I’ve recently conducted a little experiment at work, which has completely changed my work and personal life.

I was stuck in a bit of a rut, not enjoying coming to work so much, struggling to balance my relationship with the overtime I had to do and feeling a bit out of it in general. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with any part of my life, but getting up in the morning got a little harder. Then I read this article about the benefits of smiling.

At first I skimmed over it, thinking it was just another one of those nonsense filler articles. But just reading about smiling made me smile immediately and that made me happy instantly. So I decided to conduct an experiment at work; I would try to smile as much as I could for a week. The result was incredible!

Smiling is contagious

I’ve never had so many compliments in my life!

It gave me so much energy that I got all my work done with time to spare, I even found time to do little things I had been putting off for a while. It made me feel positive all the time, it helped me deal with disappointments and even made me feel more attractive.

Another great thing about smiling is that it is contagious. I noticed that my colleagues’ faces would light up when I talked to them. It also made them open up and I’ve had some interesting personal conversations with people at work that I didn’t know very well before.

My improved attitude towards my work also influenced my personal life and relationship. When I came home I had so much more energy left to do fun things. I realised that when I didn’t enjoy my day at work I took that energy home with me and couldn’t let that go. Now there is a healthy separation between my work and personal life.

I’ve never believed much in all these books and article’s about ‘changing your life in 5 steps’ and ‘creating a more positive outlook’. It’s not as easy as that. When someone gives you the advice to “just cheer up” you can’t magically feel better can you? But the great thing about a smile is that you can start with a fake one and it automatically turns into a real one.

I know that sounds wrong and I’m not saying you should have a strange grimace on your face all day long. But if you try it out and practice it becomes really easy and genuine! It has been proven that smiling and laughing releases endorphins, so smiling is like a natural drug

You might shrug at reading this, but I dare you to try it and deny it works!  So leave a comment if you would like to

Written by:
This post was written by Martijn who is working for Springest.co.uk, an independent comparison website for training programmes and courses. They help around thousands of people a month finding the right course which suits them best at the moment and would make them smile.

photo credit: ubo_pakes

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Sukh Pabial from pabial.wordpress.com.

If there’s one thing I think makes a big difference in the way someone works it’s how they express their self awareness, and to whom.

This isn’t restricted to leaders in our businesses. Authenticity is a much-used word in our reading material. That, together with “being genuine”, “emotional intelligence”, “high value thinking”, and many other interesting buzz words.

What I appreciate though is someone’s ability to acknowledge a shortfall, and express it, to the right person in the right way.

What do I mean by this? Let’s look at what I don’t mean!

Think about someone at work who moans about their work load. They not only moan about their work load, they also moan about their commute. They not only moan about their work load and commute, they moan about not enough support. They not only moan about their work load, their commute and not enough support, they moan about others in their team.

And it goes on. And on. Draining just reading it, isn’t it?

That’s a good example of what I don’t mean but how about what I do mean?

Think of someone at work who is discreet about who they talk to, and about what. I’ve seen really good – successful – people do this. And they do it well.

They understand that only certain people need to know certain information. It shows me that people have the desire and motivation to do better, for no other reason than that they know they can. That’s really heartening to see.

What can we learn from people like this?

• They appreciate the value of discreet personal relationships.They don’t spill their guts to anyone that will listen. They take the time to get to know their ‘audience’ and carefully choose who, for them, is reliable and helpful.
• They are open to receiving feedback and acting on it.This is so powerful. It is something we should all be taught how to do, yet only a small percentage will ever do it well.
• They are highly self-critical.That’s why they’re so good. Because they recognise that they haven’t reached a height that is acceptable for them. This in turn means seeking advice and support.
• They listen to what’s going on around them.That is, they take in information from a wide source. This feeds their minds with a lot of useful opinions and thoughts that they can take, digest and decide what needs to be done.
• They have different avid interests.You can’t concentrate on only one thing and be consistently successful. You need a distraction which helps relieve your mind and exercise other muscles.

