High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 5 Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Job Search

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 5 Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Job Search: "You may be planning your retirement, but never say it publicly. It sends a message that you won't be fully committed to the job."
• 3 Ways to Discover Your True Passion: "Perhaps we don’t really want a new job, but we’re seeking growth and meaning in our work that we’re not currently finding. Is a new job the only solution or are there other things we can try without leaving our current job?"
• 4 Ways to Create an Amazing Workplace: "People want to put their mark on something meaningful and exciting. Potential recruits want to have a voice in an organization. By attracting a few good talented hires it can start a chain reaction for other potential recruits."
• How to Keep it Real While Building Your Network: "Even when you’ve firmly established yourself and your reputation, you should still expect to be giving quite a bit more than you’ll be receiving. Give before you make an ask and you’ll eventually see the fruits of your labor."
• What You Can Learn From the Excuses You Tell Yourself: "If you feel stuck, it could be that an excuse you’re telling yourself is holding you back. In this case, purposefully engage in perspective changing."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Career Myths, Rebooting, and More

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• 6 Career Myths You Shouldn't Fall For: "You've probably heard the same bits of career advice tossed around over and over ... But plenty of the maxims that we hear repeated actually aren't true. Here are six of the most popular career myths that you shouldn't fall for."


• Starting Over? 10 Tips to Reboot Your Career: "If big changes feel overwhelming, focus on small daily actions. Even taking mini-steps—setting up an informational interview, writing a thank-you note, reading an industry blog, etc.—make you feel more in control as you slowly build up to your goal."


• How to Meet and Influence People You Don't Know: "Your goal is to increase the number of people who know, like, and trust you. You should identify people ... who have the chance to influence hiring decisions."


• Take Back Your Life in Ten Steps: "Human beings aren't designed to work continuously. We're meant instead to move between spending and renewing energy. Ideally, take a break every 90 minutes, even if only to spend a minute or two breathing deeply."


• 13 Little Things You're Doing to Sabotage Your Success: "If you promise me a miracle, I’ll expect it. If you promise me a little, I’ll be happy with a little and delighted with a little more. Being impressive is mostly about being reasonable in your projections and hitting them consistently." 

How Your Career Saboteur Operates - Second in a Series

You have decided that you want to start your own business.

Or you want to change careers.

Or perhaps you want to apply for a promotion you feel you "barely qualify" for, or even apply to your dream company.

Welcome to the land of the saboteur.

Last week's post asked you to think of one to three big, "dream-worthy" things that you have wanted to accomplish in your career but haven't been able to. If you haven't done this already, go back to it now and do it. You're going to need them going forward. Because today we are going to get intimate with your saboteur, rooting him/her out and connecting in a way that you haven't done so previously. But, right now, we need to learn about what the concept of resistance.

In his book Do the Work, Steven Pressfield speaks of resistance, ultimately confirming that "any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity" will be welcomed with resistance.

You know what I'm about to say: your saboteur is what generates the resistance. Because your saboteur only comes into play when you're dreaming big. It's not your saboteur that keeps you from eating a piece of rotten fruit that will make you ill or keeps you from jumping off of a 20-story building. You may think it is, but it isn't. The saboteur is different from your physical survival instinct. The latter keeps you from dying; the former keeps your dreams-and you-from living.

In order to build the resilience to counter your saboteur's resistance, you need to get to know him/her. This is our next assignment.

Assignment #2: How Your Saboteur Operates
At the top of a page, write one of your career dreams from the last assignment. Underneath that, note all of the saboteur-like statements that arise when reflecting on that dream: statements that undermine your power, want to keep you safe, discount your magnificence, and strive to keep you the same. Make the list as exhaustive as possible. Finally-after you have done this with all of your career dreams-answer these questions about your saboteur (note: this requires a modicum of creativity and playfulness; just go with it):

- What is your saboteur's name?
- What does your saboteur look like? Describe him/her physically.
- What does his/her voice sound like?
- Where does your saboteur live? Describe his/her home.
- When do you first remember your saboteur first communicating with you?
- How has your saboteur evolved over the years?
- Under what circumstances is your saboteur the loudest? The quietest?
- What can your saboteur claim credit for costing you in your life?
- What makes your saboteur as powerful has he/she is?

Next week: what to do about your career saboteur.

Discovering Your Career Saboteur - First in a Series

Everyone has "voices" in their head, guiding their thoughts, choices, behaviors, and attitudes. You have a voice in your head that tells you to buckle your infant child securely into his/her car seat and to drive safely on the road. You have a voice in your head that tells you not to eat the fake fruit in a display bowl. We're constantly in dialogue with voices such as this; they help us make decisions.

But there is one voice that we need to pay particular attention to: our inner critic, or Saboteur.

The Saboteur-as the name implies-is the voice in your head that sabotages attempts to connect to your higher self. It does so by questioning your worthiness, commitment, ability, or anything else it can get its hands on to keep you from moving forward with what's important to you.

