Category: Improving Yourself

Even if your performance review is due at a later date, you should start getting ready now. Put your best foot forward with these four strategies.

1. Know the system.
To get the most from the experience and present yourself in the best light, understand how your company handles reviews, beginning with the form (s) that has to be filled out. Some companies ask employees to complete a self-review form, sometimes online. Others leave the writing to the boss and let employees have their say in a face-to-face meeting.

2. Keep track during the year.
Most performance-review systems operate on a yearly calendar. Keep track of your work throughout, so that you can cite your accomplishments. Keep a log, or review your e-mail regularly to refresh your memory on the projects, initiatives, and challenges you’ve managed. See My Success Portfolio.

3. Make your case.
Before your meeting, create a short (one- or two-page) document that lays out your view of your: a) work over the past year; b) goals for the new year; c) needs, that is, the tools, training, and access to people that will help you reach your goals; d) your strengths and areas for improvement; and e) feedback for your boss — on communication processes, scheduling, whatever. This works best, of course, with a boss who is receptive to suggestions.

4. Focus on your out-of-the-ordinary contributions.
Many employees believe that they’ll get a good review and a hefty raise if they simply list everything they did during the year. Guess what? Most of that stuff is what you’re already paid to do. A salary increase is a reward for exceptional performance. So when you list your accomplishments, focus on key results. For example, as a human resource specialist, the employee survey you were responsible for, lead to a reduction of turnover in the logistics department.

Career Success Tip:

Keep your manager in the loop. The more she’s aware during the entire year of your plans, progress, challenges and successes, the more in sync you’ll be at that big annual review. Wouldn’t it be nice to see eye-to-eye there and then retire to a relaxed lunch?

Readers, reply with your horror as well as your glory stories about your experience giving or getting a performance review. I’ll compile them in a later post.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

The words we use make a world of difference. If you look at the words “word” and “world”, there is only one letter difference and that’s a “l.” I believe the more we respect, honor and love the words in our lives, the more it will open up our world.

Take my two-year-old son. Now that he’s beginning to talk and learn more words, his world is expanding. He is able to more effectively communicate his needs and wants with those around him like never before. On the other hand, take my friend who recently received a diagnosis of dystonia. According to Wikipedia, Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder, in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. Now whenever she speaks, she struggles not to slur her words. While my son’s world is opening up, her’s is closing in as she is choosing to limit her words in order to best communicate with others.

We all know the power of words when they are misused and how much they can discourage us in our work, hopes and dreams. These type of words are ones that hopefully we avoid using and avoid receiving. Thus, I won’t spend any more “words” on them.

The words that matter are the ones that encourage and affirm others. In fact, “Words of Affirmation” is considered a love language. The Five Love Languages is a book and series of work from author Gary Chapman. Words of Affirmation is one of the five ways that we receive and express love with others. If this is how you express love, this is also how you would mostly likely prefer to receive love.

Words of Affirmation in Action

The most memorable way I’ve received recognition at the workplace is when I was given a thank you gift that spoke my love language, Words of Affirmation. A colleague gave me a meaningful card with a handwritten note that expressed her gratitude for my work on a project of hers. Along with it, she gave me a bag of chocolate-covered peanuts, one of my favorite treats. She tapped into how I express my love and appreciation to others, especially through sending out thank-you cards with handwritten notes of gratitude.

Who can you affirm with your words and make a difference in their world? Share a comment with us below.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

Believe it or not there is a positive side to this, but be careful what you wish for.

As they should, all employees should receive supervisory, management and leadership training–if only to know their functions. Often the training is job related or of a more general nature. The training helped this young man know the differences and decide his own fate. This article represents a positive view from a person in government who received such training and received a promotion for being exemplary but the move didn’t work. My side of the tale is a little more cautionary as you might expect–my being older and wiser. Just kidding.