I’m sure you do things which are equally successful. But therein lies the other key – learning from others to improve yourself. What do you think?

Sukh Pabial writes and thinks about learning at pabial.wordpress.com. You can also talk Twitter with him (@naturalgrump)

image:studiostoer

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No, it’s not what you think.

It’s the word “soul”.

But that’s the question Phil Bowermaster, of The Transparency Revolution was asking me about the other day when he interviewed me for BlogTalk Radio.

It’s pretty common in career parlance to talk about the self, or the whole self. But using the word soul, as I have done in my eBook, The 7 Most Soul Sucking Career Mistakes Ever (And How To Avoid Them), takes things to a different level.

And is that okay?

In Phil’s interview we touch on all kind of career related things. Like the major disconnects we can experience between our values and how we live and work, and how we can begin to close the gap.

Oh, and also, the role organisations play in cutting through what I call corporate mythology. And how their getting real is in everybody’s interests.

Anyway, without giving more away, here’s the link to the interview.

http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2011/05/your-life-your-career-your-soul/

I’d love to get your reactions in the comments!

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Self employment is gaining status as a legitimate career path.

Now, there are a ton of bloggers out there who encourage you to quit your day job, like doing so was your ticket to a new religion. (Many of them, by the way, are still themselves in day jobs and hoping that, if you buy their quit-your-job services, they’ll be able to live the kind of lives they’re telling you to have.)

However, solopreneurship isn’t utopia.

The mortgage and petrol still have to be paid. You have to fund your holidays, maternities, and sickness absences. And there’s no big bad company to blame when the market shifts and your income drops.

Still, working for yourself brings a certain kind of freedom. And a way of working with a level of personal consciousness that I have yet to see matched by a corporate gig.

So it’s a serious option for New Work Pioneers, if you can take a grounded, big-picture perspective on it.

Today, I want to talk about the five big questions that come up in my work with folk on this path. Not to deter you. But to start laying things out in a real way.

So that they are normalised. So that you become more resourceful in confronting them positively.

I hadn’t set out to write a series on this, but if you’d be up for that, let me know. The muse can always use a little inspiration!

How to quit structured employment?

Whether your career is stagnating or on the point of accelerating, you’ve got a regular income and whatever additional stock, bonuses and benefits come with your package. And you have the lifestyle to match. It’s big shit to imagine cutting off that oxygen supply.

Add to the equation that you’re well regarded, and seen as being a vital part of the fabric of your company and profession. Folk around you assume you’re going to stick with it. You may be included in long-range staffing plans or succession charts.

How do you break free of all of that and not doubt your sanity?

How do you take the inkling of a self-employed career and breath enough air into it that it starts to take on a viable life of its own? Where do you get the faith to believe that you can make a go of things in a way that allows you to support the kind of income you need?

What are the conversations you must have with yourself, your family, your bosses and colleagues that allow you to withdraw and feel good about your decisions? Without feeling that you’ve failed in some way? And that doors remain open, if you need them to be?

How to do meaningful work?

Working for yourself means developing products or services that you promote and exchange in return for money. What are yours?

How close will they be to what you do now? How different will you allow yourself to be?

You hear a lot of talk about working on purpose. How much conviction must you have about yours before you voice it? How much clarity about it do you need before putting a foot in the water?

Can you believe that you’re worth having a purpose? And what’s the process towards becoming someone who lives “on purpose”?

How to get balance?

One of the biggest push factors from corporate work is the desire to have a better quality of life. To be able to listen to yourself, and feed your soul with things like special interests and family time that would otherwise go by the wayside.

Yet, becoming wholly responsible for your own work demands its own attention and takes energy and focus. How do you boundary time you give it versus time you take for you? How do you square that off with a world that expects you to be always plugged in?

How do you manage your fears that if you’re not always there, you won’t get work?

What old, ill-fitting feeling and beliefs come up for you as you assert your wish for a life? How will you choose to overcome them so that you don’t just reinvent your corporate experience?

