Career Coach eNewsletter
Issue No. 21 - December - 2003

Contents: HOT NEWS! HOT NEWS! !

1. Editorial:  Special Christmas Offer! 
2. Career Development Notes: 1 Top Twelve Tips for Christmas!
3. Career Development Notes: 2 Zap Your Guilt! (Notes from our Teleclass 4 December 2003)
4. Success Stories:  Seasonal Success!
5. Career Development Notes: 3 Buzzword Bingo - Staying awake at interview!
6. Just for a Laugh!: Evil Elves & Adopt an Elf?!

Are you experiencing 'hurry sickness', 'pressed for time', got that 'never going to catch up feeling?' It can make one feel guilty and as the year end approaches the feeling can become more and more oppressive.

This is probably because every year we are told to unburden ourselves from all those things that we know we shouldn't be doing and figure out all those things we could possibly be doing and 'set' them as 'New Year Resolutions'.  This is beautifully characterised in the neo-classic novel Bridget Jones' Diary where Bridget records her New Year Resolutions thus: 'I will give up smoking, boozing, eating calories and buying lottery scratch cards.'  If I remember rightly her willpower lasts no longer than twenty four hours and certainly no later than the annual New Year Turkey Curry Buffet.

We've probably all had a similar experience at one time or another.  In the past, I have certainly avoided even thinking about 'setting' resolutions because I just knew how quickly I would break them.  The trouble is that nobody ever tells you how to do it.

Those of you who have actually been reading this enewsletter may remember the article that I wrote about what senior people professional regretted most looking back over their lives.  It was very telling - they regret three things - not giving themselves more time to reflect, they regret not taking more risks and most of all they regret not spending time discovering and planning their dream. 

The following tips I have picked up coaching clients in their careers, many of whom had originally got themselves into some sort of a 'career rut'. by routinely saying to themselves: "I will think about changing my career direction when......I'm better off. more settled, the kids are older, left school, finished university, better qualified, more experience.....then.....I'll get a better job/start my own business/be happy. 

So settle down to read Top Twelve Tips - one for each Day of Christmas:

2. Career Development Notes 2: Zap Your Guilt! - Notes from our Teleclass 4 December 2003

The teleclass we held on Thursday 4 December was, I think, a fantastic success.  We were joined on the call by people from all over  the world.  Some participants introduced themselves and some people stayed very very quiet.  We knew they were there however because when I told this true story about being totally stressed out one Christmas and deciding in my 'wisdom' to forget 'The Tree.' (getting a fresh tree with roots, finding the balls, untangling the lights, protecting the surfaces, dressing it single-handedly- apart from the criticism) You could have heard a telephonic 'pin' drop.  When I revealed what happened next there was a collective intake of breath, gasp, cry and much rustling as people reached for the Kleenex.  I'm not telling you what happened because you should have been on the call!  (I will tell selected callers if they email me, nicely.)

Zap Your Guilt!

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? Was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter." ~ Lewis Carroll ~

It amazes me how deep inside a child's fairy tale we can find a statement as profound as the one from the Cheshire cat. We can very easily wander through life without ever setting goals or planning our life. That seems like a very easy going and relaxing way to approach life. While this might seem to be the "easy way out" I believe it's an extremely risky choice and it's also the path to mediocrity.  At a time when I found life overwhelming and felt as if I was just running up the 'down' escalator, I was invited to go and listen to an inspirational speaker. 

It was a dark, rainy cold night on a nasty motorway and I so did not want to go. My friend insisted and practically had to drag me into the empty conference hall.  The speaker talked about changing gear in life and how we could not progress if we did not know where we going.  He said we had to make choices and become good at making choices by practising.  I listened intently in spite of my wish to run away.  He said that we needed to have a dream and that a dream would carry us over life's obstacles and support us in our moments of anxiety.  He said he had a dream.  His dream was to "make a million friends".  Well I so wanted HIS dream.  When I got home I took a piece of paper and tried to write down as he had suggested my dream.  I told myself that I couldn't have a cup of tea until I had written something down.  Well the task grew harder and harder and I got more and more thirsty.

