Discomfort is the currency of success
You have to be willing to feel the discomfort of growth and risk in order to achieve the levels of performance you seek.
Using your professional values and voice to reposition yourself for a career change or advancement.
You have to be willing to feel the discomfort of growth and risk in order to achieve the levels of performance you seek.
On this side of career risk, where you are today, you may have fear and uncertainty. But on the other side of that risk, once you take that leap, you will know exactly what happened. The difference is simply preparation – knowing what to do if things go sideways. Avoiding risk isn’t the answer. Check …
Check out this week’s short video (<5 min) to learn how to ask yourself the question that will give you greater freedom, to get everything you want. (As a side note, the link heads over to my free Career Prime Facebook Group – you should definitely join!) If you’re more of a reader than a …
You need a crystal clear roadmap to your next promotion. Without it, you’re floating around aimlessly, hoping for lightning to strike.
Positioning yourself for opportunity is all about storytelling. But before you get wrapped up in how you tell your story to others, revisit the “career stories” you tell yourself. Make sure you evaluate the narratives you’ve developed about your interests and goals, your work history, your failures and capabilities, and determine whether those serve you …
Revisit the “career stories” you tell yourself. Are they holding you back? Read More »
Let’s separate your decisions to do something – or not do something – in your career from whether you are capable of accomplishing it.
You can’t manage your career more proactively if you have thinking that holds you back. Resolve the most common mindset blocks! By doing so, you free yourself up to make better decisions and sound investments in yourself. This is a million times better rather than pouring time, energy, and money into externalities that you don’t …
Keep a career journal to help you surface and address both uncertainties and opportunities, and begin crafting a career with purpose.
No experience? Transferable skills not enough? There’s one other thing you can do to get in the door.
When you find the root of your motivations for working, you can write your career vision statement which serves as your professional North Star.
LinkedIn published a survey reporting that the #1 soft skill wanted by employers was creativity. Are you creative in your job?
You don’t have to wait until an authority grants you an opportunity before doing something you feel needs to be done.
A one page resume at mid-career is a huge opportunity to demonstrate the impact you’ve had on your organizations.
To position yourself well for promotion into leadership, tell your stories from the perspective of the organization’s goals and challenges.
Appreciating the difference between career and a vocation (or true calling) means that you can leverage one to improve the other.
As you might know, Aurelian Coaching regularly provides career and management guidance through various media channels (Reader’s Digest, Medium, Girlboss, the USAToday network, and more). I have a few new ones to report, this time via UpJourney. Check them out below!
Historically, people approach negotiation with some level of negativity: fear, uncertainty, disadvantage, aggression. The “new order” of negotiation uses a more sophisticated, emotionally intelligent approach: empathy. It might seem strange at first, but if you think about the conditions that make a negotiation favorable all the way around, there is some level of trust among …
Today, we are going to tackle a bit of an evergreen question that professionals often struggle with, and that is how to talk about yourself. Whether it’s advancement into management or positioning yourself for another job or industry change, the way to talk about yourself in an effective and meaningful way is to ask yourself …
How to position for change: “Who are you,” exactly? Read More »
One of the most challenging biases to overcome is confirmation bias. To address this, you can look to information sources that might seem unrelated at first, but can provide valid underlying concepts that might challenge your assumptions. You can also talk to outsiders in order to test that your information will hold up under scrutiny. …
Addressing confirmation bias: what information sources do you need? Read More »
I’ve taken this week’s blog entry onto another channel for a change. Check out my Medium article on how traditional, standard resume formats are actually a disservice to mid-career professionals. I describe three specific ways to change your resume to speak from a place of impact, value, and expertise over experience.
How do you really know if you should leave your job? At the root of this question is not salary and benefits and commute and flexibility. If it were really about those things, you could evaluate the trade-offs and make a decision already. But if the question about whether to leave your job is lingering, …
UPDATE: Check out this week’s Facebook Live on this topic, which does a deep dive with some practical steps not included in this blog post: The foundation of navigating change in your organization’s leadership is managing up. You must align your work and results with the priority initiatives of your (new) leadership. While you should …
Navigating change: how to be visible and protect yourself Read More »
Strengths and weaknesses. Areas of command vs. areas of improvement. Stuff you’re good at on one hand, and stuff you’re bad at on the other hand. People often present these characteristics at opposite ends of a spectrum or as absolutes. You might get similar feedback at work year after year, and even with nominal improvements, …
Strengths and weaknesses: Using one as a gateway to address the other Read More »
Many interview processes these days involve on-the-spot business case analysis. Companies do this to assess a candidate’s thought process, and whether the candidate follows any particular methodology in their analysis. There are many methodologies out there, and I’ve created a simplified model for my clients specifically to employ during the interview process if they have …
Business case method: a simplified model for interviewing Read More »