Best Year Ever for a Choosing A Career

Knowing the importance of choosing a career and actually doing it are two different things. Each year at this time provides opportunities to go for our best year ever and to create a new career path. It’s the time to reevaluate, review and take actions towards your career.

At the turn of each year we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves for what is most important for us. As we explore choosing a careers we want to develop a clean slate by letting go of what didn’t work and preparing a success plan for the New Year. How many of you are already not keeping your New Year’s Resolutions? We aim to start out with lots of energy and momentum but then we loose steam because of various reasons, which I’ll explain below. This past week I offered a free teleclass on this topic. Please email me to receive the link to the call. Consider having access to your personalized step-by-step guide to Your Best Year Yet, and learn the key principles to develop yourself for success.

The first key in creating your ideal year is to be clear about what you want. Take the time to day dream and ponder your direction for 2010 and choosing a career. After you have clearly defined your goals and intentions for the year then you can go about imaging yourself accomplishing them. I find it crucial to delineate between holding and intention and setting a goal. You may have two people who want to attract their ideal career and are planning for it but one person goes about it by being creative and generous while another person chooses to be analytical and methodological. Both are important and useful but it’s the intention or context in which you hold HOW you accomplish your goal that will make it authentic and easier for you to attain.

The second key is to let go of 2009 and you’re past successes, in completions and failures. By allowing yourself the time to write down what you are proud of and happy for having accomplished you will gain confidence and momentum. When you choose a career you need to know what your strengths and failures have been. It’s important to note where your successes happened, lessons learned and areas to continue working with. By allowing yourself the time to do this you enter into the New Year with a clean slate. When beginning fresh in a New Year you have an expanded view in which to create yourself. For those interested in a Year End Acknowledgement exercise please email me and I will send it to you.

As you explore releasing the previous year and acknowledge your successes you need to ponder a theme and focus for the New Year or new phase in your life. This helps people keep a level head and make time for only what is most important. With all of the demands on our attention and time we need specific filters and focuses to eliminate the overwhelm and disconnection. Your focus might be something like, Grace & Ease, Light, Camera, Action, or Go Girl!, or a quote from a superhero. Whatever works to keep you focused and in your game and engaged.

The third key to generating a powerful New Year and choosing a career is beginning with who you are and your personal philosophy. Explore who you are and what your life is about. Ask people how they perceive you, explore how folks respond to you. What is it that you spend most of your time thinking and talking about? I find it also important to accept your limitations and identify what makes you unique. How would someone remember you or want to work with you? If you are not in the habit of being 100% truthful or authentic I recommend you shift and do that more. Be in communication with people and allow yourself permission to be grateful for what you do have. Think about what you really have to do, and really want to do. I find it important as well to explore and be clear about the type of lifestyle and personal enjoyment you require. You can build and attract your new career to fit and match with and what you want your life to be about. Is it traveling internationally, working from home, and raising children, adopting, writing your book, running a marathon, or doing more research. Explore who you are, what you want your life to be about and then identify skills and career paths to fulfill that.

Creating a Positive Professional Image Part II

Being specific about how you present yourself contributes to your success. Being a polished professional allows you to focus on others and be confident that your verbal and non-verbal messages are in alignment.


Being the best professional requires being relaxed. When you are at ease and present you are aware of your surroundings, interested in others and taking care of you. As you interact with people by creating and working from a simple congruent professional image whether by email, phone or in person allows a more lasting result. People want to hire and do business with someone they trust and like. One of the fastest ways to develop trust is to create and maintain a confident and consistent image that others understand and can relate with.

In this two-part blog this being the second, we will focus on two key areas of your professional image. One of which is the physical mannerism and the second is in your speaking. Both of these teamed up together will produce the most comprehensive and effect professional results. You have up to 7 seconds to make an impression. As people connect with you and form correct opinions of you the less work and effort it takes to enhance your career focus.

I recommend you slow down your movements and be more deliberate with how you choose to walk, speak, process information, respond, and otherwise put movement into your life. As you slow things down you are able to make a more focused point and get your message across more clearly. When we are deliberate focusing on our message, and our desired outcome while engaging with the other person we are more likely to be successful. We tend to operate at such an accelerated rate that we loose our focus and effectiveness. To make an impression you want to slow things down for your audience so they can receive and follow you.

In partnership with slowing things down I encourage you to simplify your gestures. If you have a tendency to move around shifting your weight, using your hands and doing large gestures I recommend you make them more simple and less of them. Use the space in front of you from your neck to your belly and from your left to your right side, about the size of a large poster board as your template and don't expand too far from that. You want people to see you. Since most peopleÕs reference point is about the size of a computer or a TV screen their scope of visual input is limited. When using gestures and your body in a space larger than what people are accustomed to you may loose a good deal of your communication and message.

When speaking or moving beyond that natural frame your audience will not be able to see or absorb what you are saying. Establishing and projecting a business image requires understanding your audience and their learning style of receiving information.

In partnership with our visual movements and presentation how we say things is equally important. The percentage of impact we have with how we say something is nearly 37% of our total communication. Much more than the actual words which only accounts for 7%. The remaining amounts come from our non-verbal gestures. So with this in mind, it's important to own and speak with power. One very effective way to do that is to drop your pitch at the end of a sentence or thought. That way the listener hears what you are saying much more clearly and with more convention and confidence. Our natural inclination is to believe and give credence to someone who speaks with power, conviction, slowly and with a firm low pitch. People who do this naturally in professions are clergy, police officers, news anchors, and politicians. All of these professions in particular are ones with perceived authority and power. By lowering your voice you gain creditability and increase your presence.