Let's say that you want to find a new job. You know how to or know how to go about finding how to write a resume, networking, creating a cover letter, and enhancing your position as a candidate. There is information on the internet and experts abound to help you with this. It's the saboteur that keeps you from acting, wanting you to remain exactly as you are despite your desire to change.

Any time that you think about engaging or engage in an activity that brings you closer to who you want to be is when the saboteur comes out.

You don't have a knowledge problem, because you know everything you need to know or have the means to find out. You don't have a failure problem because you've failed before and have kept persevering. You don't have a commitment problem because you have made and kept commitments all of your life. You don't have a worthiness problem because you are worthy of and deserve anything that you dream for your life.

You have a saboteur problem.

In this series throughout the month of March, we will focus on discovering your career saboteur, how it operates within you, what you can do about it, and how to live with it. Each post will conclude with an assignment to complete that pertains to the day's topic and will move you forward in your understanding of this powerful internal obstacle to your success. To get the most out of this series, complete the assignments.

Assignment #1: Identify Your Saboteur
Think of one to three things that you have wanted to accomplish in your career but haven't been able to. Make them as big as possible: starting your own business, freelancing, applying for a promotion, asking for a raise, or anything else that-logically and objective-is possible. It should speak to your highest values, your dreams, and/or a calling that you feel.

Next week: how your career saboteur operates.

Three Steps to Step out of Victimization

If you’re a morning person and you live with someone who isn’t, life-at times-can be an exercise in patience. And it was for me recently when, yet again, we were late to a yoga class. This time I was especially annoyed because, as I feared would happen every time before, class was full. So much for establishing a focused connection with my body or improving my dismal flexibility. With my bottom lip out I trudged toward the elliptical machine, fuming over the circumstances that led to me missing class. I irritably and obsessively mulled over my wife’s unreliability. And then, in a flash, it hit me:

I was being a victim.

Being a victim is a common yet futile state to be in. You fail to see your role in your problems, surrender your power, and stay in a perspective of negativity. Victimization can be especially dangerous in the career realm because it creates an attitude of helplessness, entitlement, and hopelessness. You can fight entitlement in your career in these three ways:

Take responsibility: When you take responsibility you see how you have influenced your situation-good or bad. In my situation, I blamed my wife for being late without considering what I had done. Didn’t I agree to go to class with her? Didn’t I know that she wasn’t a morning person. Didn’t I expect to be late? Thus, who was really responsible for my misery? Me. Whether your career is not going in the direction you want it to go, you dislike your work environment, you don’t feel that you are being challenged enough at work, or whatever reason you are feeling dissatisfied, approach it from a place of responsibility and note all of the ways that you are contributing to your misery.

Empower yourself: Once you take responsibility, you can take it upon yourself to make changes. What are you going to start doing and what are you going to stop doing? Who do you need to talk to about it? What are you able to do and what aren’t you able to do. If there’s something you don’t know, who can you talk to that will know? Get clear and specific about your options and the steps necessary to change.

Cultivate optimism: I once heard a quote to the effect of “you shouldn’t worry about things you can change, because you can change them. You also shouldn’t worry about things you can’t change, because you can’t change them. What else is there?” You can’t make permanent change if you aren’t in an optimistic space. Focus on the positives that will come out of your decision, or-if you decide to do nothing-focus on the positives that come from that decision since you made it from a place of empowerment.

My wife and I are fine, of course, but I learned a powerful lesson in the futility of being a victim. Let responsibility, empowerment, and optimism guide you to better choices and a better livelihood.

The "Mes" Have It: Why You Fail In Your Job Search

That's just not me

My leadership coaching class was in the midst of practicing a technique called "calling forth," which-for the uninitiated-means to confront a client's issue with authenticity, connection, aliveness, and fierce courageousness. Basically, we were to get in the client's face for the sake of the client...even if it meant being fired in the process.

For emotive types, this is difficult. We're "touchy-feely;" we don't want to hurt anyone. We want to coddle and take care of and support. But our instructors called us forth to let go of our notion that the client is someone who needs to be taken care of and couldn't take our fierce love. They pushed us into the realm of hyperbole; we were yelling at our clients, making them stand on their heads, forcing them to lay down, and engaging in many other "abnormal" behaviors to get them to confront their issue.

But some of us struggled because getting in someone's face "just isn't 'me'." We struggled because of this idea of what "me" is.

Job searchers do the same thing. They use methods that feel comfortable for them; not ones that give them results. "It's just not me to network with strangers." "It's just not me to make a follow-up phone call." "It's just not me to ask a former colleague to help me make networking connections."

Where you are afraid to go is exactly where you need to. And don't bother asking where that is...you know where.

The Daily Leap has a wealth of job search tips and techniques that quickly put the days of unemployment behind you. Click this link, find three that are the most uncomfortable for you, and do them. These, the ones that are most in conflict with your idea of "me" will be the ones that you lead to success. You will feel bolstered by your boldness and alive by confronting your discomfort.

Don't let your insecure "me" get in the way of your goals and dreams. Go where the discomfort is.