Am I Doomed To A Career That Doesnt Interest Me

“Am I Doomed To A Career That Doesn’t Interest Me” Help from our Community “Am I Doomed To A Career That Doesn’t Interest Me?” * Kim's work identity is split down the middle: a secure day job that she's dying to escape, and a low-paying career that she loves. When you can't seem to achieve exactly what you want, how do you find a balance between passion and practicality? What's your career history and current job? My career history over the past seven years has been disjointed, as I've always worked several jobs at once. I'm currently the director of development at a not-for-profit. As a former dancer, I also choreograph my own work and teach on the side, working on Saturdays and in the evenings to keep the arts a part of my life. How do you feel about your work? Dancing was a very difficult career to have. It's very unstable but it's all I ever wanted to do. It's part of who I am. In my late 20s I realised that if I wanted to have a family, to be able to retire one day and take care of myself, it was a responsible decision to start transferring to something else. Working three jobs at the same time â€" the day job and the dance teaching on the side â€" is incredibly exhausting. I'm in my mid-30s now and getting married this year. I want to have a normal life, but I haven't figured out another way to do the things that make me happy. Fundraising was something that happened to me rather than it being something I chose. I knew that I wanted to work in a meaningful way and an opportunity came up. I enjoy the grant writing and research components of my job. And I enjoy helping get resources to quality services. I also enjoy strategic planning and opportunities to be creative. But as a sales role, which is what fundraising essentially is, it's actually a very difficult fit for me. I'm a shy person with a lot of social anxiety, so asking people for money causes me a lot of undue stress and worry. What would you like to be doing instead? I'd much rather find something that is a better fit for me. I'd also like to do something that means I don't have to work three jobs to have some financial stability. I love teaching dance, movement therapy, creating new works, creative writing, teaching yoga and fitness. In an ideal world, I'd have the freedom and flexibility to concentrate on my dance company. I could see myself as the Art Director, with my own development professional to make the 'asks' of fundraisers, essentially alleviating the stressors of doing fundraising myself. It's hard, though, to see how to make that financially secure. So I've thought about writing grants on the side, or perhaps freelance consulting â€" something with flexible hours that would mean I could set my own schedule and prioritise the things that are meaningful to me. What's the biggest obstacle in your way? The big dilemma for me is that the arts just doesn't pay enough, so I keep getting sucked back toward fundraising. All the things that would make me happy and bring me fulfilment don't offer any security, so I have two CVs: one that focuses on my fundraising skills and the other on my arts skills. I took a Master's to get some additional education to see if that would help with a career transition into more policy-based work in the not-for-profit sector. I also altered my CV to show that my skills would translate into programme work. But I can't seem to get any interviews related to that. Meanwhile, the second I send out a fundraising application, I get two or three interviews straight away. So I go to those interviews, thinking that maybe if I could just find somewhere better I'd be able to do it... But it's the same job, the same challenges. I can't keep up this cycle of trying to find another job in the same sector because I don't like the job so I won't like it anywhere. I don't ever expect to love anything as much as dance again. But I find it really depressing to think that if I'm going to give up something and have a less stressful life, it's going to have to be the things that I really love to do. Is it inevitable that I'm going to have to have a career doing something that I'm not interested in? If so, how do I find balance between the things that make me happy and the practical demands of a normal life? Can you help Kim? Have you been in a similar situation, or are you in the same boat right now? How do you think Kim could move her shift forwards? Do you know anyone she could talk to? Share your thoughts in the comments below and click the thumbs-up button to show your support. Give Kim a cheer of encouragement by hitting the thumbs-up button here:

