High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Balance Work and the Holidays

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 Balance Work and the Holidays: "Check if your company offers an employee assistance program. If you need to take time off to just recalibrate, that is perfectly okay."

• 10 Commitments to Live a Truly Accountable Life: "If you develop a strong personal belief in the importance of these commitments, and if you begin acting on those beliefs, you will benefit from them."

• 11 Ways to Be More Productive: "The restaurant business can be unrelenting, especially when you’re shuttling between five of them. Nonetheless, the chef, restaurant owner, and cookbook author says that the experience has an upside: It makes you an excellent problem solver."

• 7 Tips for Successful Delegating: "View it as a means to free up valuable time -- more hours you can use to act on your big ideas, grow your business and achieve greater success."
• 5 Steps to Turn Experience (and Failure) Into Wisdom:"They recognize that by knowing what they did to produce a great outcome, they can repeat the actions and duplicate the result. That’s wisdom too."

5 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Workaholic

In a work world where we’re expected to be available 24-7, it can be easy to become a workaholic and overly stressed. It’s important to make a conscious effort to stay in balance and implement processes in our life to better manage the workload.

Here are some steps to take to avoid becoming a workaholic. 

  

Manage expectations. Avoid a tendency to be a perfectionist or to think that you can do everything. Nothing is ever perfect, and no one can do everything. Set realistic expectations for the quality of the work that you do, the amount of time you will devote to a project, and the work you yourself will take responsibility for. Having clear and realistic expectations can help you avoid becoming a workaholic.

   

Delegate and ask for help. An important way to reduce stress is to ask for help when it’s needed and delegate whenever possible. There is no shame in needing help and it can be important for the development of others to provide opportunities.

Focus on health. If you’re focused on your health, getting enough sleep, eating well, and ensuring that you add exercise to your regimen, you’ll better recognize when you’re getting imbalanced in your work life and be better positioned to make changes to avoid overwork.

Unplug. Be sure to set aside time when you’re unavailable to your supervisor and colleagues, and unplug from your email, voice messages, and communication apps. Keep your weekends free of work and try to avoid work after a set time each evening.

Consider a job change. If you still find yourself struggling to avoid stress at work, and you’re overdoing things you might need to consider another job. Look into something that will be less demanding and allow for more balance in your life.

5 Ways to Recognize Success in Your Career

Success at work is not merely a matter of promotions and increased salary, though being accessible to our jobs 24-7 often makes it difficult to step back and evaluate success in any other way. But career success can be assessed in various ways.

Here are five ways to view your career success without considering your salary as the primary factor.

Added Responsibility. When you’ve gained the trust of your company and supervisor and have been handed additional responsibilities, such as new tasks or projects, managing an important account, or overseeing the work of others, you know you’ve attained a degree of success. You would not be provided these responsibilities without attaining the trust of your company, and your company’s trust in you is a strong indicator of your level of success.

Growing Network. In a successful career your network of contacts and colleagues expands, grows, and deepens regularly through networking events, working closely with colleagues and customers, and attending workshops and conferences.

Balance. You can view success through the lens of the balance you experience between your career and your personal life. This does not mean you never feel stressed, nor that you don’t take work home with you but that you are able to set aside your job when you need to recharge and are able to enjoy your family life and hobbies.

Job satisfaction. A strong indicator of your success is your satisfaction at work and people tend to be satisfied in their job when they are able to use their strengths, skills, and interests to do meaningful work that provides a positive benefit to society.

Learning Opportunities. No one likes to be stagnant in their job and career, and successful careers enable you to constantly learn and grow in your profession through continuing education, trainings, workshops, and on-the-job experience.

When you are successful in your job and career in these areas you will often discover that you are satisfied with the financial aspects of your career, too.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Why So Many Employees Quit Within The First 6 Months

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!

• Why So Many Employees Quit Within the First 6 Months: "when managers take an active role in onboarding, 'employees are 3.4 times as likely to strongly agree their onboarding experience was exceptional'."

• 9 CEOs Share Their Favorite Interview Question: "This helps me get at what really motivates people and how passionate they are about the work they do."

• How to Know Which Ideas Your Company Should Pursue: "our method might not make it easier to pick great ideas, but it should make it easier to avoid picking bad ones. It helps to prioritize ideas or consider which ones should be more thoroughly evaluated."

