Everyone has up’s and down’s in their love lives, most commonly there are “those relationships” you’d rather forget, but should you forget them entirely? Why not use negative experiences from your love life to prevent you from making similar mistakes in your career? At least you’ll have something to show from those lousy relationships!

Although using a one-night-stand in your work environment isn’t recommended, there are some popular relationship problems which can be likened common career complaints. You can learn from these mistakes to resolve pressing issues in your career.

The Stale Marriage

Much like a weathered marriage, you’ve hit that point in your career where you generally feel BORED. You may feel that there’s no opportunity for progression within the company you work for and getting out of bed to go to work has become more challenging than the role itself. You feel you can’t just quit because you have financial outgoings and a family you need to support but the job is making you miserable.

In this situation you have 3 options: to stick it out and remain miserable and unfulfilled but financially sound; try relationship counselling to mend the damage or file for a divorce.

If you’re constantly miserable you’re not helping anyone; yourself or your family. It can also have effects on your health such as depression and fatigue. Taking no action means things will only get worse.

Trying “relationship counselling” with your boss is a viable option. Speak to your boss and say how you feel your skills would be better utilised in a higher role with more responsibilities. If you work for an organisation which values its employees then they should be open to negotiation (providing you’ve proved your worth), if not then maybe you should consider whether a job elsewhere would be more fulfilling and gain you more respect.

If the counselling really hasn’t worked then it’s time to file for a divorce. Your health and happiness is more important than the money your job brings – you have to take a few risks in life to be successful. To avoid putting a financial strain on your family, continue your employment in your current role until you’ve been accepted for another position elsewhere.

The Comparative Couple

This situation is similar to when you compare your relationship to other friends’ or family member’s relationships, common thoughts are “why’s my relationship not as passionate as theirs?”, “why don’t we do things as a couple like them?” This can also happen in your career if one of your friends or family members gets a new job, jealousy can rear its ugly head and occupy your mind.

This can be a dangerous situation to be in as you may begin to question your career or feel dubious about your job. The first thing to consider is why you are feeling jealous of other people’s jobs. Perhaps there’s more of an underlying issue; are you feeling undervalued at work? Do you need more feedback on your development from superiors?

The key here is to address you own issues and forget about your friend’s passion for their new job. Focus on what drove you to apply for your current job in the first place. Perhaps you’re feeling complacent in your role and need a new challenge, talk to your boss about the possibility of taking on new responsibilities that will challenge you. You’ll soon forget about your friend’s career as you buzz off your new accomplishments.

The Honeymoon Period

When you first start a new job you’re filled with excitement; meeting new people, learning new skills and taking on new challenges can all be exhilarating. Much like newlyweds however, this honeymoon period has to come to an end as normality sets in. For some people this isn’t a problem, for others it can cause them to come down with a crash and feel bored, stressed and even miserable.

As routine begins to set in you have to accept that certain aspects of the daily grind will begin to irritate you – the same commute will bore the life out of you and your colleagues will irritate you beyond belief but that will probably happen with every job and usually wanes with time! If you really feel like you’re not fitting in after a considerable amount of time then maybe you could ask for a transfer or look for a new job elsewhere.

When it comes to relationships there’s plenty to be learned from bad experiences. Rather than dwelling on them and feeling filled with regret, you may as well use them to build on in the future. Prevent the same mistakes from happening in your career as well as your love life!

This was a guest post written by Stephanie Staszko who writes career building tips and advice for Blue Octopus. They can help you to find a job if your current one’s driving you stir crazy.

Whether you have just started in the world of work or a seasoned professional, establishing a successful work-life balance can prove difficult challenge. Having a good work life balance is a huge factor in your general happiness and well being. We all feel pressured to work and worry about work and we are all pressured to be out with friends or family every night. Pressure comes from all around you and before you know it you are stressed at work and not going out.

The outcome is that you will be unhappy and this will affect not just you but your friends and family. Achieving balance will mean you will be happy with your life as a whole and enjoy work and appreciate the time you have when it comes. So with that in mind, here are the three ways that can help you find your work life balance and feel better as a result.

1)Know your boundaries

An important life skill, knowing your boundaries is a instinct that you learn as you age and that you learn to trust. Knowing your limits is a highly respectable trait, one which many wish they listen to. Your body will tell you when something is wrong and listening to these signals is a sure way to helping a work life balance. When I first started work I was always meeting up with my friends after work to chat and have a couple of drinks, it normally resulted in me coming home late and although i always had a great time, I also remember being absolutely shattered everyday for work. Simply put, there was no balance. When your body says you are tired or ill or out of sync, know when to go home and relax. Only going out a few nights a week, will mean that you get a regular routine of sleep, which will help you feel refreshed at work. Also not partying ever night will save you money, this will mean you can buy that item that you always wanted or go to that place you have dreamed of. It is important to plan in advance, not weeks in advance, not even days, but just make sure you set out when you meet up, what you are going to do and when you will be heading home. This leads us onto the next point.