Commercial Awareness - What Is It And How Can I Get It

Commercial Awareness - What Is It And How Can I Get It Commercial awareness comes up time and time again as a weakness that employers perceive graduates to have, so if you’re looking to stand out from the crowd as a graduate candidate, commercial awareness is a key competency you need to be working on. But what exactly is commercial awareness and how can you develop it? What is Commercial Awareness? It’s not an immediately obvious term; a quick internet search will bring up some slightly ambiguous definitions: The UCAS glossary of competencies defines it as: “Understands the economics of the business. Understands the business benefits and commercial realities from both the organisations and the customers perspectives”. Cambridge dictionaries online defines it as: “Knowledge of how businesses make money, what customers want, and what problems there are in particular areas of business.” By far the best definition we’ve come across in our online travels is from Ernst and Young’s YouTube channel. This is a must-watch for getting an insight into what employers mean when they talk about commercial awareness. In simple terms we can say that commercial awareness is about understanding what’s going on in the world of business, looking at situations from a commercial perspective and thinking about cause and effect. Using the example from the Ernst and Young video if there is a natural disaster on the other side of the world, how does that affect a business? Does it affect the supply chain, outsourcing, clients, staff? Will the effect be long-term or short-term? How about if a major competitor enters the market what issues would that throw up for a business? Do they need to think about more competitive pricing, diversifying, increased advertising, loyalty rewards? How will they fund any of those policies will they take a hit on their margins? What will that mean for the company their shareholders, their staff? A topical example how will a business be affected if the UK leaves the EU? How exposed is the business to the EU? Do they import, export, both? How will this be affected? Could leaving the EU open up new markets? Will red tape be cut? What kind of savings would that represent? You get the picture; thinking along these lines, coupled with gaining a good general knowledge of current affairs, is the way to building up useful commercial awareness that’s going to really impress an employer. Where do I start? Read There’s no getting around it, building up your commercial awareness requires research. You don’t have to spend a small fortune subscribing to periodicals; everything you need is available at your fingertips for free on this crazy new platform called the Internet! Use the business and financial sections of news websites, read blogs and articles, follow businesses and news sites on Twitter. If you have a specific industry in mind, then you can focus your attention on issues particular to that industry. Ideally, you want to be in a position where you can have an informed conversation with your interviewer get an opinion on issues and back that opinion up with facts. Try not to think of it as a chore it’s about what’s going on in the world it’s interesting! The more you learn, the more you read, the more interesting you’ll find it. Learn the Lingo Learning the definitions of key business terms will unlock a whole new understanding and make everything you read about a lot easier to process. Learn the definition of words such as: margins, overheads, direct costs, assets, liability, GDP, consumption, entry barriers, supply shock, etc. The Guardian has a great Glossary of Business Terms. Watch it in Action We’re constantly surrounded by commercial awareness in action, so start thinking about commercial realities in your every-day life. If you have a job or a volunteering role, think about how different business decisions and events affect the organisation. You can also consider it in your role as a consumer. Final Point Don’t think you’re exempt from needing commercial awareness if you’re not going for a position in business or finance. Organisations want all their staff to understand how the business works, how actions and decision affect the business and that includes designers, sales staff, web developers, everyone!

Measure Your Career Interests With the Strong Interest Inventory - VocationVillage

Measure Your Career Interests With the Strong Interest Inventory - VocationVillage If you arent sure which career path to choose, one way to find out is to measure your career interests with the Strong Interest Inventory. The Strong Interest Inventory ® (SII) is a highly popular career interest assessment because it has such a strong track record of helping people gain career clarity. The SII achieves this by revealing to what extent your career interests are in sync with the career interests of professionals who are already satisfied with their careers.Here is what CPP, the publishers of the Strong Interest Inventory ®, say about it:  Used by more than 70 percent of U.S. colleges and universities, the Strong Interest Inventory ® assessment is one of the world’s most widely respected and frequently used career planning tools. It helps high school and college studentsâ€"as well as people in transitionâ€"make fulfilling career choices.There are two types of Strong Interest Inventory ® reports that you can purchase. One requires professional interpretation by a care er counselor and one is designed to be self-interpreted. Here are sample reports for both:Strong Interest Inventory ® Profile and Interpretive Report (requires professional interpretation).iStartStrong ® (self-interpreted)If you would like to take the Strong Interest Inventory ® iStartStrong ®, please contact me for instructions and specify which report option you would like.I look forward to assisting you!Dr. Janet Scarborough Civitelli