Here’s the tale: A colleague of mine on Gov Loop wrote an interesting blog about demoting about himself to get what he truly wanted–when his promotion didn’t “agree” with him, Demoting Yourself–It Can Be a Good Thing. On his actions, I so glad it worked out well for him. My first thought! What good managers you have! On second thought: this doesn’t always turn out this well for everyone. He did the homework:

• Know yourself (you work ethic, your work style, what makes you tick)
• You’ve got to be happy with what you’re doing…if you’re not happy with what you do, it will be drain on both you and everyone else around you…or those that you manage. That’s worse then trying to stick it out.
• Be honest with your managers. That might be hard for some to do, but the job of a manager is to help their people excel. If your manager is truly a good manager, they’ll find a way to do that.
• Admit when you’re wrong. I’ve never backed down from a professional challenge. I did this time around. Admitting that wasn’t easy to do, but it was necessary.
• Admitting you were wrong is =! fail (for you non-coders, =! means “not equal to”).”

I may not be supervising as Leader (big “L”) anymore, but I’m in a much better position to further excel at what I’m good at doing and STILL be a “leader.” In the end that’s good for me, my career, my life, and my organization.”

My trained colleague knew what needed to happen, advised management and it supported him. That is great! That’s the way management and true leadership should work. Leaders do that. I agree with another colleague in the group who said: “The fact that you were so well supported in this wise, but uncommon move by your managers is a testment to their integrity and training for their roles!”

However, there are some cautions to those employees who may not be as respected by their managers–who may be told, “Gee, after all the work I did to get you promoted,” or may be told, “if you don’t like the change, stay where you are until another slot is available,” and you can’t always go as you expect it to. Some employers will support you all the way and even give you positive accolades on your evaluation. For some employees whose employers haven’t been honest with them…

Problem: there is no guarantee. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea; I think it’s great to do what you are best at and what you love.

For everyone: be careful. Not all bosses are great! They just get to stick to the top of the pack for some reason. Make sure you are the “shining star” the boss tells you at review time. You are admitting your strengths and weaknesses and that is where some employers will take advantage of those weakness admissions and highlight them rather than your frankness, which shows character and leadership potential of a different kind. Some bosses tell everyone they are practically perfect. Some go a step further. I had one supervisor who made any of her staff feel (when he or she were sitting with her on a one-on-one) each member was her best employee–that each was a special confidant. Once the employee realizes it, she or he doesn’t know who or what to believe. Of course, this doesn’t create a trustful employee to employer situation (unlike your situation) and is a good morale breaker.

There is the supervisor, manager, or boss who tells you one thing in confidence, asks your opinion and then relays that to everyone you work with. This has nothing really to do with this article but it does place emphasis on the idea that you may not really know someone well, despite the meetings you have had. Be sure you do.

So, it doesn’t always work. It is also a way when an employer has to admit to making a mistake promoting you and can blame you in the end for being a disappointment in the job, or, what you wish for most–the informal “leadership” role may disappear when you go back to the ranks–thanks to a myriad of behind the scenes work to prove you shouldn’t have had the job in the first place. Most good employees do perform an informal leadership role and those shouldn’t be squandered, but they are sometimes for some else’s personal agenda.

Being a manager does require different skills and there are different types of managers so be careful not to leap at a promotion opportunity as many pointed out in my colleagues original blog, and I agree. Make sure it is what you want; the extra money, if there is any, may not be worth the headache and career move later to something more to your liking.

Getting the leadership, management, supervisory training is a good way to see if this is the life for you. It can also help you decide and help you navigate the system as professionally as possible.

To read more on this topic, especially my side, I wrote a couple of related articles you may be interested in reading: “Finding the Way Out of a Coffin That’s Nailed Shut (without removing one nail”) and its sister article, The Way Out of a Coffin That is Nailed Shut. Just so you see stories like these can have unhappy endings. Be careful and make sure you are in an environment that isn’t dysfunctional in these kinds of things. It takes up most of your life so don’t waste that valuable time unless it’s on something you love.

