High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Ruin Your Chance of Succeeding in Your Interview

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!

• 22 Ways to Ruin Your Chance of Succeeding in Your Interview: "While it may sound like I am exaggerating with these gaffes to humor you and make a point, you would be surprised to know that these are all real-life instances that I’ve encountered as an executive recruiter and hiring manager ."

• 7 Ways to Get from Burnout to Balance: "Balance looks different for everyone. Balance isn’t even the same for one person over time. Right now, balance might mean putting 90 percent of your energy into your career. Ten years from now, that number might be 50 percent. It all depends upon what you value at any given time, what you want to achieve, and when you want to achieve it."

• Working Parents and Calendar Apps: "The best way to get a handle on this is to transform your calendar into your timekeeper. A calendar tool can be helpful, because it doesn’t just help you remember meetings or deadlines; it spotlights how you spend your time."

• Dealing with the Death of a Coworker: "Those emotions can be wildly varied and aren’t often ones someone wants to have in a work environment. Anger, guilt, and tears can bubble to the surface."
• One Simple Trick to Be Happier:"if you want to be happier, think of it like ordering tapas—go for small, satisfying bites rather than hinging everything on one main course."

Why You Should Create a Personal Mission Statement

Many companies and businesses have a corporate mission statements, defining the primary aim of the company, and serving to guide its decisions. These mission statements are often impressed upon new employees as a way to ensure that all employees have a shared sense of purpose.

But have you created your own personal mission statement? If not, take a few minutes this week to craft one. A personal mission statement can benefit your life and career in several ways.  

Provides focus. Your mission statement enables you to think through what you value most and becomes your own personal guiding document for you to live your life by. It takes into account what you value most and how your skills, talents, and interests can be implemented to make a difference in the world. Your personal mission statement enables you to make a clear-headed decision about your career goals and aspirations and helps resolve conflicts about which job to take.

Provides motivation. Your personal mission statement provides you with a kick in the morning, helping you stay driven to get up and do the work that matters to you. After that long vacation, having a clear sense of your purpose and mission allows you to eagerly get back on the job with enthusiasm and energy.

Provides balance. Your life is not your job and career and your personal mission statement allows you to bring clarity to you and your life. This is not called a “Career Mission Statement”, after all. A personal mission statement will help you attain balance in your life and career by ensuring that you bring attention to those things that matter most to you in life, with your job being part of that equation but not the exclusive focus.

Not sure how to start? An article at Forbes provides a few examples from CEOs: “To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference” (Denise Morrison), “To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma, and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world” (Amanda Steinberg), or "I want to make it so that every person in the world can afford to start their own business" (John Rampton). Take a look at the article for more examples.

Another great resource is the mission statement builder at Franklin Covey. It provides some examples of mission statements and walks you through the process of building your own.

Create your personal mission statement this week for renewed focus, motivation, and balance in your life and career.

Three questions to help you lean in to work-life balance

Sheryl Sandberg made a splash near the beginning of the year with the release of her book Lean In, her manifesto for women to redefine their career away from a "having it all" mentality to one of personal responsibility and designing a life that allows for both work and family.

The difficulties that face women have long been studied and reported, and a recent poll indicates that women still feel at a disadvantage professionally despite headway they have made and changes in the workplace. Making intentional decisions about one's career is important for anyone but is especially important for women. The tension between professional and personal-life obligations can create a sense of imbalance and unhappiness. Consider the questions below to put clarity and intention around work-life decisions:

What are you willing to compromise and not compromise for work and family? While there is no such thing as perfect balance in one's life, being able to set boundaries and stick to them - whether it is always being home for dinner or achieving a level of professional success - will give you a value-based foundation on which to make your decisions and "draw your line," increasing your life satisfaction.

Where are you feeling supported and not supported? In both your personal and professional life take some time to think about the level of support you feel. Where would you assess it on a scale of one to ten? If it below an eight, consider why it is that way how much of it is environmental or personal? Put yourself in a place of empowerment and design some actions from there.

What would help you achieve more balance in your professional and personal life? Alongside deciding what to compromise and not compromise, consider what choices you can make to help you achieve the balance that you want to achieve. It could be a decision of asking a partner to be more of a presence with family-related chores or it could be that you delegate more time at the office or even work from home. Put a critical eye on how you do things to see if there is any room for adjustment.

While there is no question that the American workplace needs to do more to accommodate women, use these questions to strengthen areas of your life that are weak and to design a life that leads you to feel accomplished personally and professionally.

Find Balance Through New Perspectives

I'm currently in a coach training program that requires us to do a lot of introspection and self-reflection work. Particularly around perspectives, because it's perspectives that-in large part-shape our moment to moment experiences and long term outlook. If you can control your perspective, you have a powerful means of changing anything about your life for the better.

Not sure what I mean? Let's take a seemingly insignificant topic to see how the power of perspectives work: mustard. To some, mustard elicits feelings of extreme pleasure. They may think of the summer, ball games, grilling, or other positive feelings. To others (and I admit that I'm in this perspective), mustard is disgusting. It stains one's hands and makes food taste awful. Nothing in the world is worse than mustard. Blech!

Both are perspectives. The mustard? It's neutral. It just sits there.

When viewing life through this lens, it isn't hard to see that anything in life is merely a perspective. The preference to buy PC over Mac. How you feel about your in-laws. The state of the job market. How you feel about your work contributions.

Assessing your perspective is a powerful way to uncover your motivations, values, and your passions. Think of some area in your life where you feel that your perspective is distorted or an area where you feel a change in perspective would be beneficial. That is your "topic." Once you have it, use the questions below to assess your perspective to see if it's the right one for you.

What is my current perspective? Simply describe your current perspective in relation to your topic in, say, three to five sentences.

How does this perspective make me feel? Really work hard to get in touch with your feelings here. Put yourself in those feelings and describe them in detail. Anger, pride, disgust, appreciation, fear, love...strive to get in touch with them.

What does this perspective empower me to do? All perspectives motivate us in some way, even if they motivate us to do nothing. Be honest about what this perspective empowers you to do, even if its to get angry or be immobile.

What is possible through this perspective? This question really hits at the heart of perspectives: if you were to stay in the same perspective for the rest of your life, what would be possible? How would your life look?

What new perspective would I like to "try on"? The great thing about perspectives is that we can change them.
Just like trying on a new hat or new coat, try on a new perspective. Even if you have to pretend...do it! And once you've found one that you'd like to try on, go through the previous four questions again. Do this several times until you arrive at the perspective that fits best for you, and stay in it.

Perspectives play a large role in what we do and who we are. Alter your perspectives to make powerful changes to your life.