5 Maternity Leave Super Tips for Mompreneurs - Classy Career Girl

5 Maternity Leave Super Tips for Mompreneurs Are you a mompreneur getting ready to have a baby? Wondering how you will ever take a maternity leave? I am here to tell you it is possible. I did it, and so can you.  I am so glad I had a maternity leave plan for my new business, and I want to share it with you today. Trust meonce your little one arrives in the world, he or she will be your number one priority. I, like you, thought I would have time to work. Its maternity leave; I could fit in a little work here and there, right? WRONG! My struggles with breastfeeding and multiple doctors appointments to get my newborn daughter weighed and make sure she was growing  put  all hopes of working on the backburner. My business HAD to work because I told my boss I wasnt coming back after maternity leave. So I did have this fire under me that it HAD to work no matter what, and that helped. Its not impossible. Here are five  things I did that helped me take a 2-month maternity leave as a new mom entrepreneur: 1. Pre-schedule all social media  blog content for two months after baby. As a soon-to-be working mom, do not assume you will have a minute to do this when your newborn arrives. Just pre-schedule your content ahead of time. Trust me; youll have enough other things to worry about, such as keeping your baby alive! For your blog: Ask guest writers to contribute. Get their posts before the baby comes and schedule it, so it publishes automatically. Take an old post and schedule it again. Your readers probably never saw the first post anyways, and you can always change it up a little to help with SEO. For your social media: Once again, recycle old content. Do you know how many posts you made over the last year? Look at the best ones and schedule one to two posts per day for the next two months. 2. Set a hard date when you will STOP all work. I recommend at 38 weeks because you just ever know what your birth story will be. Then, if your baby comes later, thats just extra time and we all know there is plenty to do right before baby comes.like read a book,  eat spicy wings and try to walk around Target with everyone staring at you. 3. Download podcasts to get you motivated during maternity leave. You may not have a hand to read, but trust me, you may need a special friend motivating you through those 3 am nursing sessions. I was so glad I had some special podcasts and audios ready on my phone to help me get through some late nights and to encourage me to get my business brain back. Mommy brain is for real. 4. Create an automatic sales funnel. You need your business to work without you for at least one to two months. For that reason, I recommend a sales funnel that runs while you sleep (or in this casedont sleep). You determine how people will find out about you (automatically) which are your leads. Then, you turn those leads into prospects by getting their email address or contact information. Finally, you turn your prospects into customers. The first two you can do automatically during your maternity leave. Heres how I did it. At the time of my maternity leave, I had a service-based career coaching business. When I wasnt giving birth, I was usually turning my prospects into customers by talking to people during free sessions. This is highly recommended if you are a rather new business owner because there is way more trust  when you talk to someone on the phone or in person. So, I automatically got leads by running a Facebook ad to an optin page. (My optin page of choice is leadpages.net). I welcomed people to watch a free video where I reviewed my 7-step Get Your Career Unstuck system. I also linked pre-scheduled social media content every day to this page during maternity leave, as well. I ran an autoresponder campaign with seven days of emails and great content not selling anything. All I did was welcomed them to sign-up for a free strategy session with me when I returned from maternity leave. When I came back from maternity leave and had my mompreneur brain back, I had a full calendar of people ready to talk to my about my services and my courses. I was overbooked by month 3 and even launched a brand new course by  month 4, which  was the highest revenue month for my business EVER. 5. Work on your mompreneur mindset. Ask for help. You cant do it alone. People WANT to help. Please know this. The wonderful women at my church brought me dinner, and it was so appreciated. My mother-in-law just came over to hold Mila so my husband and I could run an errandalone. Its the little things, and self-care must be a priority for you. You must take care of you, Ms. CEO. Remember, you will be a better mom if you are taking care of yourself too. Its ok to say no. You dont have to do everything. Make sure you know your priorities and try to simplify things as much as possible. You will be ok. You can do this. Deep breath! [Related: What I learned about success my first year as a mom] What do you think? Is maternity leave for mompreneurs possible?