I’m sure there is more on the subject from you and I want to hear it. Feel free to be heard. SPAM I delete, but comments, even disagreeing ones offer a different perspective and I’m all for that. My website is always available for your thoughts and perusal as well. You’ll find I try to be a communicator because I think it is most important and all my life I have been the guy who says what he thinks. Under the category, What I Say, you find links to my other articles and blogs on different subjects.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

My book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development, takes a look at the first person to train: the caveman and cave women. I called my book the “Cave” “Man” book for a couple of reasons. 1. I don’t live in a real cave, and 2. The “Cave” is where we work today. Check it out! I warn you, it may seem a little odd as I set the stage, but later chapters tie the basics together in ways you’ll appreciate. It’s not a How-To Book (they only give you the basics and there are plenty of those on the web, but The Cave Man Guide can get you thinking in the right direction for the most effective training for your company. It’s an E-Book for any level of training. You can read it on the train into work and not feel you are working at all–or call it continuous learning. At least, that was my goal.

Happy training.

In an earlier blog this year, I wrote about the influence of Martin Luther King Jr. on my life and his approach to social justice and peace. To create the Beloved Community we don’t need to have the gift of oration that King had, we don’t need to make tremendous sacrifices or put our life on the life. We need only connect with the love in our own heart and carry that into our work with conscious intent.

The Beloved Community

“The Beloved Community” is a term first coined by the theologian Josiah Royce, early in the 20th Century. Martin Luther King, Jr. used this term to describe the end-state of social change for greater justice and harmony between all people.

From the King Center website the following summarizes King’s vision of the Beloved Community.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community was not devoid of interpersonal, group or international conflict. Instead he recognized that conflict was an inevitable part of human experience. But he believed that conflicts could be resolved peacefully and adversaries could be reconciled through a mutual, determined commitment to nonviolence. No conflict, he believed, need erupt in violence. And all conflicts in The Beloved Community should end with reconciliation of adversaries cooperating together in a spirit of friendship and goodwill.

Weekly Steps as Spiritual Practice

For those of you who support this vision, who want to align your gifts, passion and purpose to create such a world, think of one area where you feel drawn to put your energy. It could be in your work, community, or any organization that will help future generations live with greater justice and peace.

Then read the six steps of non-violence below.

• Focus on one step each day to practice the idea.
• Review every night how you did with it.
• At the end of the week, review the differences you made or how you felt doing this practice.
• Reflect on how your faith came into play as you practiced these.
• Note how your sense of connection to others shifts from this practice.

The Six Steps of Nonviolence described by The King Center:

Information Gathering – The way you determine the facts, the options for change, and the timing of pressure for raising the issue is a collective process.

Do you collect facts with an open heart and open mind? Do you truly seek to understand what is happening before you move to be understood? How do you seek options for change and work with others to collaborate on ideas?

Education – The process for developing articulate leaders, who are knowledgeable about the issues.

How are you developing yourself as a leader and role model for others? Do you seek the thoughts and ideas from divergent viewpoints so that you can be fully educated on an issue?

Personal Commitment – Means looking at your internal and external involvement in the nonviolent campaign and preparing yourself for long-term as well as short-term action.

What does non-violence mean to you? What stirs your soul enough to work for greater justice and peace?

Negotiation – The art of bringing together your views and those of your opponent to arrive at a just conclusion or clarify the unresolved issues.

How willing are you to negotiate on an action? Do you hear the opposing view before you arrive at a conclusion? Are you willing to speak up so that others know your side of the story, learn from your perspective what is happening?

Direct Action – Occurs when negotiations have broken down or failed to produce a just response to the contested issues and conditions.

What steps do you take in your work and community to improve conditions for others? How do you act at home or at work with an open heart, from love and peace rather than anger or fear?

Reconciliation – The mandatory closing step of a campaign, when the opponents and proponents celebrate the victory and provide joint leadership to implement change.

What victories do you celebrate when you and others have worked hard to complete a project? Did anything shift in your own heart regarding your views or relationship with those you view as an opponent? How do you want to share leadership for continual improvements?

Find ways in your work and throughout your week that you can practice doing these steps to create change right where you are. Leave a comment here to let us know how this practice worked for you.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Visit Linda’s website- www.lindajferguson.com for information about her coaching work, keynote presentations, seminar topics, and books.