• 4 Tips for Prioritizing Your Health: "We make it a team commitment to be healthy. Lunches are catered at work, and we hold each other to picking the healthier options. Every hour on the hour during the work week, we do a short round of exercises."
• 4 Tips to Achieve Work-Life Balance:"In many cases, I would delegate something and then grab it back if I started to see a problem. Thankfully, I eventually learned to simply oversee the process and help freelancers bring their output up to my standards."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 22 Microhabits That Will Change Your Life

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 Microhabits That Will Change Your Life in a Year: "if you want to have a completely different life in a year or two, you need to start now, and you need to start small."

• 5 Steps Mel Robbins Followed to Radically Transform her Career and Life: "Support others, because another person's success does not limit your ability to achieve your own."

• 11 Ways to Achieve True Work-Life Integration: "Rather than trying to keep things separate, it’s about finding a way to integrate the two. Do a little work from home, build in some remote work time, find ways to efficiently handle personal errands and tasks while at work if it’s easier."

• 4 Common Misconceptions About Networking: "Building real relationships is about investing in them first, figuring out what they want and love, and then helping them get it."
• Don't Set an Agenda Before Important Meetings:"The group needs an agenda, but the group members need to decide how to spend their time together — whether that’s a few hours or a few days. Below are the steps we recommend."

5 Tips for Maintaining Work-Life Balance

The idea of maintaining work-life balance might seem to be a myth and many times in our careers our work lives can feel overwhelming.

Instead of struggling for a balance that might not exist we can instead seek out a way to work that works for us and our unique lifestyle, while allowing us to maintain sanity.

Consider the following five factors when thinking about work-life balance and what is best for you.

Learn to say no. An important key to getting to a balanced place in your life is developing the ability to say no. Your mental health will thank you. Your stress level will thank you. And your work life will thank you. No one can do it all. Understand your limits and be willing to protect them with a well-calculated “no.”

Set structure and boundaries. There will always be exceptions, of course, but we need to be clear about the boundaries we set for our work lives and give it an appropriate structure. For example, you might choose to avoid working past a specific time each day or decline to work on the weekends. Additionally, you might add a walk around the block to your work schedule or after-lunch routine. Perhaps a brief nap or time for reading in the afternoon is what you need to regain focus and energy.

Take advantage of time off. You have time off for a reason. Use it. Whether it’s for a holiday or personal days off, be sure to take time off from your job and recharge. This time should be carefully guarded and carefully planned to ensure that it provides the maximum benefit to your personal like and to your career.

Use technology wisely. There are many problems for which tech companies claim to have a solution for. Unfortunately, some technology solutions simply add to the stress and busyness of life. Be sure that when you add tech to your plans that the technology actually solves the problem you need solving. If you have a work phone, consider getting a personal phone, too, so you can turn off the work phone at times without being available 24-7.

Focus on your health. Perhaps the most important thing you can do for your work life balance is to pay attention to your health and get adequate rest, eat healthy foods, eliminate harmful habits, and be sure to have an exercise regimen. Also, pay attention to your emotional health and mental well-being and seek out professional help when necessary.

High Five Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 8 Steps to Reaching Your Full Potential

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!

• 8 Steps to Reaching Your Full Potential: "Commit to regular time for personal development and strategic thinking — space to think and feel. Begin with a couple of hours each week and expand from there."

• The Ultimate Guide to Bulletproof Habits: "The most direct, fulfilling route to greatness is not through grand strategy, clever maneuvers, inborn talent or the right connections; it’s the path of small, consistent and patient steps repeated again and again."

• Why Mindfulness is a Must-Have Mental Skill: "mindfulness provides for a non-confrontational intervention where you develop the skill to choose to pivot your thinking and stop the broken record of unhelpful thought looping on repeat."

• 4 Ways Working Dads Can Make More Time for Family: "The men surveyed rated work-life balance as the primary factor to consider when measuring success and as the third most important criteria for choosing a job."
• 5 Tips on How to Find a Mentor:"Ask what you can do to help your mentors. You may have assets they need. Don’t be a pest, but do send a relevant article or a post they might find interesting, or promote their work to your network."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 10 Powerful Attributes of Insanely Successful People

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!