Fear is at the Heart of Our Problems in Making a Change - Career Pivot

Fear is at the Heart of Our Problems in Making a Change - Career Pivot Fear of Making a Change I have had numerous conversations over the last several weeks and the common theme has been fear. It is the fear of making a mistake, fear of not knowing what to do, fear of getting stuck or just the fear of making a change. Fear has everyone paralyzed. Fear is the new 4 letter “F” word. I wrote last week about being bold, overcoming your fears and just get moving in some direction. Multipotentialites and Fear Multipotentialites have a lot of interests. They tend to get really interested in one topic, go deep, become an expert and then get bored. They then want to move on to the next thing. I wrote a very popular post on Multipotentialism called Are you a Multipotentialite? When multipotentialitesreach the 2nd half of life and they have not been able to attain career success, fear sets in. Self-doubt sets in around whether they will ever be as successful as they had planned or hoped. I was speaking with a gentleman last week who had attained so many diverse credentials from being a certified project manager to being a certified health nutritionist. He had spent most of his career trying to fit into roles that just did not fit him. He left his last job exhausted after playing a role that he just could nolonger maintain. Most of us become actors at work. Check out my post Are You Your Authentic Self or an Actor at Work? [Updated]. He could no longer continue playing many of the roles that had brought him some financial success. Fear was setting in. He was not sure what direction to take and therefore, he just froze. He quit his job and was taking some time off. The problem was he needed to be free to explore. He needed to understand this will not be a sprint but a marathon and he may head down a dead end. He mayneed to turn around and try something different. Listen to the most recent episode It was the fear of making yet another change. Fear of Failure I grew up with the mantra,Failure is not an Option, which we now know is total and complete BS. Failure is a natural part of life. We learn when we fail but that was not an acceptable option for many of us. I have been working with another gentleman who went to college and studied economics. Why may you ask? He thought he could get a job when he graduated which he did. It landed him in the finance and banking industries. Did he enjoy it? Heck, no. In the last ten years, what joy he got from working directly with customers has gone away to be almost a robot in processing loan applications. The pressure to make decisions rapidly without enough information is driving him nuts. He does not want to change because he fears that he will make less money if he makes a pivot. More importantly… what if he fails? Money has become a straight jacket. He feels he needs to pay for his child’s college education. If he can just hold on for another 5-10 years then he can do something different. That fear of failure and money are freezing him right in place. Change is Inevitable We are experiencing creative destruction at an explosive rate. New technologies are destroying entire industries and job categories every year and at the same time creating new opportunities. Change is not slowing down but accelerating. If you fear the change, then you will be left in the dust. If you embrace the change and look for opportunities to explore new interests you may find lots of new opportunities to shed the actor’s clothes that you have been wearing. You may need to simplify your life. I have written multiple articles and produced multiple podcast episodes on our plans to move to Mexico.Check out the following pageHow to Move Abroad and Take Your Job With You Serieswhere I am chronicling our experiences. We are now working on getting rid of most of everything, scaling back our lives so that we can live on a third of what we used to live on and at the same time be happier and healthier. I know, I know, you are probably saying that is crazy. You are saying to yourself, “You can do that but I cannot.” I will make a wager that is fear talking. If fear of making a change is freezing you then if you wait long enough you will become the victim of change. Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...

Natural and Synthetic happiness at work - Heres why you need both - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Natural and Synthetic happiness at work - Heres why you need both - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This article was written byTais Lyager Rasmussen and Woohoo incs?newest employee Thomas Christensen . What do you do when you do not get the happiness you wanted??You make it yourself! As a child growing up, you quickly learn that you do not always get what you want. This is pretty much a fact of life. You wanted the red electronic toy car but instead you got told to use your imagination and go play outside. Your favorite band is playing tomorrow night sorry, you have to work late. Everyone experiences these kinds of situations and everyone hates them. When life fails to match your expectations, for whatever reason, a gap is created between the expectations of your life and the realities of your life. ?Obviously, this makes you unhappy, life was revealed to be less than you thought it was. But is this always the case? Research has shown that our ability to cope with unfavorable situations is greater than previously thought because of a mechanism called synthetic happiness. Synthetic happiness is a form of personal psychological happiness. According to Professor of Psychology at Harvard University?Dan Gilbert there exist two different kinds of psychological happiness, the natural kind and the synthetic kind. Gilbert explains that: ?Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don?t get what we wanted?. Hang on; is happiness not just the result of getting what you want? Surely it is not something you can just make up yourself. People that say that they are happier about the outcome they did not want are just fooling themselves, right? Well it turns out that it is actually possible to create your own happiness, called synthetic happiness, and that this form of happiness is equally as good as natural happiness. The name ?synthetic? carries with it some associations that are less than ideal. ?A more fitting name would be personal happiness, because the internal validation that adds value to a choice you have already made is just that, internal and personal. Dan Gilberts fascinating experiment Gilbert did an experiment with individuals suffering from anterograde amnesia, a condition making it impossible for them to acquire new memories think of?the movies ?50-first dates? or ?Memento?. Gilbert approached these individuals and asked them to rank 6 paintings from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least. Gilbert explained that they would receive a poster of one of the paintings. They could choose between number 3 and 4. Almost all individuals chose number 3, because they liked it a little more than number 4. Gilbert then went out of the room and came back moments later. Since these individuals have anterograde amnesia they could not remember who he was, that he was just in the room or that they owned a poster of painting number 3. He asked them to rank the 6 paintings from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least. Surely they would rank the paintings in the same general order? Actually, individuals now ranked the poster they owned at number 2 (previously ranked 3) and the poster they had said no to (previously number 4) was now ranked number 5. Indicating that these individuals liked the poster they now own more than before they owned it, even when they do not remember that they own it! They also like the poster they gave up less, even when they do not remember that they gave it up! These startling results indicate?that not only can individuals make their own synthetic happiness but they do this unconsciously. Gilbert also found that this unconscious ability to synthesize happiness happens more often in situations where you do not have a say in the matter. Dan Gilbert talks about the experiment in this TED talk: 4 reasons why this is important when thinking about happiness at work Before going into the 4 points, a crucial observation must be made. In the experiment presented above, the choice of the pictures is presented in a low risk environment. There are no wrong choices, and no one to criticize their choice once it is made. Obviously this situation does not reflect the reality of most peoples lives. Rather than considering this to be just a criticism, it would be much more prudent to consider it an argument for fostering a low risk environment, so people are less likely to second guess themselves, because it is okay to be wrong. 1: A happy life is not always about getting what you want. It is about learning to enjoy what you get. While this might read like ?Don?t worry ? be happy?, Gilbert?s experiment allows us to dig a little deeper. When your boss hands you a crappy assignment it is possible to end up feeling genuine personal happiness. Even if you have no choice in accepting the assignment or not because of #2. 2: Synthetic happiness is not ?cheating? yourself to happier. The experiment with the amnesiac patients demonstrates that the happiness created by themselves is true and genuine. The idea of ?Synthetic? happiness sounds like you are somehow cheating. How can you be happy when your life does not match up to expectations, or the expectations of others. Thinking of ?synthetic? happiness as ??personal? or ?private? happiness is a much better metaphor. If you find yourself enjoying the crappy assignment your boss gave you, do not think of it as cheating or selling out. ?Do not worry, it is allowed to enjoy things you did not choose. 3: Natural happiness primarily relies on external factors whereas Synthetic happiness primarily relies on internal factors. As such, Synthetic happiness can be a more long-term, stable form of happiness than natural happiness. If you have to rely on always getting what you want to be happy there is a good chance that you will be unhappy, since life is unpredictable. Happiness derived from learning to live with any outcome is much more stable in that it is applicable to every outcome and not only those where you obtain what you want. 4: General happiness in life comes from the relationship between Natural happiness and Synthetic happiness. This is probably the most important point. The idea of synthetic or personal happiness is not to suggest that you should be less involved in your decisions or just go with the flow. There is absolutely a time and place to stand your ground. The idea behind the division of happiness is to be more reflective of the idea of happiness. If you know that you can be happy from getting what you want but also from not getting what you want, it will take some of the pressure off on always having to achieve. Enjoying something you were told to do without feeling shameful, or like a quitter, has to go hand in hand with the ability to proactively seek out what you want. This is going to take a lot of practice. Thinking of happiness in these two metaphors can be really difficult, but ultimately rewarding. Having a sense of ?personal? happiness that is removed from external factors requires discipline and practice, but it will lead to a happier life. Related posts Positive feedback increases intrinsic motivation 4 exciting research projects from Woohoo Labs Should?managers focus on results or people? The answer is Yes! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Great Giveaway Winner Personal E-Decorating Guide from Maggie Rose!