How to support career development?

In good times, big companies spend fortunes on your training and development. They’ll often allow you to expense your professional qualifications or memberships. How will you keep your skills sharp when you’re self-funding?

Who will you lean on that gets what you’re trying to do? Where will you find the time and space and keep the work coming in?

How to enable a shift in business focus?

And what if you decide, as happens, that although you started out offering this, you now what to switch to that?

How do you walk the line of rethinking your game, figuring out how to, and keeping your cashflow coming?

How do you deal with times of deep soul-searching and personal reinvention, and stay commercially relevant?

How to know if it’s ever right to go back?

Popular mythology says that when you quit the corporation, there’s no going back.

But is that for real? And would there be instances where, in complete conscious awareness, it would be right to take a freelance mindset into what’s contracted as a payroll job?

How do you navigate that in a way that feels like moving forward, not back?

How would you know when to quit again and what for?

How does all of this strike you? Does any of it sound familiar? What do you resonate with? What would you add to the list?

photo credit: EliJerma

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It’s a question I’ve asked myself.

Lots.

What’s so human about Human Resources?

It’s the corporate function in which I grew up and which for many years I enjoyed. Yet it has always struggled to articulate its purpose.

When it adopted the Dave Ulrich thinking about HR roles, it got new religion about creating value for itself as a business partner. But the more it moved towards that picture, the more it seemed to distance itself from the very thing it was trying to achieve.

Although it’s not the whole story, that was definitely one of my push factors in reaching to find my own different kind of work.

Still, as I’ve morphed from HR person to consultant to coach, I’ve held on to a sense of myself being an HR person.

Even an HR hippy!

So, I was both nervous and excited about going to the Connecting HR Unconference in London yesterday. Excited because I’d met so many fabulous folks already through our blogs and on Twitter, with whom I felt a shared desire to shake up the HR party. Nervous because I was asking myself what I could really contribute to the day that wouldn’t be regarded as being too far out.

I was sure there would be a lot of smiles and warm mutual hello’s. But had I now become my own manifestation of one client’s naughty HR nickname – hardly relevant?

The Spring

The first thing to hit me was the venue. This wasn’t five star hotel conference centre stuff. It was the kind of place, in a pretty rough part of town, that I’d normally expect to go do some of the more esoteric workshops that I attend from time to time to feed my soul.

And daylight. Natural daylight. The place was full of it.

So, I felt relaxed just walking in. I could relate to this place and it to me.

Connection

And then the gleeful meetings began. Immediate OMGs, kisses and hugs. Then, sitting down and looking around waves and smiles at avatar recognitions.

People had turned up as themselves. On our badges we wrote our names and Twitter handles. That was all that was necessary. It was like the whole need for job titles melted in some unwritten but shared decision that all the box, power and hierarchy stuff wasn’t going to be a factor here.

And if we even got into asking “what do you do?” it became so apparent that there was such diversity in the room that my worry about no longer being a card carrying HR member evaporated.

Permission

And with that came the permission to bring to the table and talk about what was meaningful to us. The agenda was at first a few blank sheets of flip chart paper that, with the help of the facilitation team, became a series of expert-led discussions and conversation groups.

The “experts” were self-appointed. People who had a burning need to share a piece of thought leadership, or to offer a framework around which to have a meaty and relevant discussion. Where relevance was being decided moment by moment by us personally.

Got a bit bored with a session? Go find another more interesting to you.

Conversation not touching your burning issue? Put it out there yourself.

I loved watching people finding their own way to be themselves. Musicians knowing we play different instruments. Everyone playing theirs and allowing the natural tune and rhythm to find itself.

Energy

The day’s process was captured real time by a bunch of fabulous artists led by a guy called Tim. In narrating back to us what he and his team were witnessing and drawing, Tim used the word “aura” to describe something of the energy and atmosphere that was in the room.

