Skip to main content

Pay Attention to the Guideposts

A career is a tender thing. Derailing is so easy and yet a few basic steps can help you stay on the right path. These are the things on which I'm focusing:

1. Sleep. Work to get myself to bed on time as much as possible with an aim to getting 7-8 hours.
2. Nutrition. Of course the 3pm cookie seems to be the only solution to the stress, however, the roller coaster it takes the body on can cost a fortune later. Better to bring the carrots and have them handy.
3. Networking. The work on the desk is critical. The people I know in my industry who do my function and their managers in other companies are invaluable. The lunches, breakfasts and associations are critical to building a career. People hire people they know, and the current job is no guarantee of career development or continuance.
4. Breaks. Whether it's a bathroom break or a well deserved couple of days off, take them. The pause allows the muscles that have become taught in doing to relax and repair, become more effective when next engaged.
5. Kindness and Courtesy at Work. It's too easy to be brusque. A breath or smile can help interactions go more successfully, building goodwill and good days in a bank for those moments when exasperation comes from left field.
6. Pacing Myself. Probably the hardest. Life is a marathon. Look out across a year of time and adjust the goal settings if they become too aggressive and point to burn out.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Draft your Dream Job

Every once in a while, just for kicks, take a blank piece of paper and write out your ideal next job. Keep all the things you do now that you love, drop the things you're less good at or have mastered and want to let go, and fill the remaining space with stretch tasks and goals. Then write out the names of people who have your ideal job. Make a plan to reach out to them and have a 15 to 20 minute coffee break with them over the next month. Find out what it would take for you to get to the next job that's right for you. Do you need to ask for a stretch assignment? Would you be willing to make some time outside work hours to work on a related project with a mentor? Maybe do some volunteering in line with the new vision work? I suggest that you create a plan and list the milestones. It will amazing you in December how much closer you are to your vision, if you're just a little deliberate about it. Once you've created a plan for yourself, ask a friend to keep you acco...

It Gets Better

I spent some time watching the It Gets Better videos last night. Moving stuff. My favorite is the singing from the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus. It's wild how song works. The world needs all our talents. I'm good at storytelling. I'm good at helping humans align their being with their doing. To get really good at what I do, I constantly have to get better at aligning my own being with my doing. It's hard work. I think our careers help us focus on our deepest wounding as human beings, and as we get better, we develop power in that very area where we're broken. We get stronger than most other humans around that and we can GIVE that strength to others to help them along on the human journey. And that's our career. I think firemen saw some hopeless stuff growing up and are COMPELLED to run into burning buildings to do the impossible task of saving someone from fire. Nurses run TO broken bones and tend to them. I run to broken souls: I see someone struggling wi...

Blah Blah Blah

I love the funny line in the movie, forget which one, where someone makes funs of blogs and says something approximating, "I read your blah, and you read my blah." We all do "blah" on a lot about nothing. I'm feeling blah, which is different from sad or depressed, it's that apathy thing.  It's completely internal.  Life is really good, in fact I read somewhere that there is a specie of human that get restless when things are good.  I hope I'm outside that circle. Life is good, and I'm blah.