Finally I wrote down "I am teaching networking to a million people." I looked at what I had written and said "Yeah right" as I filed it away.  Over the next five years in spare moments I took out that piece of paper and added the building blocks.  In five years time, I had achieved that dream.  I had built a company (to disseminate the information), written a book, designed the first careers web site in the UK and it was getting 40,000 customers a month!

Since then I have worked with hundreds of people and helped them achieve their dreams and this is how we do it.

While having goals is certainly better than not having goals, having SMART goals takes the process one step further. As I discuss the meaning of SMART goals, let's use an example of someone saying "I want to get a better job or career". This is certainly an excellent goal, but there really isn't enough "meat" there to insure a reasonable level of success. Let's rework this statement into a SMART goal. SMART is an acronym meaning:

S - Specific. The more detailed your goals, the more likely they are to happen. There should be enough detail in the goal that the action to accomplish the goal is defined. Looking at our example, how does this person know when they are in better shape to get a job? What are they going to do to improve in this area? This initial goal is too vague.

What you need to identify is:

What you want to be?

What you want to do?

What you want to have?

Prioritise your list.

M - Measurable. How is this person going to know when and if they are in better shape to get a new role? Will they monitor their skills, qualifications, testimonials, networking contacts etc? Any and/or all of these are legitimate things to measure. We need to decide what we want to measure from the start so we can track the improvement as we go. Seeing the improvement over time will be the main incentive to continue through to the end.

A - Advertise. The more visible your goal, the more likely you are to succeed. This step is two pronged. First make your goal highly visible to yourself. Hang something in a spot where you'll see it every day. I like to use a chart where I plot my actual performance against my plan or you can just have a few words on a sheet of paper reminding you of your goal.

The second prong is having your friends help. The more people you tell about your goal, the more people can get behind you and support you. They will ask: "How are you doing?", and the more likely you will stay with the plan so you don't have to report disappointing results. If people understand what you are trying to achieve, they can get behind you and support you, acting like an invisible web or safety net. Especially if what you want to do makes a difference for others. This is where having a personal coach is very effective. A good coach will hold you accountable to your goals.

R - Relative. This step means not setting goals that are counterproductive to other things in your life. For instance, if you have completed our work/life balance sheet you may have noticed an in-balance in terms of your assets and liabilities. (attached to our free monthly enewsletter at www.Careersnet.Com)  You need to be flexible and in terms of making your goal a success - it is no good concentrating on one side of your life to the extent for instance of neglecting family and friends. 

T - Time based. Very simply, you need to give yourself a deadline. I believe this is the most important factor in making your goal a success. If you are too aggressive in setting your goal, you'll likely not succeed and end-up abandoning the plan before you get to the end. Conversely, if you are too conservative the results might be too slow in happening to keep you motivated throughout your plan. Success breeds success.

Now to summarize, let's take that initial plan of "getting in shape you're your job or career" and make that into a SMART goal. The SMART goal would be something like: "I am going to improve my chances of getting a better job or career by identifyng closely what I want to do next/long term. I am going to improve my networking circle because this is the most effective technique for finding job opportunities by getting to the point where I know (Specific)  six like-minded people in my target industry (Measurable) by March 1, 2004 (Time based). I will collect their details in a planner or Outlook for me to see and maybe put a Weblog together on my areas of interest. (Advertise). Accomplishing this goal will improve my conditioning for focus and direction and will allow me to move forward positively and choose wisely all the tips and techniques I need for career success. (Relative)."

Now that you know what SMART goals are I invite you to try this approach on one goal or resolution from the past that you haven't been successful with. See for yourself if using SMART goals improves your chances of success!

If we really want to realize our dreams and live our ideal life, we need to do a good job planning the steps necessary to make them happen.