I reflected how often we talk about energy and atmospheres like they’re metaphors for something else rather than being phenomenon of their own. Phenomenon to which we can and should attend.

And in this picture Darius fends off Callum Saunders

But one of the most impactful parts of the day for me was an Aikido demonstration by some of the guys who use the venue for that purpose. Having an experience of neutralising – or was it channeling? – opposing energies was awesome indeed.

Not that I hadn’t seen anything this before. But never witnessed it being introduced without skepticism in a business or work context.

Whole person

On the train going home, between tweeting madly about the day, something else fell into place for me.

When I could articulate why I had really turned up for the event at all it was because I believe with a passion that it’s not just HR that needs to change – it’s that the world of work needs to be different. Jobs these days may enable better living conditions, and demand that you use more of your brain, but to my mind they’re often a kind of modern version of the Industrial Revolution factories and sweatshops.

Work is still too often split from life. As if it, and who you are when you’re doing it, are different to who and how you can be outside of work. The whole work life balance myth perpetuates this kind of belief.

Also the natural systems that support life are often disregarded or paid scant regard. Much of work may now happen in architecturally amazing buildings. But that doesn’t always stop the people who inhabit them from working long hours. Or from encountering forms of abuse. Or from harming their health. Or from having to leave their soul behind when they turn up.

The unconference, however, had somehow harnessed body, mind and spirit. People were able to be more present. Our engagement was high. Our ideas, intentions, and sense of shared purpose coming out of the event excellent.

What’s so human about human resources?

Which brings me back to the title of my post, and my own takeaway from the day.

It’s that as HR folk we need to enable people in our businesses to be able to bring themselves – all of themselves – to work, and for that to be okay.

It’s not about picking the attractive box of a job role that someone else created and living it out. It’s about being ourselves and finding a way to do it that supports the communities that bring our businesses alive.

By being ourselves in this way, we give permission for those around us also to be themselves. It’s more creative for sure, less clear, and maybe a little anxiety provoking at times. But it’s a lot more human too!

Thanks to @garelaos and @sarahfmatthews for the images.

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Hats off to you.

You’ve managed to hold on to your job through countless rounds of redundancies and reorganisations. And what you’re doing has become so much more mission critical to your boss as a result.

But you’ve got other ideas.

As relieved and flattered as you are, you just don’t want to keep doing the same thing. You’re ready to learn new stuff and take on new challenges. Everything you’ve ever understood leads you to believe that should be possible by making an internal move in your current firm.

Good bosses and good HR will take account of your personal development plans in the whole staffing mix.

But the reality is that most bosses aren’t that good. Many don’t think big picture. Or see that supporting your development reflects well on them. Or recognize that helping you move to another internal job, is a way of keeping you engaged with the business. Instead, they prefer to cling on to their own good resource.

And many HR departments lack the power or influence to make it different.

So, if you want to stay with your current firm, but move to another area, you’re going to have to adopt a little cunning in making it happen for yourself.

Networks

You may be brilliant at what you do and feel that you’ve given so much to your company that they should now play fair with you.

But, as Nick Clegg’s gaff yesterday highlighted, so much professional mobility is less about having success conferred upon you, and more about who you know. Or, more importantly, who knows you.

Think about it. Where do you want to move to? Who are the decision makers in that area?And how well do they know you?

If a job came up in their area, would they be soliciting HR’s opinion about how to get you released from your current area?

That’s kind of the situation you want to be aiming to engender.

How you do so is to find legitimate ways to network with them. And with the people who in turn influence them.

Advocacy

Notice that I said “legitimate” ways to interact.

What that doesn’t mean is approaching prospective bosses out of the blue and asking if they’ve got a job in their team. They get approaches for jobs every day and if you’re an unknown name or entity to them, they’re just going to brush you off. And you’ll have lost your chance.

Instead, you have to take to their table something that simultaneously show-cases you, and is of great value to them.

Volunteer yourself to be the member of a project they are leading and knock their socks off with your content knowledge, sparkling point of view, and action list follow through.