2) Always make time for yourself

We all love those days where we stay in bed and do nothing. Physically and psychologically having time to yourself, where you can reflect, unwind and relax, can be hugely beneficial. Sometimes a busy week can take its toll on the body and mind. A day to relax in front of the TV can do a world of good and allow you to charge your batteries for whatever the future may bring. Knowing that you are the priority means that you will take time to appreciate what you like doing and as a result you will be more independent and less susceptible to peer pressure. This is a huge step to having a work life balance as you will be able to say no and as a result gain more self respect. It would not be wise just to stick to things that you like and never go out, having new experiences is a great part of life, making time for yourself is simply a step to help you manage your time better.

3) Learn to switch off

Once you step out of the office, work has finished, relax and forget about any work issues or deadlines, taking your problems home with you or to work is always going to end badly. It is your time and you should do what you want with it. This does not mean that everyone ends up with two contrasting lives. Simply that taking a fresh look at life and putting things into perspective can mean huge things for your general well being. You could start to worry less and be more enthusiastic about life. Knowing that there is more to life than just work will liberate many people and help them achieve true happiness. I never lose sleep over work now, I turn up to work fresh and enthusiastic and I still go out a couple of times a week with friends and family. As a result, I feel I have achieved my perfect work life balance and I am happier for it.

Everyone should take a step back and ask themselves do I have a good work life balance? Is work affecting you motivation to socialise or is partying all night affecting your work. Either way a balance has to eventually occur and everyone will have a different level, but most importantly it is what works for you and at the end of the day, what makes you happy.

Bio: Written by Tom Tolladay, an event’s organiser for www.chillisauce.co.uk. Tom has also written for sports website caughtoffside and is a contributor for the International Institute of Event Management. You can contact Tom on his blog www.eventsuppliers.co.uk

Here are 3 ways to awaken your inner architect!

Architects Create Vision

Vision is key!

Your vision can literally serve as your blueprint for the future. Your ability to walk into the life that you crave depends on the future you see. That’s because anything exceptional that you attempt is often birthed with a vision. It’s the vision that inspires hope when the struggle gets too hard and when calamity becomes all too familiar. That’s why it’s important to not bankrupt your future with a limited vision. It’s hard to move forward confidently without having a good idea of where you are going. Powerful motivator Zig Ziglar always says if you aim for nothing, you’ll hit the mark every time.

There are numerous reasons for lack of vision. Sometimes it’s the pain of previous failures that halts our progress. In such cases, we have to remember that missteps bring experience and provide insight; moreover, our survival is a testimony of our resilience. You can experience a do over! Other times we’re blinded by complacency with past successes. However, suppose we had stopped with the telegram or the telephone?

Our lives have been so enriched by people who dared to see beyond present circumstances and innovations. These architects changed the future by elevating our visions. According to Seth Godin, they transform our “shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change.” Just because you are not gifted in design doesn’t mean that you can’t design your life. First, your ability to create the vision for your life necessitates your commitment to learn and look inward.

Second, when you peer into the future, make sure that you are looking with a fresh pair of eyes and perspective. Tired eyes rarely see a bright future.

Third, your vision for your future may benefit from some perspective of the past. History often repeats itself, so ironically, by looking to the past, you can better anticipate the future. Fourth, draw inspiration from what you read, hear, and feel. Then, create the plan that awakens the music inside you. Remember that prosperity and wealth are not beyond your reach. Doing these things consistently will elevate your vision to new levels and give you a sound basis to design an authentic path for your future.

Architects Create Structure

Another interesting aspect of an architect’s job is that they create or restore order. During chaos, the gifted architect is perhaps most appreciated. By creating order, the architect can enhance productivity and decrease stress. In contrast, disorder is costly! For example, how many times have you been distressed and your productivity ruined due to losing your cell phone, important file, or flash drive?

Order also encompasses how we live our lives. An orderly life is one that is aligned with your skills and abilities, personality, dreams and passions. It is rare that someone else will create this authentic fit for you. However, by truly knowing yourself and patterning your life accordingly, you can align your actions with your heart.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art. Leonardo da Vinci

Career coach Dan Miller has great advice regarding structuring your work in this manner. He recommends work where you are strongest 80% of the time, where you are learning 15% of the time, and where you are weak 5% of the time. A practical example is if you know you are soon bored after learning something new, then structure your business (or choose a job) where your desire for new challenges is a strength rather than a weakness. For all of us, there is an environment where we function best; it’s where our differences are celebrated instead of merely tolerated. If you aren’t already there, then search for or design the environment for yourself.