Now available!! Linda’s new book, “Staying Grounded in Shifting Sand” – Click here to order.

Do you feel that you’ve gone as far as you can with your current employer? Are there sign that you’ve hit what’s known as the “glass ceiling?”

This is the point at which you can clearly see the next level of promotion yet, despite your best effort, something is stopping your career progression.

If you do, here are five steps to break through that glass.

1. Identify the key competencies.
They are the common skills and attributes of the people in your company’s upper levels. Companies that value innovation and strive to be leaders will probably promote individuals who are outgoing, risk takers, and not afraid to “tell it like it is.” However, if you work for a conservative company (such as a utility), chances are that top management are analytic thinkers with a reputation for avoiding risk and making careful decisions.

What behaviors does your company value and reward? What type of person is promoted?

2. Strengthen those competencies that count.
Once you know what sets leaders apart in the company, ask your boss what skill areas you need to develop. Let your boss know that you want to work toward a higher-level position. Work together with your boss to set goals and objectives, then monitor and measure your performance.

What areas of your performance can you improve? What additional skills do you need to develop to be considered for an advanced position?

3. Broaden your network.
You should also build relationships with other people in your organization. You never know who may be in a position to help you or provide you with valuable information. It’s important to network in all areas and levels of your company.

Who can you reach out to on a regular basis? Can you get involved with cross-functional teams?How can you expand your professional network outside of your organization?

4. Find a mentor.
Having a mentor is a powerful way to break through the glass ceiling. A mentor can help you learn how to get connected to the information and people who can help you. A mentor can also be a great source of ideas for your professional development and growth.

Will your boss be able to provide mentoring support? Are there people with strong political power who can offer you assistance?

5. Build your reputation
Ultimately, the way to get ahead is to get noticed. You want people to see your competence, leadership abilities, technical knowledge, and any other competencies that are typical of people at the top. Remember, while you can see up, those at the top can see down. Make sure that what they see is important. Here are some examples: Seek high-profile projects, speak up and contribute in meetings, share ideas with peers as well as people in higher positions.

How are you going to champion and market yourself to build your reputation?

Career Success Tip:

We can’t all be exactly the type of upper management person our company wants. What we can do is develop the skills that the company values. Arm yourself with a development plan as well as the help of your boss, a strong network, and, hopefully, a mentor. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone, and you may find new zones of opportunity.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

I’m starting to see and hear things that make you wonder. Am I about to be let go? Should I start looking for another job fast? Or should I hold on and hope it won’t happen?

That was a call from Jack who had attended my presentation “Career Power: How to Build !t Keep It!”

Our coaching conversation centered on the signs that indicate one’s job might be at risk. Here are three clues that you’re about to lose your job from Forbes.

1. You stop getting feedback on your work.
This can be confusing especially if your boss who has regularly talked with you about your performance – giving both positive and negative feedback. Now there’s none. You may want to believe the best — that everything is fine; whatever performance problems have been resolved. Don’t fall is this trap. Go immediately to your boss and ask for a meeting to discuss specific performance areas. But be aware that you may get bad news.

2. You start getting an increase in written feedback.
Most companies have a performance management process and it’s governed by HR and legal. When a manager goes to them about an under performing employee, the first question is “what’s your documentation?” Usually, there isn’t much. So all of a sudden they start, and they make sure it’s written so there’s a record. This means a case is being made, so take it seriously. Find out quickly the process – the steps for disciplinary action and termination. There may be things you can do to slow it down or even stop it

3. Expectations for your work decrease or disappear.
If your workload has lessened but your colleagues are complaining about too much work or some of your tasks have been delegated to another person or team, then usually something is up. Most companies in these turbulent economic times are looking to cut expenses by lowering head count. Realize that a full plate is a safe plate .If your plate is being emptied or not refilled, go immediately to your boss. Don’t say you have no work. Rather find out your boss’s or key problem ara and come up quickly with a plan to solve it. make yourself valuable.

If you see these signs ,it may be best to get moving to your next opportunity while you still have control. It’s a sad event to lose your job, but a disaster if you had no idea it was coming.

