High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Be Bolder and Take Risks

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 Be Bolder and Take Risks: "Even if you’re not contemplating a risky new move, you’ve probably taken a few risks to get to where you are today, and chances are you’re not done taking them."

• 10 Things Never to Reveal When You're Job-Hunting: "Never tell a recruiter or prospective employer that you're not having luck with your job search or that you've pursued opportunities that didn't pan out."

• What You Should Really Be Learning During Your Internship: "when you’re immersed in your internship, here are six skills you should be adding to your repertoire in addition to job-related skills."

• Get More Out of Your LinkedIn Profile: "Stand out by optimizing your profile to be easily read. If prospects don't see what they're looking for quickly, they will move on."
• Motivating Employees is Not About Carrots or Sticks: "When we step away from the traditional carrot or stick to motivate employees, we can engage in a new and meaningful dialogue about the work instead."

3 Tips to Manage Your Email for Greater Productivity

Email can be a great communication tool and facilitates quick and easy conversations with your colleague in the office or cubicle next door, or with someone you met at a conference who lives on the other side of the world.

Most of us, however, have experienced email overload and know the overwhelming frustrations with a bloated inbox.

Here, then, are three tips for managing your email in order to be more productive.

Organize your email. Your email provider likely allows you to automatically have certain emails sent to a specific folder you create, as needed. These folders can be organized according to the sender of the email or by a topic, or project you are working on. Having your email automatically filed in a folder can help you better manage and prioritize your response.

Review email at scheduled times. Avoid being ruled by inbox notifications and turn these notifications off and only view your email at a few scheduled times during your day. You might consider first looking at your email later in the morning, after you've "eaten the frog", that is, after you've taken on and completed your most urgent and pressing task of the day.

Schedule time again at the end of the afternoon, perhaps around 3:00 pm, to review email a second time and develop your to-do list for the following day.

Make it a practice to avoid looking at your email when you first awake or just before going to sleep. Email can provoke a sense of urgency and impact the quality of your sleep.

Just say no. It seems everywhere we go--the department store, the doctor, every web site--someone asks for an email address. In order to have more control over our inbox we need to say no to all but the most necessary of these requests. When asked for me email address at a store, I simply decline with a "no, thank you" and the transaction continues without burdening my inbox. Another solution, if you particularly enjoy receiving coupons or entering contests, is to create an email address you use for this specific purpose.

Another way to say no is to avoid using email for conversations that are best suited to a phone call or conducted in person.

These strategies are simple to implement and if you do so, you'll find your inbox lighter and more manageable, and you'll have more time to focus on more important tasks.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 4 Ways to Make Money Off Your Social Media

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 Entrepreneur provides some ideas for making money from your social media accounts. Though it's focused on B2B marketers the ideas can be implemented more widely. Take a look.

 

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Always Be Ready for a Great New Job

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 Always Be Ready for a Great New Job: "Stay in touch with the folks you will rely on to vouch for you when the time comes to change jobs. It's much easier to update a warm relationship than to try and jump start a cold one."

• How to Make Your Workplace Joyful: "I actually think it's easier to have an extraordinary workplace culture in a smaller organization, simply because you touch your people more. As the leader of the organization, you're in touch with your people that much more."

• 9 Things Successful People Never Do in the Morning: "Successful people never find themselves getting distracted by the television or decide to watch just one show. Instead, they dive right into the tasks they want to tackle for the day."

• 20 Secrets to Avoiding Burnout: "Go to bed an extra hour early or go to a movie. Do things you haven't had time for. Go for a run. It's about allowing yourself to focus on yourself outside of work."
• How to Help Millennials Overcome Failure: "Help them to view failure as a toll booth instead of a roadblock. With a tollbooth, a price must be paid to move forward."

4 Ways to Practice Self-Care in the Workplace

Let's face it. Our work lives can be quite stressful and take a toll on us, both emotionally and physically. It can be easy to get wrapped up in the urgency of it all and then fail to recognize what we're experiencing.

When our work situation takes us to the breaking point it is likely to impact our personal and home life, too, and so it's important to develop a practice of self-care in the office.