Architects Oversee Development

Don’t die with your music still in you!
After he or she has created the vision and developed order, much of the architect’s “hard work” is already complete. Some say 85% of the process centers on the creative aspects, but application is still required. Unexecuted great plans mean that the potential will never be manifested, nor will the design be appreciated in its full glory. For example, before Henry Ford and James Cash Penney could give us Ford Motor Company and JC Penney department stores, respectively, they had to build infrastructure and assemble their teams.
It is the architect’s role to oversee the execution of the vision. Overseers know that productivity, or lack thereof, often depends on their recruiting the right talent, incentivizing their participation, and providing adequate resources and direction to bring the vision into fruition.
The personal application is that we must oversee our own development. We must hold ourselves accountable for acting on our visions; otherwise, they may remain pipe dreams. Often this may require enlisting the assistance of others. Perhaps you may hire a bookkeeper for a business or even your household finances to stay on track financially. Alternatively, you could engage a coach to quickly raise your performance to a much higher level. You may choose an accountability partner to call foul when your actions don’t match your words. Regardless of the steps you take, the responsibility for the product is yours. You have already been empowered, but it is what you do with that power that is key.

Closing Thoughts

As an architect, you can create beauty from chaos or resurrect a structure to its former glory. It’s your blueprint of the future that inspires hope in the face of adversity and order during disarray. It’s your seasoned insights that are relied upon to ensure the safety and progress of the project. The personal takeaway is that as the architect of your life, you have substantial power. However, with this power comes great responsibility. It is no longer acceptable to rely on past excuses for lack of achievement. You already have the components and resources needed for greatness, but the key question is: are you ready to produce?

About the Author: I’m Roshawn Watson, and I write at Watson Inc on eliminating debt, investing money, and building wealth. Get my free eBook Your Foundation to Wealth by signing up for my email updates (no spam I promise). Get my RSS feed and connect with me on http://www.twitter.com/roshawnwatson too.

These days job dissatisfaction is one of the most common problems among people.

Many people are either dissatisfied with their jobs, hate the tasks they are assigned or  find it boring.

Just ask 10 people on a Sunday night how they feel and you will discover that the majority of them are feeling really bad because they will have to work the next morning.

Yes we all love to have fun and to wake up late but the reason many people hate Mondays is not that they want to rest but it’s because they hate what they are going to do on Monday.

In this post I will tell you about some tips that can help you find the perfect job for you.

5 effective tips for finding the perfect career for you:

1) Know yourself: One of the biggest reasons for job dissatisfaction is that people find themselves doing things that don’t suit their personalities. As a simple example if you are an introvert then certainly working as a sales person or in any job that forces you to interact with dozens of people each day will leave you feeling overwhelmed and under-productive at the end of the day. Understand your personality well to know what career suites you the most.

2) Don’t follow the crowd: The second reason people hate their jobs is that they follow the crowd without really thinking about what they want. A common example is when a person who prefers to work alone find himself in a job that requires team work. Everyone says that team work is amazing but for that specific people team work will lead to job dissatisfaction.

3) Handle unwanted emotions: Sometimes people don’t hate their jobs for the tasks they do but for the emotions they experience while doing the job. For example, some people hate their jobs because of the amounts of stress they experience while doing them. In such a case learning how to handle stress will help you become more satisfied with your job.

4) Find your hobbies and stick to them: The best thing you can ever do for yourself to find a great job is to develop your hobbies and to try to make a career out of them. I used to love computers and psychology very much and that’s why I was very happy to end up running a psychology related internet business.

5) Its ok to change your job: Some people will give you a shocked look when you tell them to change their jobs. What’s the point in sticking to a job that is making you sad while you can take a single step towards a job that can make you live a happier life?? You must weigh the fear of uncertainty of changing careers with the fear of what certainly be a lifetime full of dissatisfaction and frustration by spending the majority of your life at a job that you detest. Do the math.

M.Farouk Radwan is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain and the founder of 2KnowMyself.

Don’t Forget To Follow Us On Twitter!

