Get Your Career In Gear

Step 1 - How To Manage Your Hot Buttons

First, you need to be able to identify your hot buttons.  You've got to know what they are before you can manage them.  In other words, turn off the cruise control and start paying attention to your reactions.

When a hot button is being pushed it usually signals part of your body.  You might get a knot in your stomach.  You might clench your teeth.  Your heart might beat faster.  Your muscles may tense up.  It could be any number of things, but the key point here is learning to recognize the signals. 

It's sort of like the "check engine" light in your car.  It was designed to give you fair warning that something is or could be going wrong. 

In the case of your hot buttons, you want your brain to recognize and warn you that something is going wrong.  This gives you the opportunity to consciously choose an appropriate response to the situation…and hopefully a response that you won't regret later.

Ok, for the next several days pay extra attention to your hot buttons.  When you begin to feel the signals, step back and take notice.  Ask yourself these questions:

What am I feeling?

What is prompting the feeling?

What am I about to do that I may regret?

What do I need to do right now to prevent doing something I'll regret later?

Let me know what happened!

Change For Email Subscribers

If you are receiving the blog update through email, I need a favor from you please. 

In order to serve you better I am changing the service provider from Blogarithm to Feedblitz.  This will be the last update email you receive through Blogarithm.

If you'd like to continue to receive updates through email, please go to the blog now and enter your email address in the "subscribe" box (on the right).

I apologize for this inconvenience, but in the long run, this change is for the better!

Thanks so much for your patience!

Free Ebook - Interviewer' Secrets Revealed

Lisa Haneberg from the Management Craft blog is offering several freebies at her newly re-designed website.  There are several choices for you, but pay special attention to "Interviewers' Secrets Revealed:  How To Ace Your Next Interview".  It's packed with great tips.  You can find it right here:

Interviewers' Secrets Revealed:  How To Ace Your Next Interview

Begin With The End In Mind

I have a friend who recently retired from a company.  She spent about 25 years doing essentially the very same job.  She's bitter, she has nothing good to say about the company, and she can give you a long list of excuses why she stayed in a job she hated for so long. 

How sad is that?  Unfortunately, I'll bet you know of at least one other person in a similar position.

Just EXCUSES!  She simply chose to relinquish all responsibility, blame situations and other people, and make excuses for not taking charge of her career and her own happiness.  In other words, she gave up.  And now she can spend her retirement looking back on her misery...at least she can take comfort in her belief that "It wasn't my fault!"

Let me ask you this... How are you making excuses in your career?  What is it costing you?

Create Your Own Luck

So, what does luck have to do with business?  I say, "Think about it!"  In the business world we may think of luck as "seizing the moment", or "taking advantage of an opportunity", but it's all really all about creating your own luck.

Over the last several years many of us (at least in the corporate world) have undergone significant change.  If your job hasn't been eliminated, chances are that it has changed.  You may be doing more, doing it differently or a little of both.  And…chances are, the changes have been painful at times. 

Those who choose to thrive during these crazy times are lucky.  In other words, they've chosen "luck".  They are the people who can see that sweet lemonade comes from sour lemons, and that turning lemons into lemonade reaps its rewards. 

So, what is it that lucky people do differently?  According to Richard Wiseman Luck School For Business:  A Case Study With Technical Asset Management, there are four central principles:

n          Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities

n          Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut instincts

n          Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune, and these expectations become self fulfilling prophecies

n          Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way

In my language that translates to:

n          Expanding your sphere of vision (pay attention and look at the bigger picture)

n          Possibility Thinking (what could be great about this?)

n          Engaging fully (take action and contribute to the cause)

Lucky people recognize and take advantage of opportunities…and they create their own luck.