I want to talk about Cause & Effect. Because when you're 'at Cause', you are in control. When we're struggling with our roles, or feeling trapped, or uncertain what next step to take, we can fall into the 'Effect' stage.

Everyone has an opinion on your career. Some are more vociferous than others. So it makes sense to learn when to look for guidance and when to tune out the dissenting voices.

I think it's quite difficult to know where the edge is. By 'edge' I mean edge of our comfort zones. We're told to dream big and set moonshot goals. But how do we know if the goals we are setting are stretching enough? 

A lot of people are feeling stuck and uncertain which direction to take. That's something I went through a couple of years ago and I expect you can relate too. So why are people feeling stuck? Typically it's because they've stopped listening to themselves.

We're often told failure is a good thing. It helps us learn, it helps us grow. It's best to fail quickly so that you can find success more quickly etc etc. Whilst I understand the logic, I still struggle with the idea of failure. Ideally I'd rather not fail at all

Why are appraisals important? Because they’re an opportunity to celebrate success, re-set and GET WHAT YOU WANT.

There's a lot of people in corporate, behaving like corporate professionals. This 'stale' feeling is one you can quite quickly get rid of. And I don't mean cover it up by taking superficial actions like venting to mentors and friends. I mean action you can take to change your mindset. The short answer is: be more unapologetically you.

In my experience, a lot of people are terrible at giving feedback. They either 1) don't give feedback at all, 2) give vague feedback or generic praise or 3) overreact in the moment and give destructive feedback. 

Have you ever been asked to do something at work where you’ve felt ‘No way! I can’t do that!’. 
This feeling of doubt is called imposter syndrome. Personally I prefer the term imposter experience - it’s unlikely that you have a ‘syndrome’ if you’ve experienced any of these feelings. In my experience we’re all prone to doubt ourselves every now and again.

I expect you've heard before that most of our communication is via body language and tone of voice, with words only accounting for c7% of our impact. I have seen this from a new perspective this week. I've been on an NLP course (neuro linguistic programming)and qualified as a practitioner to add to my coaching tool kit to support my clients. 

We often take other people's opinions about us to heart. It's hard not to. What isn't good, is linking your sense of self-worth to what other people think of you. It's dangerous.

“The person who’s says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it” - Chinese proverb. Innovation is happening around you. So you can lead it, contribute to it, or move out the way. You have unique experience that can help your employer or business to develop new ideas. 

To advance your career, would you take a job you don't want? For you, this could be an easy or a difficult question. My answer to 'would you take a job you don't want', is... 'it depends'.
I appreciate that is fence-sitting so let me explain...

I think it's best to be a bit impatient. Have you ever been told any of these..."Just keep doing what you're doing," "you'll get that promotion eventually," "I'm sure a role will be available soon," "that next opportunity will have your name on it," "good things come to those who wait."
I disagree. There's been one point in my career to date where waiting was the right call. Once.
It's generally not best to wait. Waiting doesn't create the role you want.

This career blog is 1 year old today! Whoop whoop! What a great reason to celebrate. Come rain or shine, this blog has gone out every Wednesday via email for a whole year :)

Everyone could do with more confidence, right? We all have moments where our confidence takes a knock.

Get a band/ bracelet to wear around your wrist and start a 30 day no complaining challenge. If you verbalise a complaint, you fail. You switch the band/ bracelet to your other wrist and start the 30 days again.

People often ask me how to get more done, in less time. And how to progress their career more quickly. So this weeks blog is my simple answer to this question. Do less.

People often ask me how to get more done, in less time and how to progress their career more quickly. So this weeks blog is my simple answer to this question.