Related Articles:

How To Increase Self Discipline

How To Motivate Yourself

What to do when you hate your job? You definitely can’t talk about it. Your spouse may commiserate with you but will ultimately tell you that you have to keep earning a living. Your friends will tell you to suck it up and to be happy you even have a job. And, of course, they are right. You’ve got to pay the bills and there are millions who are unemployed that would kill to have a job they hated. So what should you do? If you’re feeling particularly philosophical (or maybe nostalgic for early 80s pop music), you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

Just because you have to earn a living and just because there are people who are unemployed doesn’t mean you have to (a) love your job or (b) be condemned to a life where you hate driving to work every morning. Here are three options to help you create a richer life by getting out of a job you hate:

• New skills. If you’re on a dead-end career track and don’t see things getting any better for you, use the other 8 hours to get some new skills. But not just any skills. French for beginners and watercolor painting don’t count. I’m talking about very specific and marketable skills you know companies are seeking. Something you can learn and immediately use to get several better paying job offers. Maybe it’s data entry, customer service skills, medical billing, or paralegal training. If you’re short on money and/or time, don’t bother with a degree — these are too general, and you won’t learn a specific skill you can use on Monday morning. Instead, get a certificate or designation. These are much more specialized and are what some companies want to see on a resume.
• Bouncing. If you don’t have any skills and are stuck in a real dead-end job (e.g., one where moving up to “fry guy” is a promotion), you’ve got to get creative. Stay employed at Dead End, Inc., but use the other 8 hours to learn a specific and marketable skill (see above). This one skill won’t get you your dream job, but it should pay better than your current job and give you a new experience. Once you’ve got this new job, use the other 8 hours to learn a new skill. This new skill might help you move up the corporate ladder where you are employed or (more likely) it might be in a completely different industry. Again, this new skill needs to be in demand and the job you get should pay better than the job you have. Guess what? You keep doing this — learning new skills and getting better paying jobs — until you are making good money doing something you love.
• New career. Whether you’ve bounced your way up or you are just not satisfied with your current career choice, you can use the other 8 hours to get a new career. First you’ve got to figure out what you want to do. Focus on your strengths and identify a career that you’d not only be good at doing, but one that you’d be happy doing. Learn what it takes to get that job. Do an informational interview. What education is required? What skills are needed? Get a book from the library and research the career. Nearly every industry has a trade magazine. Get old copies. Start reading what they read. Attend a trade-show or conference. Immerse yourself in the career you want. You can ask yourself “How did I get here?”, but a more proactive and solution-focused approach is to ask “How did they get here?” Learn and model what others have done and are doing. This takes time, but that’s what the other 8 hours are for.

If you’re in a job that you hate, don’t feel guilty about wanting something better. Use your unhappiness as a motivator to make some changes. You’ll spend more time at your job than you will with your family and friends. You might as well make it as rewarding as you can. If you don’t, at the end of it all you may ask yourself, “My God! What have I done?”

Are you ready to create more money, time, energy, and passion in your life? Learn how to live your best life now with these free resources:

Get the “Achieving Peak Performance” ebook and video now! (free for a limited time)

You can also join a community of passionate people at Richer Life who want to achieve more in life and at work. With your free membership, you can participate in conversations I have with experts, celebrities, authors, and thought leaders that are laser-focused on practical ways to drive more money, motivation, and meaning into your life. Take the first step toward creating a better life by joining Richer Life for free now!

Photo credit: Lima

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

10 Money Myths That Keep You From Making Big Money: Myth 1

10 Money Myths That Keep You From Making Big Money: Myth 2

The act of persuasion is among the most important skills of any successful businessperson. A great idea is nothing if it can’t be sold. A great product is nothing if it isn’t used. We convince people of things every day – or they convince you. The person whose ideas are best is not the leader, but the person with the best ideas who gets their ideas adopted. This is important stuff, and of course this can be incredibly stressful.

But it’s easier than you think.

The idea of something can bring far more pressure than its reality. A simple speaking engagement can eat a person alive for days or weeks. Add to the mix something at stake, a fear of the unknown, perceived discomfort of a situation and a little mix of caffeine and procrastination, and you have a nervous wreck.

I recognize the stress that a negotiation or sale can create. Individuals preparing to enter into a dialog with an important outcome report reciting potential scripts in their own minds over and over again, interfering not only with professional productivity but also with personal productivity and sleep.

Remedies for Stress

There are a few things that are known remedies for the pressures of business, speaking, negotiating and sales – the most reliable of which is simple preparation. There are a few steps that come naturally to the businessperson – developing an action plan, implement and engage and so forth. We’ll touch on all of this shortly. These remedies not only relieve stress in the act of persuasion, but also make you far more effective in the endeavor.

The remedies that we are discussing are actually shorthand for two things – (i) have self-confidence, and (ii) do something. Preparation is the greatest tool we have to build confidence, and acting and engaging stops our internal dialog in its tracks. In the end, doing something is an amazing tool for giving us peace of mind.

Effective Stress Reducers for the Persuader

Here are a few steps that help in every negotiation, sale or act designed to induce a reaction or result:

1. Preparation

Preparation as a stress reducer and confidence-builder couldn’t be understated. It is remarkable how a well-prepared individual can perform. The stress and fear of the unknown becomes replaced with simple comfort.