Consider the following four elements of a self-care plan and adjust them, as necessary, to your work situation.

Surround yourself with support. Unless you're the boss, you can't pick your team but you can choose the colleagues you grab lunch with, or meet up for a coffee break with, or hang out with after work. Build a supportive and encouraging group of colleagues around you to be a source of strength when things are tough and stressful at work. These colleagues can share an encouraging word around the coffee machine or crack the right joke to put things in perspective. Seek out positive people and you'll feel less stressed.

Create a healthy and encouraging work space. Put up some inspiring and motivational quotes t around your desk or on your computer. Always be surrounded by the encouraging wisdom of others you admire and respect. In addition, keep your work space organized and clean. Consider adding a plant to help clean the air and provide a little color. And put up some art by your favorite artist.

Take time to move. Schedule regular time in your day to get away from your desk or work area and take a walk. Adding some physical activity to your day can help refresh and re-energize you, and a comfortable walk allows you get away alone and come up with a new, creative approach to a problem you might be dealing with.

Recognize your successes and victories. Each day and every week brings some successes with it. Be sure to slow down enough to recognize those victories and acknowledge them. Write them down and allow yourself to enjoy even the small successes.

Applying these four practices to your regular work routine can help prevent the stressful times from overwhelming you and negatively impacting your satisfaction on the job and your enjoyment at home.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: Why You Need An Early Night

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 Life highlights the importance of sleep in order for us to be healthy, whole, and at our best in life and at our places of work.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Ask These Two Questions to Build Resilience

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!

• To Build Resilience, Ask Yourself Two Simple Questions: "Anxiety can lead to exaggerated worry, irrational fear, and obsessive thoughts. So how do you maintain your calm when the roof is falling on you?"

• 6 Questions to Help You Handle Criticism: "It is important to learn how to take criticism seriously but not personally."

• 9 Toxic Behaviors and How to Avoid Them: "What you probably haven’t heard much about, however, is self-destructive behavior that all-too-often claims the careers of aspiring executives and business leaders."

• 4 Ways to Maintain Momentum: "Here are four strategies that you can use to sustain momentum, avoid having to feel activation energy again, and keep moving in the direction of your dreams."
• 2 Things You Need to Remember When You're Burned on the Job Search: "Part of staying positive throughout your search is managing your expectations."

Boost Your Career With These 5 Tips for Healthier Living

In the US, employees take an average of about five sick days per year. That might not seem like a lot but consider the number of times you work when you’re sick with a cold or some other ailment. When you’re ill you likely are not working at peak performance.

In order to excel in your work and career you should also pay close attention to your health. Below are five simple strategies for improving your health and boosting your performance at work.

Sleep 7-8 hours. Getting adequate sleep provides many health benefits and studies have indicated that getting 7-8 hours of sleep reduces stress, increases creativity, improves memory, and sharpens attention, among other things. On the other hand, sleep deficiency has been linked to increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.

Meditate. A brief, daily practice of meditation can result in significant health benefits such as reduced stress, better sleep, and perhaps even improved immune functioning. Meditation can also help you focus on positive and encouraging thoughts, which can lead to more joy and greater focus throughout the day.

Drink (a lot) of water. Staying properly hydrated is important to provide energy, strengthen muscles, improve skin, and keeps your gastrointestinal tract functioning healthily. As we’ve all heard, our bodies are mostly water and we need to drink enough daily to avoid fatigue, headaches, and other issues.

Move 30 minutes. Our bodies are made to move and we need to ensure some basic level of movement daily in order to stay healthy and strong, and to avoid illness. You don’t need to train like a professional athlete or body builder to see results. Get out and walk two miles on your lunch break, or bike in the morning before work … or, better yet, bike to work. Schedule this time every day just as you would any other important meeting. You’ll soon find that you have more energy and accomplish more throughout the day.

Avoid alcohol. While a drink at a social event or company party might lower inhibitions and help manage some social anxiety, frequent alcohol consumption has many negative consequences—damage to the brain, heart, and liver—and can lead to addiction. In addition, alcohol is a depressant and if you struggle with depression it can exacerbate it. To be at your best limit your alcohol intake.

