It is about taking responsibility for yourself.
Your career is your own and it belongs to no one else. You have within you the power to create it, to live it as an expression of your unique talents and energy. The other choice is to work at the whim of others, not usually a positive place to be since it is difficult to be inspired and enthusiastic when you believe the choice was someone else’s. Instead, be empowered knowing that you are in control! You may not always choose the activities of your day but you do choose the spirit in which you complete each task. Focus on what you are doing and enjoy the process. Spend some time working to understand yourself in order to better communicate that to your personal network, potential employers, clients, project managers, and partners to secure the best-fit opportunities for you at any moment in time.

It is about creating your future.
It involves self-reflection, learning, researching, planning, and/or talking a little everyday about accomplishments, potential, and opportunity. It is not an obsessive thing though. It is more about going with the flow in a productive manner yet always honoring where you are right now in the process so that your day-to-day work is a source of fulfillment and positive energy.

It is about choices.
Career and personal development is an ever evolving process of making more and better distinctions of who you are and what you want during different phases of your life. Career development is influenced by your whole life…your own changing roles as well as personal and economic circumstances. You will be choosing again and again to create the path of your personal career development throughout your lifetime. You will also make choices each day about how you feel about your work and the attitude and energy you will bring to it and take from it.

It is about rapid change.
Today’s world of work is highly competitive and in a constant state of flux. We can no longer expect to stay with the same company for 20 years then retire. The current environment is much more dynamic with many more opportunities for success when an individual properly manages their own career and personal development.

It is about quality of life.
Think about it, what is a career? It is about the work you do over time and involves such ideas as your productivity, the way you contribute, how you are driven to spend your non-leisure time. Some people are driven to accomplish lots, others are interested in a simpler and more independent existence. Your career becomes the work activities (whether that is paid or unpaid work –such as volunteers, students, parents, and homemakers) that you participate in during your lifetime. Because of the current complexity and speed of life, managing your own career development is an important task for having some control of your quality of life.

It is about hard work completed with ease.
People who know themselves well (by understanding their strengths, what they enjoy, what they want, what they have already accomplished, what they can uniquely contribute, where they are going) are so easy to spot in their enthusiasm and confidence. They are like a breath of fresh air so people and opportunities are drawn to them like vacationers to a sunny beach!

Stress is a normal part of our lives. As you know too much stress can be harmful to not only our mental faculties but also our physical health. So, it’s important that we reduce and control the amount of stress in our lives.

One way to minimize the harmful effects of stress is to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, and sleep restfully. These things keep our bodies in good shape and resistant to the stresses in our lives.

Setting your mind free of the stresses and worries of the day is an important stress buster. Meditation or quiet contemplation are two methods of reducing stress. If you’re not into meditation, spend a half hour or so each night reading a good book in a comfortable chair.

Take up an enjoyable hobby. Anything that distracts you from the concerns of the day and allows you a chance to decompress can be a worthwhile activity.

Go for a walk in the park or get a pet. Get a dog and take the dog for a walk in the park. A walk outdoors in the fresh air can do wonders for reducing stress, as can a companion animal. It likely wouldn’t hurt to combine the two if you’re so inclined.

Play games. Card games. Board games. Video games. Whatever floats your boat, as it were.

You could also try puzzles. Putting a jigsaw puzzle together may be a good way to spend your time. It’s hard to worry about work when you’re trying to find a matching piece! Or, do a crossword puzzle, word find, or sudoku.

If you’re artistic, you could paint, draw, or even just doodle. You could try needle crafts, sand art, sculpture, wood carving, sewing or whatever suits your interests.

Take time to listen to music or watch television. Take an evening and go out for dinner and a movie. See a play. Go to a sporting event.

The important thing is to take some time out for yourself. Find something that works for you and remember to take time to do it. Relaxing and recharging is important!

This is a career aptitude test based on the Holland Codes. It’s good, it’s quick, and it’s free. The results are useful and interesting. If you want help processing the results of your assessment give Dr. Edward Colozzi a call, or Shahrzad Arasteh, or Dr. Tristana Harvey –all wonderful career counselors that I can recommend.

