Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
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.
This post is written by Erica Moss. Erica is the social media outreach coordinator for the Master in Nursing degree program at Georgetown University, which has one of the nation’s leading nurse midwife programs. Erica knows firsthand what it’s like to relocate as she recently moved across country for a new job.
Relocating for a job is one of the most disruptive experiences you can face. It means saying goodbye to your friends, your home, and favorite restaurants. Some people enjoy the adventure of exploring a new place, while others dread the idea of starting over in unfamiliar surroundings. Here are some ways to prepare for relocation and adjusting after arriving.
I admit it; I can’t think when things around me are in disorder. And I have trouble believing people who claim that clutter doesn’t affect them at all. When things are a mess, your brain can’t make sense of the visual landscape – you literally have too much information in front of you. This visual static keeps your brain from working on problems efficiently. For some people, this produces a sort of numbness – they feel like their brain is wrapped in a thick blanket. For others, it’s an irritant- they feel constantly strung out and stressed without knowing exactly why. Either way, the clutter has got to go.
There’s something about fall and back to school season that makes all of us think about fresh starts. Summer is a lull in career and school activity; the rules don’t apply. We go to the beach, bask in the pool in the back yard, or travel on vacation. We stop wearing shoes (and as many clothes as possible) and generally relax. It’s not uncommon for jobseekers to take the summer off to spend time with family and relax. If you’ve done this, it’s time to get back to work on your job search.
Volumes have been written about when not to write. If you have something difficult to say, it’s best to say it in person, or so the advisors will tell you. Email (that’s how most business writing occurs today) is certainly not an ideal medium for tough conversations; it can be cold and impersonal. If you have a good relationship with someone, you want to temper your difficult conversation with personal signals; empathy is easier to express in person. But there are times when writing is the best medium.
Arthur Bell and Dayle M. Smith wrote “Difficult People at Work; How to Cope, How to Win” to help us work and live with people who make us crazy. The authors call difficult people SOP’s: Sources of Pain. They don’t try to minimize the pain you feel from difficult people; they simply try to help you manage to get work done and keep from strangling your coworkers (which this column does NOT endorse.)
At some point during your work week, someone is going to ask you for information you don’t have. There are some people (I don’t happen to be one of them) who hate to say “I don’t know.” For some reason, it makes them feel stupid, or out of touch. I never worry about that. I know lots of things, so missing an answer at any given time doesn’t make me feel dumb. In fact, it’s why I almost never use “I don’t know” by itself; I think of it as an incomplete sentence. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” is my idea of a complete sentence.