Find something that is mission critical to their business, and go share it with them. A leading edge piece of technical content that you’ve helped to craft. A game-changing piece of information on a client you both provide a service to.

But be yourself in the process too. Don’t make it look like you’re trying. Engage socially. You want to build real relationships with these folk whose radar screen you’re intent on crashing. After all, if one of them becomes a new boss, you want to have a good connection, right?

Transparency

Of course, the last thing you want to do is to be subversive or be seen as having gone behind your current bosses back in these things.

I always adopt the ethos that it’s always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. So, tell her what you’re up to for information sharing purposes.

You might rattle her cage, but you’re sure going to rattle it anyway if an internal offer comes without her suspecting anything about it. Or you get so fed up with her blocking you that you leave. So, a little controlled rattling can be a useful part of the process.

This kind of approach takes time and involves a lot of work from you. But if you’re determined to support your own development, you can make it work for you.

What about you?

Are you being blocked by a clingy boss? What have you tried doing to escape? What has and hasn’t worked? Share your experiences here!

photo credit: TheChinaMan

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It’s epidemic.

Smart, talented people, out of touch with how capable they are.

Waiting for some fairy godmother to come along and make it okay for them to wear the coveted crystal slippers.

You know how it is. The boss you want to endorse you. The client you want to adulate you. The community you want to follow you.

Of course, that’s not what you show the world. Out there you put your best face forward and get on with things. But behind the mask, the theater make-up is cracking.

You come to me because you feel you should be more than you are. Confident, successful, happy. A mixture of all three. You want to stop feeling so fearful and anxious about things that other professional people seem to sail through.

Cinderella, you just don’t get that the crystal slippers were yours and yours alone in the beginning.

And, while you’re getting your head round that last line, here’s a little more story to share how the metamorphosis from ugly sister to Cinderella happens.

Feeling phony

In the beginning you use words to describe yourself that bring tears to my eyes.

“I’m pathetic,” you’ll say. Or, “I’m crap.”

“Any moment now and I’ll be discovered for the phony person that I am,” you say.

Like your years of study count for nothing. Like your hard work has never been translated into great job offers, promotions and client wins. Like there’s not a group of folks around who have only solid respect for you.

Indeed, you share your surprise for the nice things people say about you. It confuses you. Doesn’t make sense.

I offer back your paradoxical positions. That other people rate you. That you don’t rate yourself.

You start to get a little curious of the gap.

The Gap

You start to see that it’s such a painful place to live. And yet you know it so well. It has been a constant throughout your life.

Except now it’s killing you. You’re tired of it. The energy required to keep managing the difference between the outside and inside you is huge, and taking its toll.

You do a little reading around or even talk to some other folks. There are badges you can wear to explain why it’s okay for you to think like you’re an Ugly Sister when you’re really Cinderella.

Control freak is one with which you identify. Closely followed by Perfectionist.  There are loads of them in the business world. At least identifying with them gives you a faint sense of belonging.

Dig further and you might find some psychologists telling you that you have an Inferiority Complex. That you live in a perpetual state of needing to prove to yourself and others how good you are.

They may even snigger and nod and tell you that most of the people in top jobs and in positions of power have this kind of thing going on. That it’s what drives them to set higher and higher expectations for themselves from which other people benefit.

I ask you if these labels really serve you; if they really help assuage the tension in your soul. If they help the Cinderella locked inside, tending to the fireplace, when she really wants to go to the ball.

You tell me, “Not really.”

How come?

But you do want to understand how come Cinderella got locked away in the first place. And, en route to unleashing her, we spend some time on the backstory.

Often there’s the tale of the bright child whose ability was so taken for granted that you were never able to cement it in the foundations of your own being. The parent who always went looking for the missing 2% of a 98% exam success. And how you learned from this never to see how phenomenal your achievements are, but to focus instead on your inevitable human errors.