• 10 Powerful Attributes of Insanely Successful People:"If you want to achieve your wildest dreams and become phenomenally successful, you’ll need to find ways to go from ordinary to extraordinary."

• 3 Exercises to Build Stronger Teams: "start with the premise that we’ll build stronger teams when we first build stronger relationships with the people on them."

• How to Have a Life Even After Getting More Responsibilities at Work: "in these situations, you need sharper focus and stronger filters. These five strategies can help you with both."

• How to Discover the Strength of Your Personal Brand: "When thinking about your online personal brand, you should start with one goal in mind: to build value through your online authority as an expert."
• 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Leaving Corporate Life & Starting My Own Business: "understand that you’ll most likely have to spend infinitely more money launching and building your business than you ever imagined."

How to Measure Success in Your Career

It can be discouraging to look around and compare your career standing with that of successful entrepreneurs and career experts touting their accolades and wisdom on social media. You might even be tempted to compare your situation to that of some of your colleagues.

Resist the temptation!

When it comes to your career success you should only look to yourself and measure your success based on the following factors.

Your opportunities to advance or develop in your career. You’ll experience your career as successful if you have opportunities to move up in the company, earn a job promotion, and continue to expand your range of influence. 

 

Your opportunities to develop new skills. A successful career is one that changes and avoids stagnation. It is one where you are able to learn new skills, develop in new areas, and be part of the innovations in your chosen field.

Your opportunities to live a healthy and well-balanced life. A successful career is one in which your career does not prevent you from making healthy choices, getting enough sleep, eating well, spending meaningful time with your family, being physically fit, and enjoying some recreation and leisure time.

Your opportunities to earn a liveable wage. You don’t need to be rich and famous. Resist the desire to base your career success on your paycheck and to compare your things with the things your neighbor owns. Instead focus on ensuring that you can meet your financial obligations and purchase items of value that you need and enjoy.

Your opportunities to live your values. If you are doing meaningful work that is consistent with your values and provides a sense of purpose you will likely feel a sense of deep satisfaction in your work. Strive to find work that brings value to your community and to the world and you will be a success in your career.

When you evaluate your career success don’t focus on status, titles, and salary. Instead, take a look at whether you have opportunities to advance, develop new skills, experience work-life balance, earn enough to live on, and are fulfilling your purpose.

How to Bring More Balance to Your Life and Career

Research shows that more men and women are reporting increased levels of stress in their lives, despite the ways technology has made many of our daily tasks quicker, easier, and simpler to perform. This increased level of stress is taking a toll on our health, our personal relationships, and our careers.

There are, however, steps we can take to bring more balance to our personal and work lives, and if you struggle with maintaining a healthy and stress-free personal life consider the following ideas for achieving a healthy work-life balance:

Unplug and turn off your laptop and mobile. 

Make a plan to turn off your work phone or log off your email at a specific time each day. This will make it easier for you to succeed, rather than distracting you with your email when you want focus on personal time. In addition, consider setting aside at least one day each weekend to go without your electronic devices.

Get physical and move. 

Incorporating some physical activity throughout your day will help alleviate stress and increase your energy levels. If you work at a desk all day try spending some time—if even only 10 minutes—standing while you work, and take regular walks, if possible.

Spend time outdoors. 

Regular time outside, among clean air, grass, flowers, trees, lakes, and streams has been shown to reduce stress. Take a walk or run before work in the morning or bike through a nearby park in the evenings.

Become energized by your food. 
An important way to gain balance in your life is to eat food that energizes you rather than ingesting foods and drinks that have too much sugar, caffeine, or alcohol. Drink a lot of water and snack on nuts, fruit, and vegetables throughout the day.     

Reduce stress with meditation and sleep. 
Even a simple and brief practice of meditation in the morning can bring significant benefits to your work and personal life, and can greatly reduce stress, while helping you focus on what you’re grateful for in your life. The importance of adequate amounts of sleep cannot be overstated. Focusing on those two areas—adequate sleep and a meditation practice—can set you up for greater success throughout your day.

5 Tips for Finding Work-Life Balance with the Start of School

It's that time of year already! The end of summer and the start of a school. And, if you have children, you've likely noticed that your daily routine has become a bit out-of-whack over the last two months.