Great Giveaway Winner Personal E-Decorating Guide from Maggie Rose! Another moodboard by Maggie! Its time to announce the winner of the personal e-decorating guide contest from interior designer ( client o mine) Maggie Rose! But before I do (so Ryan Seacrest of me, I know), I wanted to pass along this message from Maggie herself: Hi guys, Maggie here! Well it was VERY hard for me to pick just one winner, but unfortunately a choice had to be made! However, I do want to work with each and every one of you who entered the giveaway! Watch for an email from me Im offering each of you a free Express Package a mini design guide that will give you some ideas for getting started on your space and answer a few of your meatiest questions. If you decide that you want the whole-shebang (which would include a shopping list, moodboard, inspiration pics, etc), remember that you can still get the Amazing Michelle deal of $60 per room. Ill be emailing each of you in the next week to get started on the Express Package and congrats to Kate! Youll be hearing from me shortly and I cant wait to get started! Thats right, Kate Townley Smith youre the winner! Thanks to everyone for entering for your home decor challenges. Im actually gonna start working with Maggie on sprucing up the bedroom, so stay tuned for the before after pics right here! ************************************************************************************************************* Spring has an all-new video up, asking the question, What do you do for self-care? Would love your eyeballs comments! Delicious Discounts Great Giveaways for When I Grow Up Readers! Through July 24th: enter to win a  custom scrapbook from  Tara Sroka. Through Aug 31st: get a $25 discount for any $250 purchase from    Tara Sroka. As Gwen Stefani would say, What You Waiting For? Get Danielle LaPorte’s Nuggets of Genius in your own home, on your own time.   The Digital Firestarter Sessions from my “cult leader” have launched! What’s your Joy Equation? Find out with Molly Hoyne’s Pay-What-You-Can-Afford Program!