Alternatively, I hear the one about the parent whose own need to be validated and endorsed was ahead of yours, leaving your hunger for positive mirroring unsatisfied. So, that you learned to seek, but not to expect or take in, validation from folks you interact with.

Poor Cinders

I feel sorry for your pain.

But we don’t dwell there. Ugly Sister thinking may have held you back in the past, but it doesn’t mean you’re destined to feel like the poor relation forever.

So I ask you what was missing from back then that you need to give yourself right now.

“Permission to be okay,” you say. “No matter what.”

“Permission to sparkle and shine?”

As I ask you that, I see you cringe. You don’t want to be big headed and pseudo-egotistical like some of the people you brush up against.

So, I now challenge you with the polarity of your options. “On the one hand, you feel you need to disown your strengths. On the other, you think you have to rub them in people’s faces. Isn’t there another way?”

You shall go to the ball

You’re silent. Thinking. Daring to touch the gift of who you are.

“I suppose there’s also my own way,” you say.

“Your own way?”

“Yeah, just allowing me to be myself.”

“Stepping into your own Cinderella slippers and rocking?”

You laugh. You’ve changed state and I can hear and see it.

I ask you how it feels to connect with your own way.

“Liberating,” you say. “Like I’ve just cast off the weight of the world.”

“That’s because you have,” I say.

This is no fairy tale

Thing is, this is not a fairy tale. It’s the kind of place people get to in daring to do deep change work on themselves. It’s the kind of work I love being party to. And I’ve seen it for real, in different formats of this, in my life and work this week.

So how about you? Do you have what it takes to step out of Ugly Sister thinking and into Cinderella’s shoes.

Or are you going to keep waiting for someone else to do it for you?

photo credit: Denzil~

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Your precious dreams. You share them with me so sincerely. You tell me how unhappy you are about the current state of your working life. How you feel unfulfilled. Punching below your weight.

You list out your ideas for change. At times I get seduced and equate your talk with action. But weeks, months, years pass without seeing any major difference.

Of course there’s always some reason why not.

• You’re not quite clear yet on which one of your ideas to go after first.
• The economy is not the best. No-one in their right mind would rock the boat on their working lives till things get better.
• You have a bonus coming, or a stock option maturing, in another year or so, which you’d be crazy to miss.

All sensible, logical, understandable reasons on the face of things for stalling on that breakthrough.

But could something more sinister be lurking under the surface?

Fear Of Failure

“I suppose it’s fear of failure,” you tell me, smiling.

And I smile back at you and nod. That old thing, we seem to say. In the new age shorthand, we both recognise that we have something in common. Some vulnerability that allows us to relate to one another more easily. And we talk about it for a while.

I notice how tempting it is to sit here and stew in our shared weakness, allowing it to define us, like the victims of abuse often do. How it gives us plenty to talk about on the one hand. And makes sure we never move beyond it on the other.

But if you were to reach beyond the phrase, and the euphemisms that get spouted along with it, like not really fearing failure but fearing success, what would it look like? And how does it serve you to identify with the label?

As much as I want to know your answers, I feel a sudden, pressing need to get curious about my own fear of failure. I’ve been aware of it for some months now. So, how come I still haven’t cracked it? It’s that, not you, that’s really making me angry.

My coaching business, this thing about being on a mission to support people find a way to make work fit life rather than the reverse, is doing okay. I’ve built this blog to a certain level of grooviness. But the honest truth is that my ambition was always not that it do okay, but that it excel. That the blog become a business in its own right.

And I’ve done tons of work on stuff that should help me get to the next level. I’ve been studying the whole guest posting thing, and figuring I could write some cool articles for top sites that would help take my traffic to the next level again. I’ve also played with and drafted some information products to add to the site: an eBook for subscribers, a virtual workshop, and a interactive learning environment to offer a community-based life-changing experience.

But I’ve hedged.

Coaching, sure, I’m tried, tested and pro at that. But the information products that could set me apart? Who would want them? Who would buy them? What if I dared to put heart and soul into developing them and they bombed?

