5 Career Benefits from Journaling

A daily practice of journaling is one habit you might consider adding to your life to see some immediate improvements to your career and work life.

Simply setting aside as little as ten minutes each day to write can help bring a focus and clarity to your life and provide several unexpected dividends.

Here are five ways journaling can benefit your career and enhance your life.

Journaling allows you to process your thoughts and feelings. Writing provides an organized way for you to gain some understanding of the events of the day, and the emotions that accompany them. This can aid you in working through situations or circumstances that contribute to difficult emotions--such as fear, anger, or sadness--and can help provide an honest look at factors contributing to success or failure.

Journaling helps you set your focus for the next day. When you take a few minutes at the end of the day to write you can spend some of that time setting your priorities, listing a few of your major tasks for the next day, and enabling you to be more focused and prepared when you awake the following morning.

Journaling helps you recognize your successes and accomplishments. When you commit to a daily practice of writing you have a record of your accomplishments and can look back over time to acknowledge your successes and appreciate your achievements.  

Journaling can be a way to recognize the good in your life. Life is busy and many times we rush through life without taking account of the good we experience and the things we can be grateful for. Journaling is a great opportunity to take stock of the good you encounter daily, and enables you to read again regularly as a reminder.

Journaling helps you retain what you’ve learned. When you take the time to write down some insight or knowledge you’ve gained during the day, you are better able to recall it and apply that knowledge later.

   

You don’t have to be a prolific writer to benefit from journaling. Try spending ten to fifteen minutes a day writing and you’ll likely soon recognize some of the advantages to your life and career noted above.

5 Tips When Asking for a Raise

You've earned it, that much is clear, and yet you find yourself impatiently waiting on your manager or supervisor to approach you about a raise.

It's time to take the initiative and manage your career by engaging your boss in this discussion. Though it can be intimidating to bring up money with your manager here are five tips to help the process.

1. Understand your value. Do some research so you know where you fit in with the current salary range in your field, and also within your company. This will give you an indication of what you can expect from a raise.

2. Document your accomplishments. Be sure you have clear documentation for the work you've accomplished, along with your specific successes. If there is a way to tie it to the financial success of your company that can help your chances for a raise.

3. Be specific. Determine exactly what it is you are looking for and know what your target number will be when you ask for a raise.

4. Practice will make confident. Take some time to practice what you will say to your manager and how you will state your case for a raise. The more comfortable you are with your presentation the more confident you will appear when asking for your raise, and your manager will appreciate and respect your confidence.

5. Schedule a meeting. This is obvious but until you actually schedule a meeting with your manager to ask for a raise all your preparation is useless. In fact, go ahead and schedule that meeting with your manager today. Give yourself a week to prepare steps 1-4 and go into the meeting with confidence that you're prepared to state your case well.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 5 Keys to Being a Great Mentor

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!

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• 5 Keys to Being a Great Mentor: "The goal of coaching is to help your mentees build up confidence in themselves... most people do not succeed because they have a great deal of self-doubt and therefore they self-sabotage."


• The 10 Commandments of the New Economy: "We need to have a longer time-horizon than the next earnings call. The communities we live in and the earth we inhabit both demand our attention and investment."


• 5 Steps to Improve Your Networking Skills: "No matter whom you’re trying to build a relationship with, treating that person as a friend rather than a business contact will take you much further with the relationship. So, think about how you would approach a potential friend."


• How to Brag About Your Accomplishments: "What these results seem to suggest is that when deciding whether to (honestly) brag or (deceptively) humblebrag, would-be self-promoters should choose the former — and at least reap the rewards of seeming sincere."


• Sending Professional Emails: "Getting into the habit of writing business documents more formally – even if they are only emails – will help you establish a professional image in the long run."

Stuck in a Career Rut? Get Curious.

My wife and I recently hosted four adults and three children in our home. Having no kids ourselves, the pitter-patter of three little pairs of feet was both an exhilarating and stress-inducing experience.

Knowing that we would have a one-and-a-half year old in our house, we did our best to "childproof:" we picked up all loose objects that would fit in a little one's mouth and removed all small obstacles that could interfere with his wobbly but zestful gait. After a quick inspection the night before, we felt confident that we created a safe environment.

We were wrong.

It wasn't long after the children had arrived that their youngest was getting into drawers, pulling on window-blinds, and finding every chink in the armor that was our "danger-proof" house. It was humbling, and my wife and I were kept on our toes. But for every time that I had to leave my seat to take out of George's (name changed) hands something that would hurt him or hurt one of our belongings, I was struck by something that I found fascinating...

...his curiosity.

George explored his surroundings with an inspiring level of zeal and interest. What's this? What's in here? What does this do? What would happen if I thew this? What would happen if I pulled this? His actions were pure curiosity: he wanted to discover. What a powerful perspective to possess!

In our career lives-whether we are looking for work or still employed at the same company for decades-our capacity for curiosity can change our attitudes, performance, and success. Use the questions below to create strong, leading answers for yourself.

How does my current situation make me feel truly engaged?

What about my current professional life do I find interesting?

How am I demonstrating success through what I am doing right now?

What about me is keeping me from the professional success that I desire?

What personal qualities will I tap into to create to the professional life that I want?

Leave it to a child to remind us all the powerful revelations that come from simply being curious about ourselves and our surroundings. My challenge to you is to look at your life through a child's eyes and get curious about everything. See what you discover about yourself and your environment. Act on that curiosity and your desire to create a life of your choosing.

Open some drawers. Throw some things. Pull on some blinds. See what happens. And, most of all, enjoy.

Stand Out: Get Recognized

Recognition in the workplace often comes from being your own advocate, especially if you have a manager who isn’t particularly great at recognizing team accomplishments. And typically, co-workers are too busy vying to catch the attention and recognition of their own managers to take notice and recognize your work. In other cases, your manager and others simply haven't been made aware of your accomplishments.

You can tactfully champion your own accomplishments and get the recognition you deserve by acting on the following tips:

Build a mutually respectful and professional relationship with your manager: Communicate regular project/task status updates to your manager using a preferred channel of communication (e.g. meetings, reports, emails, etc.). Find opportunities for brief and informal face-to-face interactions, which may be as simple as stopping by his/her office to say hello. Being visible helps keep you top-of-mind with your manager.

Report out: When you reach a milestone with a project or have a new idea or solution to a problem, share it with pertinent co-workers and management via email. When possible, quantify the benefits.

Contribute ideas and volunteer for new tasks: Share your ideas and opinions and be willing to take on new tasks. By doing so, your co-workers and management will see you as a contributor and a team player.

Track and record accomplishments: It is easy to get busy with daily tasks at work and lose track of your accomplishments. Take a few minutes each week to write a note highlighting some of the key achievements. Record, date stamp, and keep your accomplishments noted in a file you can later reference for preparing for a performance review or updating your resume.

Take pride and credit: Be proud of your work, whether it's recognized by others or not. And when your work is being referenced in your presence, be confident and comfortable about taking credit for it, but in a tactful way.