As you lower your tone and use less gestures it is also important to say each word at the end of your sentence as a way to bridge with your listener and to slow down our speaking in such as way as to bring your message across. By imaging the end of your sentence and the end of a word you are more likely to pronounce your words and be heard.

The goal in your professional image enhancement is to be seen as an expert, to be received fully and to leverage this towards greater career success.

Creating a Positive Professional Image Part I

Knowing the specifics about presenting yourself in a positive way contributes to your success. Being a polished professional allows you to focus on others and be confident that your verbal and non-verbal messages are in alignment.


Your professional image is something that will contribute to your career path and success. People form opinions about us in the first 5-7 seconds of meeting. Sometimes those impressions are permanent and may be difficult to erase and change. By coordinating your professional image with your goals you will generate a positive image that will facilitate your career path and bring you many opportunities. Sometimes you do not know what people are thinking about you but will react to you and provide something to you simply on how you present yourself.

The more you practice these techniques the easier they become. I find it helpful to choose one of the items below per week and focus in on it until it feels comfortable and brings you results. If you take on too many changes at one time it makes it challenging to track your progress and see results.

Your head is a key feature in your body and in maintaining professional presence. It comprises all of your senses and has the main feature your eyes! By being present and direct with people through eye contact and focus you develop relationships that bring results. To make contact itÕs important to maintain a neural head position. This means that your head rests easily on your neck and shoulders and doesnÕt move too much or bobbles. You want people to focus with you and not be distracted.

As your head falls into place then you begin to stop moving around and shifting your weight and being hard to engage with. It is important to stand tall, with both feet planted on the ground. This gives you strength, confidence and allows you to engage with people in ways that bring results and rapport. Your body carriage and your visual presence makes a huge difference in how you are received and taken seriously. Check your posture to see that your shoulders aren't slumping in front of you and that your spine is aligned with your hips.

When you stand tall and are present you command confidence and attention. When these aspects are present you naturally listen and hear people. By taking time to hear people and be present with them allows you to find areas of commonality and engagement. A successful professional has incredible control over their presence and focus contributing to how they think. Be a person who generates a thoughtful presence by creating the time to really get to know and understanding people.

Here is an exercise for today to work with. The first step is to focus your attention on how you walk into a room. Specifically place your awareness on how your feet hit the floor, whether its heel or toes first, are you confident, hesitant, etc? How erect is your posture is, is your head in line with your shoulders, do you have your hands at your side naturally? and what are you choosing to look at? The more you keep your gaze at eye level and looking into peopleÕs eyes or their third eye (space between the eyebrows) or slightly above the heads of people you are more likely to be energized and confident.

In our Part II blog I will speak about slowing down, simplify your movements, and speaking.

Avoid Burnout

Avoid the career staller of overwhelm and burnout by keeping yourself at top performance and focusing on your objective and career goal. Learn specific tips to stay focused and motivated.

When looking for work or changing a career field or focus there can be a great deal of stress. It is important to pace yourself as if for a marathon instead of thinking of a sprint. Once you understand the long-term perspective of investing in yourself, and building a network you see where to invest your time and energy and where you don’t.

As you avoid burnout one important factor is to remain focused on what is most important to you and your career search. When we feel burnt out or tired we need to stop what we are doing, and give ourselves space and time to relax and refocus on something other than work related. Allow yourself to set priorities and keep to them by making a list of actions for each month and then breaking them down into weekly and daily actions.

As you build your creditability and your network it’s also important to create balance between your job and work search and your personal life. Each day is important to have at least one thing you look forward to that is unrelated to an area that is weaker or an area of concern, such as your job search. My recommendation is to stay focused and engaged in a specific time frame with office hours and days of the week that you work and schedule in time to do activities that are energizing and enjoyable for you.

It’s important to keep your own personal list of techniques and tips for keeping you engaged and happy with life. When you personalize the resources you are more likely to do something on a regular basis. Part of reducing overwhelm and burnout is to be realistic and to remember that it’s the long view that allows you to succeed.

Become aware of your triggers. Notice what gets you stressed out and distracted from the necessary actions at hand. Do your best to identify and have an understanding of whether it’s because of not eating, not getting enough sleep, negative self talk, money challenges, etc. Identify what it is and find ways to take care of it.

Imagine a result with a specific goal. Create it alive for you with dream boards, writing it down daily, speaking about it and doing something each day towards your career goal.

Make it a priority to finish what you start. Go into things knowing that you will complete it and keep your agreements. A big part of success and ease is staying focused and on track and being a person who keeps their word.

The two final pieces to avoid burnout and overwhelm is to break things down into smaller pieces by chunking them into hourly or weekly goals and allowing yourself time to finish them. When we look too large on the horizon we loose out and we scare ourselves and create additional stress. Finally the last tip is Take ACTION and do something. It’s better to be in motion and doing an action that brings you closer to your goal than to go from a stuck, stopped or place of contraction.

Think for a moment of a time when you created effortlessly and easily and things just seem to happen. More than likely you were doing the above mentioned items along with what your personal strategies. Please share one of your tips with our readers.