Career Success Tip:

Losing a job is not the end of the world; it can be a new beginning. So toughen up and ride the roller coaster of change. Life comes at you fast and furious. Anticipate, prepare and have a plan B and even a plan C. Most important, develop Career Resilience – how how to overcome and grow from challenges.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

I wrote my first book, Path for Greatness: Work as Spiritual Service, to support people who want to integrate their spiritual life with their work life. On my book tours, I heard wonderful and amazing stories of people who were able to work spiritually. They were authentically present at work- mind, body and spirit. Others felt afraid or confused about how to show up as a spiritual person at work. They often felt they needed permission to do this. Yet in my talks I showed them that being spiritual is as much a part of being human as breathing. Being spiritual means allowing yourselves to be present to that Source of Life and Love within you.

I continue to talk with people who don’t understand how spirituality and work mix. I’ve gotten thank you emails from readers of this blog who have shared how much they appreciate our posts. They often say that our blog posts help them re-frame how they understand spirituality and its place at work.

Working Spiritually

I want to write this week for those of you who have a deep desire to more fully Step Up and Step Out as a spiritual person. Many of you yearn to align your spiritual self with the work they do.

Switch Jobs: I’ve run across dozens of people who want to leave their current job to work in a place that more aligns with their values, gifts, and spirit. They often just need extra encouragement and focus to make the leap to another place. My job coaching supports them in that process. My seminar “Invite the Shift” teaches a process I developed called Transformational Empowerment. It builds on spiritual concepts for creating your life by design, not default.

Re-Create Your Work: Others have lost their job and feel this is an ideal time to re-create their work by doing something they truly love. With the power of the internet to reach millions of people with the click of the button, there are more and more ways to bring your gifts to a wider audience and get paid for it. I’m learning more tips and tricks for doing that and will share that with visitors to my website in the months ahead (www.lindajferguson.com).

Work Spiritually Where You Are: Still others know they have a spiritual purpose working right where they are. In my previous job it was clear to me that my purpose was to be a spiritual presence for my co-workers. I often helped shift the energy of a group or provided a positive perspective to help a team move through their challenge. I was able to remind groups of their inherent creative energy, and to tap into that energy and creativity to build what they truly desired.

3 Ways to Step Up and Step Out Where You Are

You may be a Reiki master or other form of energy worker. Sharing your gifts in the meetings you attend supports those around you. As you tune in and turn up your energy, you change the vibrational energy of the room and others feel it. Bringing down Light and Love to a group in conflict or when a team hits an impasse is enormously healing, calming, or clearing. I often connect with the Higher Power/Divine Wisdom of a group to help them find a new path for their work.

Simply reminding others of their innate Light and Love (in whatever words you choose to use) helps your co-workers shift out of their fears, lack of confidence, or victim mentality. Affirming for them that they have the power and the presence to move through their challenges helps them re-connect to their Source of guidance, clarity, and comfort.

You serve as a reminder that they are a Bright Beautiful Essence. Share this video link with them (click here). This is a short clip from a program I did last fall where I shared stories and meditations for working spiritually.

There are unlimited ways you can Step Up and Step Out to share your gifts with others and work spiritually. Leave a comment below to share stories of how you are doing this through your presence or your actions at work.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Visit Linda’s website- www.lindajferguson.com for information about her coaching work, keynote presentations, seminars, and books.

Click this link to order Linda’s 10^th Anniversary edition of “Path for Greatness: Work as Spiritual Service”.

I thank my favorite Western University psychology professor, Dr. Willis McCann. Mental Health, I think the name of the course was, for helping me with this seeming huge problem they have to try to save the world. While we would like to, we can’t but we are already equipped with the “computer” that can do it, and it’s always on. You may have an inclination where I am going from here, but if read on you may be a little surprised.

