High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

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!

• How to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: "Choosing courage, in all its forms, challenges our preconceived notions and expands our comfort circle. As your comfort circle increases, so does your willingness to tackle bigger risks."

• 10 Ways to Cultivate Fearlessness: "When you’ve cut calamities off at the pass, you can let go of your fears about them, and you’ll redirect your focus and power to the task at hand."

• Why You Should Start a Weekly Planning Session: "I recommend doing this on Friday afternoons around 2 p.m. when your brain is done bringing its intellectual/creative A game for the week."

• Why Likable Leaders Seem More Effective: "teams who like their leaders will be happier at work, go above and beyond what is required of them, experience greater well-being, and perform at a higher level."
• How to Impress the New CEO in Your First Meeting:"Reading the CEO’s book, essays or published papers will give you an edge in your career—whether you’re interviewing for a job or meeting the new chief executive for the first time."

Five Scary Pieces of Career Advice

This is the time for all things scary but what you always want to avoid is scary advice that can derail your job opportunities and career.

Perhaps you’ve received some of the advice below (or maybe even offered it) but you’ll want to think carefully before you take it to heart.

Do what you love. This sounds great at first but should be taken with some caveats. Loving what you do also needs to be able to provide you with a sustainable income to live. You might love playing video games or taking pictures of your cat but only a few people make a living with those ventures. You might also love something you’re not particularly gifted or skilled at. Sometimes the work we do is difficult and hard to like but you’re able to use your strengths and skills to make a difference. By all means, if you can do what you love and make a living, then do so. But that should not be the only, or primary, factor in deciding your career path.

If the money is good you can learn to love any job. There are many people who make good money and hate their job and higher rates of income often relate to higher levels of job dissatisfaction and stress. Don’t assume that if the money is right, you’ll be able to enjoy your work.

Just take this job until something better comes along. If you feel hesitant to take a job and there are red flags warning you to stay away, do just that. If you can be patient, do so. Of course, in some situations you desperately need to find work but, in general, it’s best to avoid a job that could bring more headaches and make it more difficult for you to make the move once you’re in a bad work situation.

To get ahead you need to go back to school. There are many jobs and career paths that don’t require you to get another degree and there are alternative educational opportunities and training programs that can provide you with the skills and information needed to move forward, while you are gaining important experience working in the field.

You need to stick with a job for a few years. Don’t be a job-hopper. That may have been true decades ago when people often took a job out of high school or college and stayed in that job until retirement, but that’s no longer the case, and it’s acceptable now to move on to new experiences and higher levels of responsibility in your field.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 8 Steps to Have Your Best Week (and Life)

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from Ryan Holiday and Daily Stoic discusses 8 ways to have your best week and life, starting with guarding your time. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 9 Ways to Improve Your Perseverance Skills

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!

• 9 Ways to Improve Your Perseverance Skills: "By learning to take risks, you raise the probability of facing more difficult situations. When in those difficult situations, if you can learn to adapt and understand what steps are necessary to keep the company moving in the right direction."

• 5 Ways to Manage Your Fear of Uncertainty: "If a feared outcome materializes, chances are you will deal with it better than you could now imagine. Remember that the next time uncertainty rears its head."

• How to Cultivate Determination: "If you spend all of your time weakness-fixing, you’ll lose determination pretty quickly. When you’re moving toward a goal, take on the things you’re really strong at, and collaborate in areas where you’re weak."

• How to Make Your Organization Matter More to People: "We also believe that the business case for inclusion is strong, that we have a credible case to make to organizations that if you're committed to doing this, it will pay off in terms of your relevance, your resilience and your sustainability."
• 15 Leadership Lessons:"If you don't feel like you know what you're doing, leap into leadership anyway. You're more ready than you think."

5 Things to Do on Friday Afternoon at Work Before You Hit the Weekend

Everybody is “working for the weekend”, according to the 1981 Loverboy song, and while you might be anxious to leave work, get out early, and hot the weekend, your career and life might benefit from taking a few minutes to pause on a Friday afternoon to get a few things in order before you leave.

Scheduling just 30 minutes into your Friday routine to tackle the following five items will significantly impact your well-being, and help you be more prepared for the next week.

Evaluate the week. Take a few moments to check in on your priorities for the week. Did you accomplish your goals or is there some unfinished business that you’ll have to complete over the weekend, or get after first thing next week? You can do this in your head, but it can be helpful to write down a few notes to help you remember your assessment of the week. Think over your meetings and interactions with colleagues, supervisors, and customers. Is there anything you would change or is there a situation you would have liked to handle differently? You don’t need to spend a lot of time on this evaluation, and five minutes or so is plenty for now. 

Respond to Messages. You won’t want to go into the weekend knowing you owe someone a phone call, or an email reply and it can hang in your thoughts until you get back to them. Take care of it now, even if it means following up with a more detailed email or conversation later. You might also, if possible, work to attain in-box zero, meaning you have dealt with all your emails by responding to them or filing them away to read another day.

Organize your desk. Avoid coming in to work on Monday to a messy and disorganized desk by taking a few minutes to straighten up before you leave. Wipe away the stains from your coffee mug and toss out the crumbs from that protein bar you had after lunch.

Set some initial goals. Think about your priorities for the coming week and identify 3-5 preliminary goals or tasks to accomplish. Situations and priorities change but you’ll head into the week with a clearer focus by taking some time to prepare.

Review your calendar for the upcoming week. Before you leave take a quick glance at your calendar and note any meetings, training sessions, or big deadlines coming up. You don’t want to arrive at work on Monday morning to discover you’re 10 minutes late for the company-wide meeting.

By taking a few minutes on Friday afternoon to prepare for the following week you’l

l set yourself up for success and allow yourself to better enjoy the weekend.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: How to Simplify Your Life

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from the School of the Life discusses ways to simplify our lives to enable us to live and work better. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 3 Ways to Find the Right Company Culture For You

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!

• 3 Ways to Find the Right Company Culture: "company culture is not one size fits all. You need to decide which style will best boost your engagement and keep you motivated to succeed."

• 5 Signs You're Successful (even if you don't realize it): "Successful people give themselves permission to dream as big as they want.  When you create a vision for your life that might seem wildly ambitious, but you take steps every day towards it, know you are successful."

• Simple Hacks to Fight a Mid-Afternoon Slump: "If you don’t want to get super sweaty, you can still get an energy boost from going on a short walk. Just 10 minutes of walking or climbing the stairs can be more energizing than that extra cup of coffee."

• 4 Principles of Servant Leadership: "Fostering leadership comes in many forms, including coaching, mentorship and growth. Take the time to teach someone the ropes, to offer words of encouragement and answer questions these young leaders have for you. Great leaders give back."
• 7 Ways Young Women Can Assert Themselves at Work:"I’ve found that simply repeating an idea or contribution (with minor rephrasing or recontextualization to avoid repetition) until it’s acknowledged is sometimes the only way for your voice to be heard."