Not to fear. You can take some basic steps to get back into the swing of things so your work and personal life return to balance.

Here are a few tips to consider as you prepare for your kids to return to school.

1. Manage your expectations. Yes, there will be stress and everything will not go perfectly. Understand that there will be difficulties: you might oversleep, or the kids will oversleep, or you'll just be plain cranky in the morning and everything will bother you. These difficulties do not prevent you from having a good day, effective, and productive day, though, and do not allow them to prevent you from enjoying your children.

2. Get back into a routine early. Don't wait until the Sunday night before school starts to begin getting back into a routing of going to bed earlier, or waking up earlier to get that morning workout in. Start your new/old routine at least a week before school starts and he won't feel like such a shock.

3. Be prepared. Do whatever you can to make your mornings proceed smoothly. If possible make lunches the night before, have everything you need to take to work already organized and ready to go. Don't get into your car to discover you have no gas. All of these little things add up to bring great stress so do what you can to minimize inconveniences.

4. Watch your schedule. You might find that no more how organized you are something always comes up to make you a few minutes late for work. Prepare for this by ensuring, as much as you are able and have control over it, you do not schedule meetings first thing in the morning or have important deadlines to meet immediately. Give yourself a break and ease into the most demanding parts of your day.

5. Accept help. This tip might even be more effectively to "ask" for help. Perhaps a neighbor or grandparent can take the children to school, or pick them up. Even if this is done only one or two days in a week it can go a long way toward reducing your stress and helping you achieve a sense of work-life balance. There is no shame in seeking and accepting help.

Finally, be sure to enjoy this time. Before you know it, you'll miss these opportunities with your children. Take some time to sit back, relax, and experience some joy for the good things in your life.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 10 Ways to Get Back Your Work-Life Balance

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!

• 10 Ways to Get Back Your Work-Life Balance: "Have lunch with a co-worker you don’t know very well. Get to know more than his or her name. Commit to doing this once a month."
• 8 Ways to Measure Job Search Success: "You want to make the extra effort and do everything possible to make live contact with the hiring manager, not human resources. The hiring manager has the power to hire you, so you want your qualifications and interest to come across."
• 10 Ways to Cultivate Credibility: "To be credible never shift responsibility for mistakes onto others. Live from an internal locus of control and trust you have the power to shape your life through your own decisions and actions."
• When It's A Better Career Move To Turn Down A Big Assignment From Your Boss: "If a stretch assignment isn’t going to push you out of your comfort zone and spark some passion, it’s probably worth passing."
• What to Expect from Job Interviews and How to Prepare: "The interviewer usually wants to get a sense of how you will fit into the company, but may also ask questions to confirm that the phone screener did their job in assessing your skills and qualifications."

4 Tips for Work-Life Balance

What is work-life balance and is it even attainable? For many people the stresses of the day-to-day job can impact home life and make it difficult to focus on anything other than the demands of work and career.

If you are one of those struggling with how to maintain a healthy and stress-free personal life consider the following four tips for achieving a healthy work-life balance:

1. Identify and set priorities and boundaries. Be sure to be clear about your priorities. If you need to get in a daily run ensure that you go to bed at a reasonable hour so you can get up early and get that run in before the busyness of the work day hits. Determine the things you want to get done in the morning--exercise, meditation, breakfast, time with family--before you check in with your job. Are evenings just for your family? Do you need to schedule a weekly date with your partner? Identify the things you need in your life and block off the time, preventing work and job demands from infringing on this time.

2. Turn off communication. Once you've determined your priorities and boundaries be sure to turn off your work phone or log off your email. Set yourself up for success, rather than making it easy to fail by checking your email when you should be focused on your personal time.

3. Recharge on the weekend. Set aside your weekend for recharging your batteries. Do the things that you enjoy and that increase your energy. If you need to do a work-related activity limit it to a specific task that you can complete in an hour or two. Take care of yourself on the weekend, avoiding late nights and excessive caffeine or alcohol.  

4. Reduce stress with meditation and sleep. Even a simple and brief practice of meditation in the morning can bring significant benefits to your work and personal life, and can greatly reduce stress. The importance of adequate amounts of sleep cannot be overstated. Focusing on those two area--adequate sleep and a meditation practice--can set you up for greater success throughout your day.