Many non-psychology students took classes just because this professor emeritus was rather famous; he may have been a little senile by then. He used animal subjects to talk about human behavior in abnormal psychology, but it worked, kept us interested, got theories across. He was a fun professor who just made sense in this crazy world of the early 70s, and this Mental Health course was about not letting everyday life’s stresses (and you can include work if you like) get to us. He always used to joke with us that we couldn’t really “get a grip” or “get a hold of ourselves” like everyone would suggest, we could not work things out but sometimes the solutions just did that all by themselves which meant we, in a sense did all of the above.

I come from a social psychology background as well, and my mentor, Dr. Willis H. McCann, the chairman of my university’s psychology department then, had been a pioneer in a unique style of group therapy (1941), and was the first psychologist as opposed to psychiatrist to run a state mental institution and that was early on, had a philosophy of doing what works (for attaining good mental health). At that time, we had a about a ten percent rate of success helping those with mental illness; so in some ways he had to be already thinking out of the box way before it became a necessary cliché. He was equipped in other ways to help him from outside the box. He also had a Juris Doctor and Doctor of Divinity. Apply what we know outside our career; most us aren’t doing what we studied to do. Outside is the new Inside.

To Dr. Willis McCann problem-solving was cogitating–simple cogitating, allowing ideas sit and roll around in your brain. He didn’t care how you got there or which method you used. He compared problem-solving to praying, meditating, cogitating, sleeping on it–all ways that work in solving problems. He never held one higher than the other; it was the function that mattered. It was the 70s so maybe we were more excepting. He was one of those great broadly-thinking men who never made you feel he had all the answers; however, he did see many connections.

Praying, meditation or just sleeping on a subject does the same thing; it allows an idea to roll around in your mind without expectations, without manipulation until a subconscious answer comes to mind. Think about any problem-solving course of training that uses one of these methods. They all allow for a concentration on a verbal or nonverbal, auditory or inaudible statement of thoughts.

Doing what works and practicing it, so the experts say, will improve problem-solving. There are a lot of games we can play in the boardroom, but let’s not forget we can, if we relax our mind we find an easier way to problem-solving, whatever our age, our status in the firm, in our life.

I couldn’t sleep last night because I was “cogitating” and awake. More to come later, but this struck me this morning as a reminder that sometimes the hardest thing we do can be made easier by the letting go and let out brains to the work, while we stop trying so hard.

The simple reminders are often left short. In fact some of these ideas have probably appeared before because we know the Cave Man likes the simple. And sometimes the not too simple ideas of life’s enormous complexity leave us thinking too.

I received a call from a gentlemen that said his company might be interested in hiring me to teach doctors to act, since I also am a performance critic. No, we really don’t want to teach doctors to act; we want to teach them what actors gain from their audience and give them what they need–the truth, but in a way they will take it home and understand it–whatever the message.

Acting is not pretending; I hope I have established that in my many other blogs. What my gentleman caller really wanted was to help doctors give bad news, talk to patients in ways that can give them hope. Doctors, nurses and all medical people may come from different perspectives completely, one scientific and much more personal, but that’s another blog to be sure. That one I’m cogitating about right now; I can help, and that’s exciting.

I also have a website which goes into more detail since I do write on other related subjects like communication and theatre and work performance. Yes, “theatre,” I actually have a column and do reviews. And, please before the coupon expires from Smashwords, get a copy of The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development–A truly different look at training. I sent you to the site with the coupon.

As I sit here I realize I have never explained why I purposely use two words to describe the “Cave Man,” that’s me. Other outfits use it to describe the client. I don’t know about you, but I don’t live in a cave so I’m not a caveman. I do live in an historic home that feels like a cave, but I talk about the “Cave” and what it did so “Cave” is really short for “company, corporation, government agency, nonprofit corporation or service organization.” In short, everyone and where they work.

Happy Training.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

According to a recent email from The World Grace Project, Scientists now believe 70% of the Universe is comprised of Dark Energy.” Maybe that Dark Energy manifests itself as FEAR in people, in all its forms!”

When I read this I was shocked and saddened. I also believe that today, Valentine’s Day, is a special day in which the energy is reversed to be 70% comprised of Light Energy, the Energy of Love.

