Take this quick poll before reading the blog post. “Do You Share What You Do For A Living With Your Children”?
I am not sure how you answered the poll, however let’s talk about why there is value in sharing what you do with your children.
Developing a career path is a life long process, it usually starts in childhood and continues along with different choices, opportunities, on-going learning and achieving more and more experience. Most people decided on their careers when they were children. Parental engagement and involvement were key factors in influencing the child on pursuing their dream career, values and work ethic. Having positive and encouraging conversations with your children about your own career decisions is very valuable to them.
Talk with your children about your career story:
Start with your first job.
How you prepared or not prepared in high school and/or college with your career choices.
Talk about your networking connections, clubs, courses etc.
Discuss about the people who shaped you during your career; such as bosses, co-workers, mentors, coaches and etc.
Tell about your good choices and bad choices that influenced your career.
Discuss “What you would do differently”.
The amount of time you spend sharing and encouraging your children will open up their minds to think about what type of career they want and start working towards a plan of action to achieve it. It is important for children to discover their own strengths and interests. Have them try out as many different kinds of tasks and jobs to see what they like and don’t like. This will help them make a better decision on what career path to pursue.
Comments are always welcome and please share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks!
Keeping your cool in the office! (survival tips on handling difficult situations).
Summer is here and it is extremely hot outside (especially in Arizona)☀️. Patience is out the door this time of year. At 6:00 in the morning you are getting into your vehicle to go to work and you burn your hands on the steering wheel because you forgot to put up your sun shade screen on your dash-board. Ouch! 🔥 Not a good way to start your day. You are probably thinking 6:00 am in the morning and needing a sun shade? In Arizona the summer temperatures may hit a high of 117 degrees and morning temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s.
Okay, let’s get back to keeping your cool in the office.
How do you keep your cool in the office when you are feeling stressed and tempers are flaring?
This is one that I definitely struggle with myself as a leader, especially when you are dealing with a variety of personalities, some very bad attitudes and poor work performance behaviors. To be honest there are times when I have failed miserably at keeping my cool.
Here are some tips and strategies to put into action when those tempers are starting to flare.
Take a deep breath and walk away for a few minutes.
Take a couple of minutes to pray and/or journal about your frustration.
Go get something to drink; like a large glass of cold ice water. Sip slowly.
Practice deep relaxation breathing to clear your mind and to calm those feelings of anger and/or dis-satisfaction about the situation.
Think about a person you admire and how they would handle the situation.
Remind yourself to focus on solutions.
Don’t respond in writing until you have calmed down, edited and revise the email or correspondence to be in a professional non-adversarial tone. Wait until the next day when you have time to sleep on it and reflect about the incident as well as coming up with some agreeable solutions.
The next time you feel your temperature rising and wanting to react unfavorably put these tips and strategies into action. Sometimes just walking away can make a tremendous difference to your work environment and relationships. You know the old saying, “You may not be able to control someone’s negative behavior but you can control how long you participate in it”. ~ Unknown
Last year I participated in a 30 day blogging challenge through a Facebook group. The blogging challenge is designed to help you become a better, stronger blogger, increase your visibility, and build massive momentum. By being in the group you get daily emails tips and they’re free at – http://www.sarkemedia.com/30dayblog. If you are a business leader and want more visibility for your business, I encourage you to start blogging. This program is a great way to enhance your writing skills and blogging techniques.
After I graduated from the 30 day blogging challenge I continued posting my weekly blog post in another Facebook group for the 30 day blogging challenge graduates. In this group the participates continue to encourage and inspire each other as well as increase their blogging skills. Sarah and Kevin Arrow give tips about blogging from their expertise and their own blogging success stories.
A couple of months ago Kevin Arrow from Sark eMedia conducted blab session interviews with a few of the graduates from the program. I was one of the graduates he interviewed so he and I sat down and talked about my experience with the 30 day blogging challenge what I learned and how it has made a difference in my coaching business. Below is the blab session interview. Click on the link. below.
A few weeks ago I wrote about life changing subjects to consider incorporating this year in the blog post It is a New Year. The tenth key action step is working on Self-Care to Improve Health and Wellness.
What is Self-Care?
Self-care is any intentional actions you take to care for your physical, social, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being.
Why is self-care so important?
Self-care is important for your physical well being, mental state, nourishing your soul and is just good for your overall health in general. Without self-care you and your relationships with others can suffer.
Here are some tips to incorporate Self-Care:
Eat healthy meals
Drinking plenty of water daily
Get enough sleep ~ a reasonable guideline for most people should be between 7-10 hours of sleep per night.
