Victory!

“When you accomplish a goal, don’t cross it out. Instead, write ‘victory’ next to it and move on to the next one. This way, whenever you have a bad day, all you have to do is to review your victories to feel good about yourself.” – Jack Canfield

Losing your job? How to act with inspiration rather than desperation

In today's economy, the sad fact is that a number of people out there (maybe you?) are going to lose their jobs when they really didn't want to through redundancies and layoffs.

What are the best ways of moving on? Here are some practical tips: I've been redundant three times in my career and I reckon I'm getting expert at picking myself up, dusting myself off and moving on!

Step 1: Think of a reason why this happened and decide to believe it.

No matter how confident you are, losing a job always makes you question and doubt yourself. Or worse; blame your situation or the colleagues at your former employer. Neither is constructive. The best thing to do is to analyse why this happened and de-personalise it. Think of the overall situation - maybe economic reasons, your company had out of date products and services, too many staff who were not busy and productive enough. Find a reason why and accept it - then you can move on.

Step 2: Split your decision making into two: earning money and future career.

The high level advice on deciding what to do with your career and your life is good, but is not always practical when bills need to be paid. Decide on two things to do. Firstly:

• What are you going to do to support yourself or your family financially in the short term? This might include reducing expenditure, workign out how long any final payments from your employer might last, taking a short term temporary job in order to support yourself while you sort out what to do next. Lots of people focus only on trying to find some kind of ideal and altruistic existence and create more of a crisis for themselves in the long term as supporting themselevs and their family goes unaddressed.

• What do your really want to do with your career? This requires more long term thought and might include seeking a similar position elsewhere or making a radical change of direction - or something in between.

By separating these two questions, you can give yourself permission to take a job for short term money, even if it isn't perfect for the long term, and leave yourself space to thing more clearly about your future and what you really want to do.

This approach has many benefits - not least because it removes the sense of panic and allows you to search from a mindset of inspiration rather than desperation.

Watch for more instalments on this topic!

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Quote Corner

"Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life".- Confucius

Amazon and advertising - the future is in lazy consumers!

Have been at TM Forum Management World this week. A conference about the techical world but with some inspirational speakers from the digital world giving a completely different insight into the direction which technology is taking us. Have a look at my recommendations on fab video site Telecom TV: Rory Sutherland (pictured) from global advertising company Ogilvy telling us why the industry must take note of lazy consumers! And Werner Vogels from Amazon explaining how important it is to look not just at things which will change, but also things which will stay the same.

There are business lessons in these speeches for us all!

Dinner time anyone?

There can be no more civilized country in the world to hold a conference or a big event than France! I’m currently setting up a conference on the lovely Cote d’Azur in Nice, right down in the south, where the sea and skies are blue and the days are sunny and bright! But the weather is not only the reason for my positive vibes.........

France is the only place in the world, in my experience, which puts paid to the pre-event, all-night setup frenzy that characterizes most conference venues in the world. Come 8pm, the building closes and work ceases. Just in time for a relaxed and delicious French dinner, punctuated only by the loud and important tones of foreigners on their mobile phones, ensuring that their authority continues to be felt remotely as they do business in distant time zones over the dessert course.

Now workaholics among us may think this is a terrible loss of productivity. But let’s remember the old adage: “Work expands to fit the time available for it”. By making it possible to continue working through the night.... lo and behold, it is necessary to work through the night (and with a fair amount of stress, panic and sleeplessness that simply isn’t recovered until the conference is over).

Think about it. Are there areas in your working life where your work expands simply because it can? Do you really and honestly believe that you achieve better outcomes and results because of those long hours?

Quote Corner

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,"who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that otherpeople won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love)

Creating goals that your unconscious mind can help you achieve

Have you ever ever set goals and wondered why they didn't happen? Well, in life, we don't get what we want, we get what we expect. And it could be that, somewhere down in your unconscious mind, you have unconscious expectations of faiure. So you go into a meeting with a potential employer with unconscious expections of failure. What you need to do is take charge of your unconscious expectations from moment to moment, in order to produce the best reaults.

Writing your goals is the first thing to do. Any goal should serve as a suggestion to your unconscious mind so that the unconscious mind can get resources together to help make it happen. For example, most successful people had an image in their mind from a very early age of what they would become. Writing your goals concisely and clearly will help your mind take on and achieve the challenges.