Preparation is a combination of two broad components – recognize clearly and unambiguously what you want to achieve, and learn about the person, group or company that you will be speaking with and in particular, their goals and objectives, and more aptly their needs, wants and fears. You prepare by learning how your idea or product (or whatever else you’re talking about) can meet their needs, maybe their wants and alleviate their fears. If you think that the other person or group can be educated as to its objectives, or that their needs, wants or fears are misstated, you can talk about that with them – although you’ll only be respected if you know your stuff.

In short, being knowledgeable is the key to pretty much everything.

2. Develop an Action Plan

Procrastination is a remarkable harbor for stress.

Lack of action eats us alive. Then we get mad at ourselves.

It is normal for people to over-prepare in ways that are not helpful to their actual goal. You must act – not later, now. Develop a plan that sets you on an immediate course to doing something. Procrastination is very much an endless cycle – until you just decide to end it.

3. Engage

Stress and pressures can be immediately disrupted by engaging. Stop planning. Walk head first into the ring.

The book Power Schmoozing by Terri Mandel offers a wonderful explanation of the dynamic of the fearful when it comes to the plethora of reasons offered by individuals who fear or otherwise avoid networking interactions. Mandel points out that the world is actually quite the opposite – that people, even the most powerful, desire to engage in a dialog with anyone who will listen. Practically everyone is open and perceives themselves to be a decent human being. Talk to them and this will come through loud and clear.

Engaging tends to be a relief in and of itself.

4. Try! Try to Achieve Your Desired Outcome

After all of this, it seems odd to stop and ask whether a person who prepared, developed an action plan and engaged would have actually tried to achieve his or her goals. It’s not. Few things happen after only one conversation. Actually trying to achieve your goals means doing the follow-up and (VERY IMPORTANT) asking the other person, group or business to adopt your idea. It is amazing at how often other individuals miss the point.

Trying means and actually asking for something and making a legitimate effort to achieve your goal.

5. Recognize Yourself

Win or lose, before you move on from the experience stop and take a breath. You did something. No one will recognize you for something routine, but privately so stressful, so do it yourself. Reflect on what made this easy, and hard, and move on to the next one.

Persistence matters, but preparation matters even more. If you want to accomplish something, you’ll need to do it in the human jungle. Playing the game gives you the piece of mind that preparing to play the game could never afford.

Mark H. Nicholas is a lawyer, entrepreneur, creative enthusiast, and the author of I Come First, a book about business, leadership, & life.  He blogs at www.icomefirst.com and can also be found on Twitter and Facebook at @MHNBooks

Do you want to follow your passion?

How is it going?

If you’re like most people, it’s not going so well.

Most of us expect a white knight to swoop down and lead us to glory once we’ve found our passion, but it doesn’t quite work that way.

Following your passion takes hard work, but it’s immensely rewarding. There are a lot of lies people tell about following your passion.

But in this article you’ll get nothing but the stone cold truth, so keep reading.

1. Hard Work

Realizing your passion takes a lot of hard work. You have to figure out how to do it, and what truly works.

If you want to make a living with your passion, you have to take action, and made a lot of mistakes, because you have to figure out how you’re going to make your endeavor profitable.

You have to find a market for what you’re doing. It will take longer than you think, but less time than you fear.

2. Persistence

This is where persistence comes in, because you have to keep moving forward to succeed.

The only way you can fail is by giving up. You will run into obstacles, fear, and other bumps in the road, but they do not matter if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Sure, it won’t be fun at times, but nothing is. Do you really want to stay where you are and look back at your life in the future and regret not having taken the steps to go after your dreams?

3. Fear

Fear lurks everywhere. When you venture into the unknown, you will be afraid, and you will want to seek security and comfort to get away from that fear.

This is the worst thing you can do, because it is through facing your fears that you will succeed.

The people that are willing to face fear head-on are also the ones that make the fastest amount of progress, and the ones that are most fulfilled, because they realize that fear is only an illusion – albeit a powerful one.

4. Confusion

Another common stumbling block is the confusion that happens when you first start following your passion.

You don’t know what to do, when to start, or even how to do it. The simple secret to achieving success despite this is to take action now.

It’s counter-intuitive, but it works. When you take action, you’ll gain clarity, and you will learn what works and what doesn’t.

You don’t have to be crystal clear about that in order to follow your passion.

5. Action

And this brings us to the next harsh truth, which is taking action. Iíve been mentioning the value of taking action throughout this article, but I think it deserves its own spot, donít you?

Most people get stuck in analyzing and trying to make things perfect before they take action, but it gives them false hope, because nothing happens.

Stop planning, put down your pen, and take action right now.

What can you do today that will make a difference in your life?

