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Life Hack:
This Too Shall Pass. I take my career seriously. I take this blog seriously. And when things go wrong, I have a tendency to come down harshly on myself. A few years ago I was in a presentation competition at work and had set high expectations for myself. The competition before I had gone to the finals and this time I had my eyes set on winning it. But I over-prepared, psyched myself out and bombed during the first round of the competition. I stammered through ten minutes of my presentation, nervous, sweaty and embarrassed.
For about a week I beat myself up over it. How could I mess up like that? Had I lost my skill? I was a wreck. But for what? A few months later it was a fading memory and years later it is but a funny thought in my mind. Like much of life, our bad moments fade away and exist only in the constructs of our mind. Whenever I go through a difficult patch now, I think to myself “this too shall pass.” I’m always right. Next time it happens to you, think to yourself: “will this matter in a week? a month? a year?” The answer is always almost no.
Consider This:
Your Words Make Up Your Reality. “I probably won’t get it.” How many times have you caught yourself saying this? Whether you’re interviewing for a job, applying for grad school or trying to close a sale, this is a line that you’ve probably uttered to friends before. It’s an easy line to use to hedge your bet and to keep your expectations in check. The problem? Your words make up your reality.
The more that you exude self-doubt to other people, the more you will start to believe what you’re saying and the more it will come to fruition. And worse, this way of speaking can then trickle into other parts of your life. If you constantly make other people aware of your self-doubt you’re training them, yourself and the universe to doubt you. If no one believes in you, then how do you expect anything positive to happen? The key is to change your talk even if this might seem unnatural at first. Next time, tell people “I think I have a good chance.” This will make your brain, your friends and the universe into believers. Watch what happens then.
Career Hack:
Resume Writing… What is Essential? Resume building can be a stressful undertaking and a roadblock to anyone who is looking to trigger a career change. How do you consolidate all that you’ve done onto one page? How do you make yourself look good on paper? With electronic resume submission and online job boards it is extremely difficult to make your resume stand out from the pack. In fact, a staggering 95% of resumes don’t get read.
So how do you rise above the noise and create a resume that can propel you to that next phase in your career? Here are two techniques that can help you: 1) Focus in on the job that you want. Many job seekers make the mistake of keeping their resume too broad and applying to too many positions. You want to get a clear picture of what your ideal next step is and cater the resume towards that by using keywords from the job posting in your resume. 2) Think to yourself: What is essential? You’ll want to look at everything on your resume with a critical eye. What is essential to your story and making a case for the next job? Anything that isn’t essential, take it out. Your message will come across cleaner and clearer.
Need resume building help? Send me an email and we can work on it together: brendan@straddletheline.co.
Inspirational Video:
Jim Kwik on The Power of Habits. “Stop checking your phone the first hour of the day. That’s sacred time.” In this video, Jim Kwik and Tom Bilyeu discuss the impact that habits have on our productivity, happiness and overall success. One of the key points that this video discusses is the need to take control of your morning routine. One of the biggest traps we all fall into is checking our phone as soon as we wake up. What texts did I miss? Who’s emailed me? This habit can send you into a reactive mode as soon as your day begins and limit the chance that you’re able to take any steps forward towards the things you actually want to accomplish. What can you do to curb this habit? Order an old school alarm clock so you no longer need your phone to wake up.
Quote of the Week:
“All this time I was finding myself, and I didn’t know I was lost.” – Wake Me Up by Avicii (RIP)