Would people laugh at me? See me as a complete fool for trying?

Of course all of this allows me to continue to play at being an amateur, good enough business blogger. But it also allows me to never be anything more than that.

Why am I sharing all of this? Well, first I want you to know that even the best of us hesitate, and that it’s okay.

Not Facing Up To Reality

But what’s not okay for me is thinking that that’s where it ends. Because, the insight I’m having as I write is that my fear is not just about failing. It’s about having to confront some of my own realities and limitations too. If I sit here with my dreams and do nothing beyond a certain point, well, I still have my dreams. And they can keep me cozy on tough days.

But if I dare to see my fear of failure as a call to action, I have to really dig into myself. I have to stop being ambivalent about things that matter to me. I have to focus down on the few actions that will make a real difference. I have to stretch myself to learn new skills and to express myself in different ways.

And if I’m going to fail, best I fail fast. Because that’s how I’m going to learn what will work in the longer term.

The choice is that or turning hesitation into an art form.

You and I can hesitate all we like. We can tell ourselves we haven’t yet chosen what it is we’re doing. But even in that place we’re choosing. We’re choosing to hesitate.

In that case, I’d be choosing to be an okay, also-ran sort of blogger. Is that REALLY what I’d choose for myelf?!

Hell, no.

So, I’m going to get over myself and face the music. Come with me?
photo credit: LifeSupercharger

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What makes for a brilliant career? Many people will tell you it’s about the quality of their CV: the brand names they’ve worked for, the job titles they’ve had, the progression they’ve made through the ranks; the businesses they’ve driven to success.

But if you buy into this picture, could you be deluding yourself?

Once upon a time, I had a brilliant career. HR Director for an über brand, corner office, good salary, bonus and stock options. What’s not to love about that? It was great going to parties or networking events and when people asked what I did, watching their approving nods. Approval felt good.

Envy, of course, was better. And admit it, don’t you love flaunting it when you have something other people desire? I certainly did!

Knowing that I was doing very well in society’s eyes made all the effort and sacrifice okay. While my CV screamed of academic successes and lust-after job titles, it didn’t matter that inside I felt hollow. Because outside was all that mattered.

Except that after a while it became a little weighty to keep propping up this picture, perpetuating my own myth. And, although at the time I could not have articulated it with this clarity, I came to intuit that I was deluding myself on a very important point.

Having a brilliant career is not the same as doing a life’s work.

The former, I have come to see, is pretty superficial and is guided by what the world judges as good. The latter is all about working from a soulful place and with purpose and meaning. I’m not saying that these two things are mutually exclusive. I’m sure there are lots of people in all lines of business that work in a meaningful way and have brilliant careers as judged by the world.

But don’t delude yourself that one is automatically the other.

In my case, I decided that I wouldn’t be able to do my life’s work while working for a corporation, and so after a while I quit. Besides knowing that I wanted to do coach and psychotherapy training to deepen my ability to work incisively with people I had only a fuzzy picture of how things would unfold. Being a former control freak, that was scary. What if I ruined my fabulous reputation and there was no way back? But I began freelancing to give myself the safety, funding and space to find out.

My work has morphed over the years that I’ve been self-employed. I’ve earned more or less, depending on all kind of things, not least of which are the decisions I’ve made about the directions to go in or not. Now, I’m happy that I work as Christine. In whatever guise you encounter me, it’s me you get. Do I still have a brilliant career? Some folks would tell you that they think I’m a role model for carving your own thing, others that I lost the plot some time ago. They’re both right.

What’s important now is how it feels to me. So long as it feels real and I feel alive in what I’m doing my career is brilliant on my terms. And that’s the difference.

What delusions might you be spinning in your own career? How might you break their spell and start building a brilliant career on your terms?

Image: Chris Halderman

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Some of you, struggling to find a meaningful work within the context of a meaningful life, get conflicted around the whole subject of promotion. You imagine that, if you signal interest in a bigger job, you’ll have to sacrifice your hard-won soul, even as you begin the selection process. And that’s not something you even want to contemplate.