You may be scared, and you may even be confused, but you can still take action. Once you start moving forward despite all the negative feelings you have, you will see that they aren’t so bad after all.

6. Determination

There will come a time when you are incredibly frustrated and want to throw in the towel.

This is when you need the determination to keep moving forward. Make sure you’re doing something that you’re passionate about.

When you bump into challenge after challenge after challenge, use your determination to get you where you want to be.

The tough times you will face are merely signs that you’re getting closer to your goal. And when you get through these tough times, you will be even stronger and move towards your passion even faster.

It’s a vicious cycle that keeps going on and on. You get more excited, become stronger, and accomplish more.

And it doesn’t hurt that you enjoy life.

7. Fulfillment

What would an article like this be without at least something positive? Although, most of these harsh truths are positive, it all depends on your perspective.

Even though there are a lot of tough things you have to do in order to follow your passion, it will lead to fulfillment, at least that has been my experience.

Doing what you love is not easy, but for me it’s the only thing.

I will not settle for mediocrity, and I refuse to stand down.

I will follow my passion, or die trying.

What about you?

Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where you can get his FREE life-changing course right now: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

Reclaim Your Dream, It’s Time to Come Alive

Why You Should Read Personal Development Books

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You walk into work a couple minutes early and head straight to your desk.  You open your inbox, take a look through your to-do list, and get ready to start the day.  You try to plan your day as quickly as possible to insure you get everything finished early so you can meet friends for drinks after work.

You’re particularly motivated because you have plans, so you knock out your first three tasks in record time.  Then all hell breaks loose.

All of a sudden you’re fielding emergency phone calls with one hand, answering emergency emails with the other, scheduling two hours worth of meetings and just like that you have to cancel your plans.

“I guess that’s just how the world works sometimes,” you say to yourself.  I say – that’s exactly how the world works if your job owns you.

If You’re An Employee, Your Job Probably Owns You

Let’s be honest, as much as we want to be defined by our family, friends, hopes, and dreams, in the real world we are largely defined by what we do for a living.  That’s nothing new.  Throughout history and across cultures the follow-up to the question “what’s your name?” has been “what do you do?”  Think of the last time you met someone new.  How much of that initial introduction was spent discussing careers?

It’s definitely a turn-off thinking about your job as among the most defining forces in our lives.  Virtually no one wants to be tied to that.  We want to be acknowledged for our intrinsic worth, our intelligence, our potential, and our past successes.  “I’m so much more than what I do for a living” we say, and that’s basically true.

But jobs are sneaky.

They have a way of infiltrating our lives so completely that we don’t realize they’ve taken over.  Worst still, they’ve infiltrated the lives of everyone around us, so being owned by your job is “normal.”

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.  I say the first step is noticing that there is a problem.

Here are the 11 warning signs you’re owned by your job:

1.  Most of Your Waking Hours Are Spent At Work

Jobs own a huge percentage of our time.

Most of us are awake for about 16 hours a day or 112 hours a week.  Of those 112 hours, generally between 40 and 60 are spent at work.  If you factor in a couple hours for commutes, we’re looking at about 50 to 70 work-dedicated hours every week.

The bottom line is for most people around half of their entire waking life happens at work.  Calculate the percentage of waking hours you spend in work-related activities and see where you fall.

2.  Without Your Job, You’d Have No Money

For most people, their job is their sole source of income.  If you’re in that situation you’re trapped doing whatever your company requires.  As much as we’d like the world not to rely so heavily on cash, the simple fact is that without some, we’re severely limited in what we’re able to do.  If you have multiple income streams, your dependency on your job significantly decreases.

3. Your Job Determines Your Market Value

Most people’s resumes are filled almost completely with job descriptions and work experiences.  Their job security and personal market value is almost completely dependent on what opportunities their employers had let them have.  It shouldn’t be.

Think of it this way – if you can remove work experience and still have a compelling resume, you win.

4. Your Biggest Source of Negative Stress Is Your Job

Owning your time and owning your money is one thing.  Owning your emotions is quite another.  If you’re in a situation when you’re waking up in the morning in a cold sweat with the thought of going to work or hate going to sleep knowing that waking up means going back, your job has infiltrated your emotions.  It’s just work, it shouldn’t have to be that big of a deal.

5. You Talk About Work All The Time

What percentage of your day-to-day conversation is focused on job-related topics?  At the bar are you talking about how much your job sucks?  At home are you talking to your girlfriend about the project you’re in the middle of?  Sometimes just diversifying our conversation topics can open up our world and loosen our job’s control.

6. You Keep Deciding Not To Do Things You Want

We’ve all had to tell a friend we can’t hang out because we have a work conflict.    It may be an issue if it happens frequently.  If you start to become the person who is known to be super busy at work all the time who probably can’t make it to things, then your job probably has too much control over your life.  It may be more of a priority in your life than you’d like it to be.

