Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Even if you didn’t, there’s still something oddly liberating about a fresh calendar in January. A brand new year. A blank slate. Endless opportunities. A renewed sense of commitment to reaching goals. So what’s the problem? Many people can’t resist the urge … [Read more...]
Career Development: Take the Fitness-Tracker Approach!
Fitness trackers provide us with constant, real-time data about the health and efficiency of our bodies—distance walked, calories burned, heart rate, sleep quality. But what about tracking the health of our careers? If annual performance reviews are our only source of information, we’re at a big … [Read more...]
Why We Need to Embrace Our Career-Path Curves
When my coaching clients struggle to move their careers forward, the roadblock usually is not their managers. Or their organizations. Or their co-workers. The problem is actually the limitations of their own thinking. They often believe there’s only one path to travel for advancement. They think the … [Read more...]
Moving Beyond the Fear of Asking for Help
In my last post, I talked about the Fear of Asking for Help (#FOAFH) and how that can damage our careers. Now I want to give you some tools to move beyond the fear. By changing this mindset, you could gain a real advantage in your quest for professional success. Finding the root of the … [Read more...]
It’s Real: The Fear of Asking for Help
Your manager finally trusts you to lead the big project. That joyful feeling of confirmation is soon interrupted by the queasy reality that you don’t exactly know how to complete all aspects of the job. Obviously, you need to ask for some help, right? According to most people, the answer would be: … [Read more...]
The Power of Being Precise
Sometimes accuracy is a requirement, not an option. I was reminded about the importance of precision in business after reading a recent article in the New York Times. It was about the value of accuracy in emotions. Surprised? The connection between career success and the ability to identify our … [Read more...]
Negotiation Deal-Breakers: When to Walk Away
If you regularly negotiate to land new clients and projects—or to convince your boss you deserve a promotion—you probably have some solid strategies in your bag of business tricks. You go in with the goal to close the deal. To get the business. To be recognized. That’s the ultimate end game, … [Read more...]
When Rage Derails a Career: Coping with Anger
We all experience moments of anger; we’re human. But some people have a hair-trigger temper that takes them from “calm” to “rage” in the blink of an eye—often over something that is seemingly unimportant. Do you have that tendency? Or do you work with someone who fits that description? If it’s the … [Read more...]
Building Your Brain’s Gray Matter: The Unexpected Strategy
Professionals go to great lengths to expand their knowledge and success: taking courses, reading voraciously, networking with industry experts. But what if you could expand the gray matter in your brain by using a very different strategy? You can! Do nothing. That’s right. It sounds … [Read more...]
Are You Cultivating Real Growth for Your Career?
As a kid, I always loved Spring—especially when my Dad would help us create a garden. He’d guide us to plant seeds in rows and carefully cover them up with fresh soil. Then he would set up the stakes for the promising future of our viney sweet peas. Each night after he came home from work, we’d all go … [Read more...]
