Minnesota Vikings (45 – 7.) Like most of Packer Nation, I enjoyed watching the team do their jobs so expertly. It got me thinking: What if you were as good at your job as Aaron Rodgers and his teammates? You might be the defending Super Bowl champion of your profession. Here are some lessons you can take from the Green Bay Packers.
Tali Sharot write The Optimism Bias, a book on why humans almost always view the future as hopeful and sunny. She has studied hundreds of subjects, young and old, and found that no matter the odds, we always believe that tomorrow will be better. We’re apparently hard wired that way. “We hugely underestimate the likelihood of divorce, cancer and unemployment,” she writes. “”We expect to be healthier than the average person and more successful than [our] peers.”
“Your experience of life expands with the more energy you have.” If you’ve been in an extended job search, you probably have experienced days when your physical and psychic energy was very low. Kelly provides some useful insights into the kinds of energy you experience and how to manage the flow of your energy.
What are you afraid of? Chances are, whatever it is, it’s holding you back from your next career step. And it may be deeply held, a holdover from childhood. If so, maybe you can let it go now that you’re all grown up.