7. You Can’t Wait to get a Certain Promotion

A driving motivation for most people to succeed at work is to get a promotion.  Not just any promotion, but that certain level in the corporate ladder where everything will be better.  We all have to go through hard knocks before we get to the good stuff, after all.  But if a work promotion starts becoming the door to happiness and freedom in your mind, then your job starts owning your ambition and starts owning your goals.

8. You Cannot Wait For Retirement So You Can Start Living

It’s a bizarre world when most peoples’ main motivation to work is to eventually stop working.  Retirement is the end goal for many folks.  When that’s the mindset, it’s almost like admitting that your job owns your life until you’re almost 60 years old.  Work should be an element of your life.  It shouldn’t be your life.  It shouldn’t delay your life.

9. You Have to Be At Work Even If You’re Not Productive

So you’re at your desk at work and you have nothing to do.  You’re reading Google News and watching YouTube and just generally killing time.  Even though you’re not productive, you still have to be there.  In theory, the reason you should be at work is to contribute to making your company money or making your company more efficient.  When work owns your time by forcing you to be productive, that’s bad.  When your work owns your unproductive time too, that’s worse.

10. You Check Work Emails/Voice Mails/Texts After Work Hours

When you leave work do you actually leave work?  Or does it follow you home?  If work owns some of your life, have you found a way to keep it trapped in it’s own box, or are the lines between your career and personal life blurring?

11. You Learned Anything Valuable Since School

What’s the last useful skill or important piece of information you’ve learned?  What’s the last thing you’ve done to meaningfully improve your capabilities?  In your career if you don’t feel like you’re consistently improving skills, learning valuable new information, and becoming a more valuable person, then your job may not be letting you grow.

Of all the parts of your life, it’s your personal and professional growth that you should never let your job control.  You should do everything to own that.  If you’re not getting the opportunity to grow at your workplace, you need to find a different job or strike out and learn new skills and information on your own.

Your Life is Yours to Own

The simple truth is that the majority of people are owned by their job.  At the same time, most people don’t realize it because being owned by your job is common.

This article isn’t meant to be doom and gloom.  It’s meant to challenge you.  If you’ve decided that your job has too much control over your life then it’s time for you to change that.  But it’s completely up to you.  Your life is yours to either own or rent out to your employer.

So you have a couple of decisions to make.  First, decide if you comfortable with how much your job owns you?  Second, decide what are you going to do to change it?

Go out and reclaim your life.

Joey teaches people how to improve themselves while getting paid to do it (that sexy intersection of personal development and online business) over at www.FindYourDamnPurpose.com.  If that sounds interesting, check it out by >>Clicking Here Now<<

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain of Twitter!

Related Articles:

Words That Overcome Fear and Dread

Words That Heal and Empower

The reality of today’s work environment in not only North America but in many places around the world is that diversity is here to stay. As a result of immigration over the years, we are finding many of our communities more and more diverse each year, which of course is directly related to local businesses. Whether it’s inside offices, factories or on the outside with retail or corporate customers, you will likely encounter more people from different cultures than ever before. Arming yourself with some skills in the form of diversity exposure and education will definitely help you function better in today’s working world. In fact, here are two major benefits you can realize as a result.

Diversity Education Includes People Skills Development

It is generally accepted in many business circles that the most important set of skills required for long term career success these days involves people skills. The ability to deal with many types of different people within companies as well as customers or business partners, is a very desired talent. Today, people skills are considered to be even more important than technical skills in terms of career advancement. Notice that the top people at companies are usually those with superior people skills rather than just pure technical skills. Those with subpar people skills will likely be held back from promotions. Good people skills, which include working with cultural diversity, will allow you to climb that corporate ladder more quickly than others.

Part of people skills is being able to deal with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds given the evolution of our domestic and global society. With the influx of even more immigration, it can be expected that both employees and customers will include people from many different ethnic backgrounds. So diversity education is very much part of developing overall people skills now.

Direct Education Of Other Cultures

Diversity exposure makes you more knowledgeable about different cultures out there. In addition to just watching TV travel shows or reading National Geographic, you can have a more direct exposure on different cultures by talking and interacting with different ethnic people during your travels or maybe right in your own community. This will help make you understand our world better and make you as a person, appear more ‘worldly’. A lot of companies will perceive you to be more valuable especially if they are doing business with a diverse market.

Interestingly enough, in addition to boosting your career, there might be some personal benefits from diversity education as well. Quite often, the opposite sex will see you as more attractive if you are more internationally inclined. Just to prove this, think about how many ladies consider guys with some knowledge of different cultures and languages to be sexy? Probably quite a few. Picture the guy who could help you order in a foreign language in some ethnic restaurant. Of course, the same could be said with the other way around when a lady adopts the same type of international skills as well.