For great resources to help write and achieve your goals, email goalsetting@careersafari.net for details of our Career Safari Destination Goal Setting Audio.

Safari Njema! (Have a good journey!)

Quote Corner

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years".~Abraham Lincoln

Career Turning Points

Every career has big decision points - times when you have to make a choice about the route which will shape your future. These can include such decisions as: changing the focus of your work through moving on to a new role or even a new country, leaving your current organization, asking for a promotion or more money or benefits., challenging your appraisal or performance rating, changing roles from being employed to employing yourself or others, addressing work/life balance issues, taking time out to care for children, relatives or others - and many more.

As you confront these turning points, it's important to ask for help and to seek resources to support you. That's exactly what Career Safari is here for! Watch the next few postings for announcements about our latest workbooks and a new audio briefing to speed your career forwards!

Quote Corner

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been” George Eliot (1819-1880 – pen name for Mary Ann Evans, English novelist).

Zig Zag - ride the wave to career success!

Do you sometimes feel like your career is not going the way you’d like it to go? Although you’d probably prefer that everything would be straightforward from beginning to end, career success rarely turns out that way – for a good reason.

Why? Well, there are no perfectly straight lines in nature – the “straight” route is completely unnatural. Everything is made up of energy and energy travels in waves, meaning that “straight” doesn’t actually exist.

Many people make the mistake of, when their career plans are going a little off course, getting frustrated, upset and wanting to give up. But the journey to success is full of twists and turns, ups, downs, stops and reverses. Just like a safari route which may have to deviate from the beaten track to avoid pot-holes, obstructions and danger zones, you can enjoy your journey while knowing that you’ll be travelling in a zig zag!

Expect to spend a large part of your time correcting and not being frightened to stretch yourself and make mistakes. Success is the result of getting up one more time than you fall down – accept mistakes as part of the journey – they are the feedback we need to correct ourselves.

Continue to take action! Your own Career Safari is all about setting your destination and then acting and correcting in order to get there.

Sunset over Wall Street - End-of-Quarter Layoffs Hit Amazon, IBM, Google, and The New York Times

Seems like even the biggest and brightest are making layoffs right now - end of first quarter jitters? No one is immune. Plan now!

http://tinyurl.com/c9o86j

"The best way to predict the future is to create it" (Abraham Lincoln).

Play at 100%

Who realises that they're selling themselves short in their career? Are you really willing to do whatever it takes to live your dreams?

Your energy and participation is critical to producing results in your life. If you're not playing full out in one area of your life, where else are you doing that? Where else are you giving up your power to produce the results you really want?

Remember:- "The way you do one thing is the way you do EVERYTHING". If you procrastinate about getting out of bed in the morning then you most likely procrastinate about applying for promotion, promoting yourself and tidying up your resume.

The good news is that you can change in an instant. Creating change is as simple as making new choices, especially when you have the right tools. I'll be sharing more tomorrow on how NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) tools can help.

World Economic Forum stresses importance of education and technology in times of global turmoil

This annually published Report stresses the importance of information, communications and technolgy (ICT) as a catalyst for growth in the current global turmoil. It underlines that good education fundamentals and high levels of technological readiness and innovation are essential engines of growth needed to overcome the current economic crisis.

See the full report and rankings: http://www.weforum.org/gitr

What message does this give to you personally about your own career and growth?

Career Safari - hang on tight and enjoy the ride!

This is not your parents' world. Gone are the days when you joined a company and retired 40 years later, having worked your way up through the ranks in the meantime.

These are crazy times for careers. Layoffs and redundancies everywhere you look. Gloom and doom from all quarters. Careers today are a journey - and there has never been a better time for those who are well prepared to benefit from whatever is going on outside.

Why? Well, technology has created the means for us to work more flexibly and creatively than ever before. Opportunities are opening up everywhere - they might not be the same opportunities as existed before but surviving and thriving in a downturn is easy if you're looking in the right places.

Take control of your career - it's a safari full of fun, fulfilment and fantastic vistas! You might find a few potholes and ruts along the way but hang on tight and you'll be fine!

Join our Career Safari and enjoy the ride! We'll be providing hints, tips and resources to keep your career right on track - whatever you're doing - so bookmark this page :-)