The same website although built for Californians specifically also has some excellent career research resources for everyone. I love the way the information on each job title is presented. It’s easy to read, short and sweet, and particularly relevant. Here is a sample page for Adult Literacy, Remedial Education, and GED Teachers and Instructors.

I ran across this article predicting jobs that don’t exist yet and wanted to share it. Looking at changes coming down the pipeline in your industry is a great way to navigate your career development and learning plan. Take time once a year or so to think forward in your career and look for neat niches you can steer toward as one strategy for knowing what learning experiences will best add to your repertoire.

Other ways to stay ahead of the curve is to host discussions with colleagues, to have periodic informational interviews with experts in your field, and to read the professional literature related to your occupation. All the while asking questions in order to encourage your brain to make connections and notice developing trends.

Questions such as:

• what is the biggest problem in my career field right now?
• what industry is my industry starting to merge with?
• how will changes in the industry influence what happen in my occupation?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- Steve Jobs

Below is the presentation Ed mentioned that you can follow along with his lecture. Just use the scroll bar to the right of the image to move to the next slide.

This is the post on Ed’s blog about transitions that he mentions in the recording.

You may read the book review I did of Dr. Colozzi’s book previously on this blog.

Dr. Colozzi’s website is CreatingCareersWithConfidence.com and you can find him on Twitter as @EdwardColozzi.

I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. In this book, the authors outline a system to meet goals in any area of life –from how to loose weight, how to better your finances, how to stop addictions, how to change relationships. They even talk about how to further your career. The strategies and tactics they outline are derived from research at the Change Anything Labs in Utah. They also have a membership website to provide resources and tools for you to use as scientist and subject in the process of customizing a unique approach to changing your habits in a way that gives you the results you want.

By reading this book, you will learn why willpower in and of itself is not enough to mount a successful change effort in most cases. The authors explain that if you are relying on willpower alone, you are blind and outnumbered! Most importantly, they provide lots of ideas and options for you to become aware of your own crucial moments and corresponding vital behaviors. You’ll also learn about the six sources of influence and how to leverage them toward your cause. It’s particularly enticing that their research shows that successful changers often experience improvements in another area of concern for themselves as they go through the process of meeting goals in their main area of focus.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of “Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. I received no other compensation for this review.

This book was interesting to me because it presents information from the hiring side of the table. The authors spoke to 35 hiring managers from Fortune 500 companies to learn how social media and online technology is influencing their hiring strategy. The authors mention that many more professionals were invited to participate but opted-out stating the technology was too new for them to have specific guidance to offer just yet. So it goes to show it’s not too late to start building your professional brand online, since companies are still learning too!

The book begins by defining personal brand and how to do company research, then on to creation of a resume that hiring professionals will want to see; all the while providing relevant quotes from hiring managers. The importance of continual, proactive networking and how to do it is a theme running through the entire book. The authors also cover applicant tracking systems and emphasize keyword importance. Next, they walk you through creating a LinkedIn profile and an effective social networking strategy. The authors present valuable insider information that will be directly applicable to your job search.

I recommend this book. You can find it on Amazon.com. Also, see the Facebook page.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of “The Web 2.0 Job Finder” by Brenda Greene and Coleen Byrne. I received no other compensation for this review.

I was invited to check out this post and I thought it was very useful. This is a list of twenty TED Talks for new grads. Check it out!

A career keyword is what your ideal career is all about. When self-reflecting to cover step one of career research, consider this: What is your career keyword? This is an exercise in big picture thinking and zooming in on what jazzes you most. Here are some examples keywords just to get you thinking.

My career is about _____.

• competition
• action
• beauty
• building
• communicating
• nurturing
• performing
• service
• healing
• relating to others
• research
• detecting
• exploring
• teaching/learning
• administrating
• protecting
• sales
• science
• art

When you come up with a career keyword or two you can use it as your north star along your career journey guide your progress always building on your strengths. Your career keywords also becomes the basis of your personal mission statement.