Cultural diversity exposure and education can be thought of as a form of upgrading your personal skills to adapt to the changing work environments of today. But I wouldn’t leave diversity to be limited to only ethnic cultures. There is also diversity in lifestyles as in sexual orientations and religions. Even differences in attitudes from people coming from different geographical regions of the same country can be considered diversity. For example, think about the differences we observe with people from different parts of the USA. Even spoken accents are different.

Being able to function well with people from all walks of life is a skill that will take you far in your career and possibly social life as well. This type of skill can be developed through organized diversity training or even by just immersing yourself with more diversity exposure starting in your own community and of course with travel.

Clint Cora is a diversity and motivational speaker, author and Karate World Champion. See his free 3-part Personal Development Video Series to help you expand your comfort zone to conquer even your most daunting goals in life.

The day started just like any other day. I slowly dragged my tired body out of the bed, started complaining and began the process of getting ready for work. I had about 2 full hours of sleep due to the new born baby that was sharing a room with my wife and I in our one bedroom apartment. After drinking a full pot of coffee, which burned all taste buds from my tongue, I fired up my piece of crap car and began the journey to work.

I can remember it like yesterday. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining so brightly that even the rusted spots on my automobile had a marvelous glow as the rays kissed the surface. The temperature was immaculate and I was in the perfect place mentally. I was a proud papa and the sole provider for my family. If there was a spot on the top of the world I was there smiling from ear to ear.

Work on the other hand was absolute chaos. I was working in retail and it was January, return season, and I was a team lead in charge of guest services. I don’t think I talked to one happy person that day. Everyone had a bad attitude and clearly I had just desecrated the grave of their deceased grandmother I assume because of the language people chose to use at me. Who knew that returning a pair of socks could be so stressful? I mean I had been called an a#@hole so many times that I was convinced that I must be one.

I had reached my boiling point. So, what do you think I did?

I kept working. What? Well there were bills that needed to be paid.

Later on during the middle of my shift my manager called me into his office for a quick discussion. We discussed my performance. We discussed my career. We discussed my personality. We discussed my termination. You see I was placed into a team lead position for a role I did not want in a location that I did not request. I was under-performing due to a lack of experience. I was great at providing service but terrible at managing people and their volatile personalities.

I was given the pink slip, my walking papers, laid off, temporarily let go permanently or whatever the euphemism you choose to use for being fired. My world literally crumbled before me. Can you imagine how it felt to go home and tell my wife that I was fired as she was holding my new born son in her arms? I didn’t know how the rent was going to be paid, what we were going to eat, or how the lights would stay on. I didn’t even have any savings. My emergency fund consisted of a piece of paper warning me not to have an emergency.

It felt like life as I knew it was over. Fade to black.

Luckily the story didn’t end there. Opportunities arrived in my life that I never would have taken a moment to recognize had I not been let go. I started to read more. I started to study more. I started to watch a lot more Spongebob. Through the toughest moments in my life, when I wasn’t balled up in the fetal position, I was being prepared for my next level. I didn’t recognize it then but I am so grateful for it now.

THE SPARK OF INSPIRATION

When I was fired I thought it was officially the end of my life. I knew that everything from that moment on would only put me in a worse condition than I was already in. My outlook on life was as bright as a butterfly drawn with a black crayon on black construction paper. I didn’t have a degree to fall back on. All I would fall back on was the concrete floor underneath me after my furniture was repossessed.

Even though I didn’t think it was possible, life moved on. My ending was the opportunity for a new beginning and so far I am loving the way this new story is unfolding. Since my firing I have found new employment doing a job that I am under qualified for on paper. Yet, I am outperforming 80% of my peers and considered a leader within my team. I sure as heck never would have saw this coming.

In life we are going to have circumstances that don’t go our way. The good news is that we have a choice. We can let the story end and complain our way to our timely passing or we can let our ending become a new beginning. I learned a lot from my experience. I challenge anyone who is dealing with similar circumstances to do the same.

Now, what did I learn from my experience?

Nothing is impossible.

The library offers free books. (read them)

Experience is everything.

Life is what you make it.

Ramen noodles although cheap are not good for you.

Spongebob is not a good reference for conversations with adults.

It’s not over as long as you are still alive.

Now it’s your turn to share your story. Have you ever been let go from a job? What did you learn from your experience?

Frank Jennings is the founder of A Spark Starts where he writes short stories of inspiration to help you reach your maximum potential. He writes with purpose. He writes with passion. He writes for you.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

10 Secrets To Success

The Language of Success