What does the Energy of Love look like? It is one in which the vibration of our thoughts, actions and beliefs are raised to the highest level of energy, which is love. We think in love, we act in love, we express love.

Here is a short movie that expresses the power of love wonderfully. Click to watch.

This weekend we experienced the energy of love in our home. My husband, John and I, hosted our 11^th annual Valentine’s Day party for couples. As John and I have been preparing and planning for this special day for months, our energy has been rising together. It’s a huge act of love for the two of us to host an extravagant party for the 25 couples that attended. We go all out with food, drinks and our yearly theme. This year’s was a “Valentine Affair to Remember,” a formal black and white gala with a surprise twist. Amongst our friends was a couple we hired as actors to help us stage a surprise murder mystery. We pulled it off and at some point during the party the couples became suspects and detectives trying to figure out the mystery. After the mystery was solved, we had another couple teach some ballroom dancing for the couples that wanted to learn some elegant dance moves.

At one point during the party, I just stopped to feel, hear and see the energy of love rising in our home. The laughter, smiles and couples connecting expressed love in a way we had hoped when planning for the party. The positive energy was incredibly contagious and I didn’t want to miss out on it. Our hope is that each of the 25 couples who were part of this party, will take this energy of love that was felt and expressed that night to their own lives and share it with those closest in their lives. As they do so, those around them will feel the loving energy rising and the dark energy dissipating.

How do you express the energy of love to others? I would love to hear how and be inspired by your actions. Share a comment with us below. My hope is that you too will take the energy of love and be a light in this sometimes dark world!

For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

Imagine that you’ve been offered two different positions and you have to decide which one you want.

Or perhaps you’re already in a good job, but something that seems to be a better opportunity comes up in another company.

To make a wise decision you must operate on two levels: The rational with our head (see part 1). Now we’re going to focus on the emotional with our gut.

Emotional Analysis: Personal Satisfaction

Armed with the facts about the job, you next think about what you are looking for in a great job. Since the whole point is to find the best option for you, you need to do a self-analysis as well. On a scale from 1 (poor – lots of red flags) to 10 (great – lots of winning flags) how would you rate each position on the following satisfaction criteria?

1. The work itself
What you will be doing on a daily basis should be the primary focus of your satisfaction criteria. Unless the work is satisfying, it may not really matter whether you make vast sums of money. The things to consider are Job responsibilities, Authority to make decisions, Leadership/supervision, Variety, Autonomy, Challenge, Self-expression/creativity, Physical environment. How flexible is the job – can you mold it to provide greater satisfaction?

2. Financial considerations
What you are paid is important when making any career decision. Your salary and bonus potential determine whether you can buy a new home, purchase a car, go on vacations, or start a family. It’s important that you have a good idea of what you need to achieve a reasonable standard of living. Does the salary, benefits, incentives and growth potential give you a safety net to put most of your energy into working not worrying about finances ?

3. Culture and relationships
You will spend a large portion of your day at work. It is important that you get along with your co-workers and feel like you fit in. Sure, there will minor disagreements along the way. However, you should be comfortable with the cultural elements such as dress codes, expectations about socializing, work / life balance, etc. Are you comfortable or hesitant about the culture?

4. The company’s reputation
People tend to want to work for organizations that make them feel good about what they are doing on a daily basis. Look at the company’s size, values, leadership, products or services, industry, reputation and contributions to society. Does it make you feel good to work for this company?

Now What?

Once you’ve worked through the job analysis and the satisfaction analysis, which option or options scored highest? Does it make sense to you? Are you ready to make a decision? If not, then run it by a friend or mentor or coach to get validation.

But what if you still uncertain? That’s OK. First revisit your analyses and see if your thinking or scoring might change. Also get feedback from others who know you – family, friend, mentor, colleague, etc. If you are still uncertain, then there may be other things tht are getting in the way. perhaps it’s time to seek out a coach.

Career Success Tip:

Stop thinking money is everything. Don’t let others define success for you. Only you can define what is most impotent in your life and only you can set the right priorities for your life and career. Remember you’ll be living and working for many years. Make the most of them.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?