Implement these five simple strategies and you’ll soon feel healthier, stronger, and more energetic.  

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: The Top 5 Networking Mistakes

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.

In the video below from Entrepreneur, BNI Executive Director, Tim Roberts, shares his tips on how to make your networking more effective by avoiding five common mistakes.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 35 Things You Need to Give Up to Be Successful

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!

• 35 Things You Need to Give Up to Be Successful: "Just as we deceive ourselves into believing something will make us happier than it will, we also deceive ourselves into believing something will be harder than it will."

• How to Start Your Mornings Right: "The key is to identify habits that resonate with you. Be playful and try different things until you find a groove that works. If the effects wear off or you get bored, switch it up with abandon."

• 6 Things Great Mentors Do Differently: "But it's the mentors who follow through with actual action that stand apart from those willing to offer advice alone."

• The 5-Step Guide to Funding Your Small Business: "Whether you’re a millennial making your first foray into business, or a seasoned entrepreneur looking for a fresh start, here’s five steps to raise the funds you need to launch your venture."
• 8 Crucial Steps to Negotiate a Higher Salary: "If you can explain why a salary bump for you will also benefit the company, you’re setting yourself up for a successful negotiation."

The Mid-Year Career Tune-up

It's June and the year is nearly half over, so where are you at with your career goals and objectives for the year? This is a good time to pause and reflect on your career and evaluate if you're at the place you want to be.

Consider the following three areas and make corrections and adjustments as needed so you can move forward successfully.

Continued Learning. It is incredibly important, both to your job satisfaction and to your future career success, for you to have continued opportunities to learn and develop new skills. Take a look at what you've done so far this year, along with the skills you've developed, and consider if there are some training sessions or a conference you can attend sometime in the next few months. If your employer offers free training or provides reimbursement for classes take advantage of these perks. Sign up today.

Network Building. Throughout the year you want to continue to develop your network in several ways, including through social sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Be sure to keep your LinkedIn profile updated with new skills and responsibilities. In addition, if you're not currently working with a mentor seek one out. You can likely find a good mentor at your workplace or through your network of contacts. A good mentor will also introduce you to others and help expand your network. Finally, find a networking group in your community you can begin attending or register for a conference. Conferences are great places to meet great people doing cool and exciting things in your field and some of these people can become mentors and future collaborators.

Healthy lifestyle. It's difficult to be at your best in your career if you're not getting enough sleep, or if you're eating unhealthy food and drinking too much. Take a look at your habits and determine if you need to build more activity into your schedule. Perhaps you live close enough to bike into work a few days a week. Or join the yoga class at the office. Maybe starting your day with a few minutes of stretching and mindful meditation can get you more focused on developing a more healthy lifestyle that will benefit you and your career.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: How Do I Figure Out What I Truly Want?

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.

In the video below Mel Robbins discusses one of the most common questions she gets: "How do I figure out what I truly want?" Mel believes we do know what we want and offers suggestions for clarifying our vision. Learn more by watching the video.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 4 Email Habits to Avoid for Improved Productivity at Work

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!

• 4 Email Habits to Avoid for Improved Productivity at Work: "Instead of being carried away by email interruptions, map out a time in your daily schedule to check email."

• Top 3 Job Interview Fears and How to Beat Them: "You might be ready with a comment, for example, about a specific innovative program that the company has initiated, or with a compliment based on what you've heard employees enjoy about the corporate culture."

• Why Being Alert is Essential to Being Successful: "No matter how knowledgeable or experienced we believe we are on a subject, there is always something more to learn."

• How to Boost Workplace Morale at Your Business: "Employees who are appreciated will work harder and stay longer at your business. Bring in pizza or bagels one day. Surprise employees with spontaneous company parties and food."
• What to Wear for Your First Job Interview: "Given the wealth of information available about companies online ... there’s no excuse for showing up to an interview in something that clashes with a company’s existing office culture."