But you don’t have to.

Just avoid these 7 life-sucking aspects of the promotion game, and see yourself through it with your spirit intact.

Think that promotion, just for itself, is good

Some parts of society may value more senior jobs and all that they stand for. There’s a certain prestige and kudos that comes with big titles. But is that what’s driving you?

When the desire for a promotion comes knocking at your heart, check out its motives. Are you being driven by a hunger that’s in line with your values, talents and beliefs? Or is there something else in you gnawing for recognition?

If it’s the former, fine. If not, seeking promotion is only going to lead to misery. Best you wise up now.

Believe that you’ll be promoted solely on merit

Getting promoted is never just about being good at your current level. You’ll be expected to be able to display skills and behaviors that are valued at the next level up.

Do you know what these are? And, how comfortably do they sit with you?

If they jive with you, or you consider that the conflicts are too small to worry about, all’s good. But square up to the possibility that the next level may demand things of your that will just knock you out.

The key is to confront and have a strategy for these thing before you pitch your promotion application.

Pin your promotion hopes on one senior manager

You may think that getting promoted and being successful next level up is all about having a close allegiance with one powerful or influential manager.

It’s not.

First, in that scenario you give much of your own power to another.

Second, one manager, no matter how influential, is unlikely to be able to make promotion decisions, or create an agreeable experience for you all by themselves. You need to be visible, known, and respected by a wider audience of senior players. More importantly,  you need to have a sense of how comfortable, or not, it would be to have these people as your colleagues.

Check that out by finding ways to network with them either before or during a selection process.

Suck up to the decision makers

Yes, you have to be known by those folks who are going to consider your candidacy, but don’t be one of their brown-noses, changing the tune of who you are to suit one then another, imagining that’s what’s required.

Again this gives your power away and puts them in control.

Be true to who you are, even if this means there are some things about you they don’t agree with. Build legitimate sponsorship by connecting with them on points of shared interest and value.

Compete aggressively with your peers

Many organizations set you up to play win-lose games with your peers. As if, to be sure of promotion, you have to go all out to show that you’re better than the next guy.

Avoid this if you want to keep your soul with you.

It doesn’t make you feel good about yourself. And it doesn’t help you build relationships with your peers.

Remember that you may end up leading those who are currently your colleagues. Playing win-lose with them doesn’t set you up to be their trusted leader.

And, if one of your colleagues gets the promotion you’re currently angling for, he or she may well hold against you how you were with them in the run-up.

Put so much store on promotion that you forget life beyond work

Many of the big companies have fairly sophisticated promotion processes, requiring you to jump through all kind of hoops over several months, in addition to running your day job. It’s tempting to go all out, working round the clock to give your self the best chance of success.

But remember that you’re human. Whether you get this promotion or not, life goes on and it needs to be liveable.

You can help yourself with this by being really smart, and focusing on your priorities. Monitor your – or anyone else’s – expectation that you be perfect. Manage your time and your boundaries as assertively as you can.

Think that you need to do the job exactly like the last person

The person before you may have been an avid career-player, following the rules of the system, and putting in all the hours, but that doesn’t mean you have to.

If you’ve managed a promotion process by being true to yourself, living your values, building relationships on trust, and doing all of this in a way that allowed you to remember that there was more to life, you’re in a brilliant position to bring a different kind of leadership to your company.

In the world of work and business, every day brings fresh challenges to your ability to be yourself and give your soul a voice. It so happens that promotion throws up a whole range of them. You may decide, as you travel through this challenging part of your journey that promotion is not for you. But you may find that, if you take things step by step, staying fully conscious at each stage, and allowing yourself choice throughout, that you can be a soulful senior player.

And, God knows, the world needs more of them!

So, what do you think? What else would you suggest we avoid to keep our souls intact in the promotion game?
photo credit: gt8073a

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