5 Factors to Consider When Evaluating a New Job Offer

It can sometimes be difficult to know what to do when faced with a new job opportunity or a job offer. We can spend too much time trying to figure out the right course of action and be fearful of making the wrong decision.

If you have a new job or career opportunity consider these 5 factors when evaluating if it's the right move for you.

1. Managerial style. Do you know who you'll be reporting to? If so, you might already know something about this person's managerial style. Is s/he a micromanager or will you be left to make decisions on your own? The managerial style of the person you'll be working for can play a major role in your job satisfaction so be sure to consider this.

2. Salary increase? If the new position includes a salary increase you might think it's an easy decision.

However, sometime when we take a step back we realize that more money does not necessarily equate to more job satisfaction.

3. Work-life balance. Consider how the new position will impact your work-life balance. Will you be required to travel a lot, spending time away from family or do you have the flexibility to work at home if needed?

4. Career opportunities. Will this job lead to more opportunities for you to enhance your skills and develop your skills or will you feel trapped?

5. Location/environment. Are you moving out of state or just down the aisle? Is it a formal work environment or can you dress casually? You'll want to consider the location and work environment to ensure that you are comfortable in your new position.

Once you've taken the time to consider these factors (and others of importance to you) you can then feel confident you've made the correct decision for you and your career.

5 Keys to Career Happiness

Are you happy with your career? Unfortunately, many of us spend a great deal of time and energy

complaining about our job or our boss to anyone who will listen.

Instead of complaining let's consider 5 keys to job satisfaction and career happiness.

1. Your work is meaningful. The company you work for and the position you fill helps to bring value to the world. In other words, your work is not unethical or promotes products or services that do harm.

2. You have work-life balance. The job you do allows you time to relax with family, engage with your hobbies, and does not cause you to be in a constant state of stress.

3. You are fairly compensated. This is obvious but you'll feel better about your work if you feel that you are valued and paid appropriately for the value you bring to your job.

4. You have valuable relationships at work. Many long-lasting friendships start as co-worker relationships. It's much easier to enjoy your job if you enjoy those you work with.

5. You have opportunities to advance and develop your skills. It's easy to feel stuck in a job or career if we see no opportunity to advance or move up. A satisfying job allows you to continually grow, learn, and develop.

Consider these keys to help evaluate your current situation and determine whether it's time to change your job or change your attitude.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Work-Life Balance, Networking, and Leadership

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

• R.I.P. Work-Life Balance: "Although plenty is still being written and theorized about work-life balance, the conversation is beginning to shift toward concepts such as energy management, resiliency and flexibility."

• How to Adjust to a New Job: "In most jobs, it takes anywhere from three to six months to feel like you know what you're doing, and in some especially complicated jobs, even longer."                                                      
• Developing a Knack for Networking: "When you reach out to a professional to help you, make it a two-way street and give as much to the relationship as you take from it. Think about what you can offer."


• How and Why to Be a Leader (Not a Wannabe): "It's often said that leaders 'inspire'. But that's only half the story. Leaders inspire us because they bring out the best in us. They evoke in us our fuller, better, truer, nobler selves."


• My Two Very Simple Rules for Networking: "These likely won’t find you a new job or get you a big deal next week.... But over time, these two very simple rules are small seeds that you plant, any one of which can one day provide a strong return." 

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup

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

• 5 Things You Didn't Know Could Hurt Your Career: "You might think that loyalty to an employer would be valued, and it is, but there's also a point where staying too long at one company can raise questions for future prospective employers about how you'll adapt to new environments."

• The 1 Thing You Must Do In Every Job Interview: "The most important thing you must do in every interview is to ask great questions."                                                       
• Internships Are Increasingly the Route to Winning a Job: "Companies report that 69% of summer interns who applied for full-time positions received offers, according to a recent survey from the Graduate Management Admission Council."


• Work-Life "Balance" Isn't the Point: "Even in the busiest of schedules, the most practical and effective way we can live is by aligning our personal priorities of work, family, health, and well-being. Such realignment can bring huge gains in emotional and physical energy, not to mention greater clarity and focus at work."


• 12 Things You Should Do If You Hate Your Summer Job: "Keep in mind that the two main goals of having a summer job or internship are getting valuable work experience and getting a great recommendation from your supervisor."