Doing some kind of exercise for at least 20 minutes daily
Get medical and dental check ups
Reduce stress ~ relax, pray, mediate, listen to relaxing music, color, journal, be creative, participate in a hobby, make a vision board, go outdoors and take a hike or walk, take up a sports activity, go for a ride on a bicycle or motorcycle
Listen to audio tapes, read a book, read a magazine, do a word search puzzle or watch a movie
Practice gratitude
Set healthy and functional boundaries; do not over book yourself and be comfortable to saying no
Spend quality time with good friends, your spouse/partner, your children and your pets
By adding a few of these tips it will help you stay balanced and less stressed overall.
Self-Reflection Questions:
What is your favorite activity to relax?
Which one of these tips will you try first?
Comments are always welcome and please share it with your colleagues and on your social networks!
A few weeks ago I wrote about life changing subjects to consider incorporating into ourselves this year in the blog post It is a New Year. The eighth key action step is working on “Removing Gossip, Negative Thoughts and Self- Doubt from daily life”.
Removing Gossip, Negative Thoughts and Self-Doubt:
Start With Creating Peace, Love and Joy. When I ask this question: What do you really want in life? People have expressed all they really want in their lives is peace and love. How do you find peace and love in your life? I believe before you can have peace, joy and love in your life. You should reflect peace and love within yourself.
How do you reflect peace? By realizing, yes, you have made some mistakes and those mistakes sometimes follow you. Everyone makes mistakes and it is time to let go of that baggage which loads you down and forgive yourself. Once you learn to love and respect yourself your heart will open to receive love from others. You will begin to treat others with love and kindness and love and kindness will circle back to you. Peace and calmness will come into your life as well as those around you. Walking away from gossip and speaking bad about others will improve your relationships and discontinue negative thought patterns.
How to Halt Negative Thought Patterns:
To stop those negative thoughts about yourself and others. Begin by obtaining a small journal and writing down all your good qualities and the good qualities of people around you. Make a list of the good qualities you want to reflect in your life. Anytime you start to feel the self-doubt or negative thoughts. Pull out that small journal and reflect on those words you written and read them. Perform this exercise to open your heart to receive love and peace within.
Being Confident and Removing Self-Doubt:
Back in January of 2014 I had created this poll.
The number one reason was Self-Doubt or Confidence.
Why do you think Self-Doubt or Confidence was number one?
Why are people afraid to pursue their dreams or aspirations? Isn’t it better to go after your dreams? Absolutely! Have a plan, it will take time and perseverance. I recall sometime back I had read an article which discussed when people were close to dying they wished they took more chances and didn’t worry about what others thought of them.
Can you imagine how many happy and satisfied people there would be in this world, if they pursued their goals and dreams?
How do you live the life you imagined?
Start with creating an action plan. Ask yourself the following questions:
What do you really want in your life?
What do you need in your life to accomplish it?
What steps will you take?
What may prevent you from achieving it?
How will you move past those obstacles and achieve what you want?
Right now! The life you’re leading:
Is it acceptable or satisfying to you?
Is there something more you want?
Can you imagine how different your life would be if you followed these steps to accomplish the life you imagined?
Self-doubt hinders you. Be passionate, persistent, patient and flexible. Keep moving forward. It will happen! Life is an adventure where are you taking yours? – Patti
Feel free to share your thoughts on this subject in the ” leave a reply” box below.
A few weeks ago I wrote about life changing subjects to consider incorporating into ourselves this year in the blog post It is a New Year. The seventh key action step is working on connecting with others and building friendships.
I have heard people say there seems to be a trend happening of people lacking a connection to others. More and more people appear to becoming distance, isolated and lonely. Humans are made to be social, crave friendships, and want to feel accepted and loved.
What can you do today to connect to others?
If we want to have lasting friendships we have to be willing to open ourselves up to the possibility of failure and to trust people even when we are not sure we can trust. How can we break down those walls and connect with others to have lasting friendships? Building friendships is hard work but well worth every minute of working on it.
Do you think there would be less lonely miserable people if we reach out and help others by building bridges instead of constructing walls?
To keep relationships going, make an effort to reach out by contacting and responding back.
If someone takes the time to call, send an email, instant message or text you respond back. People who do not respond back appear to be rude, self-absorbed or come a cross that you aren’t important to them. This may not be the case at all but that could be how it is taken. Respond back even if it is “I got your message. Thank you!” To keep good relationships with friends, associates, clients, family and others in your life make some sort of effort or people may give up on you.
We all get busy with work and personal lives. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. When we can take a few minutes every day to reply back to others it strengthens our friendships and happiness. ~ Patti
