Is your career everything you’d like it to be?  If not, are you taking action to get your needs and wants met?  

There are seven mistakes that hold you back from going for what you want.  They are basically motivational barriers because if you don’t resolve them you won’t be able to optimally engage. 

By being aware of these mistakes or “action-sticking points," you can look at where you are and what you can do to resolve the obstacle(s).  Otherwise, you may feel stuck;  you’ll feel frustrated that you don’t have what you want but you’ll feel unable to make your situation better. 

Breaking free is about aligning your desires, opportunities, thoughts, and behaviors to work together to get what you want.   

These are the seven mistakes:   

Mistake #1:  Not Knowing What You Want

Mistake #2:  Not Being Intentional At Work

Mistake #3:  Not Appraising Yourself And How You Can...

The "Career Masterclass:  Discover Your Internal Career Compass" addresses how motivation determines your career fulfillment because motivation drives you to fulfill meet your career needs and wants.  The instructor explains how you can determine what your desires are to develop your own career compass. 

The presentation includes:

• The importance of knowing what you want
• What makes up your career needs and wants
• How you can discover your most important needs and wants
• How you can put it all together to create a vision of what will make you feel fulfilled and satisfied

What do you want from work other than the obvious things? You need to make a living but there’s so much more to work other than financial compensation. Many of us fall into paths based on what those close to them did, what seemed good at the time, or what someone said would be a good choice. Such decisions came from the brain but neglected the heart - and desires are very much based on emotions.

Perhaps, you never considered what would make you look forward to work. No one else is exactly like you with the same talents, knowledge, skills, personality, preferences, etc. to offer the work world with what you want to give. You're unique - That presents a challenge. You can't just follow any path if you are to meet all of your needs. 

So, you have to discover your own way. And your journey starts with you - not the outside world. You need a connection to your internal compass to guide your actions. It’s a connection to who you are and what...

Podcast Interview

VeteransAscend podcast episode #28

I've been there.  You feel pressured to move forward, but you're stuck.  You don't know want to do. There's a lot on the line because making a good career choice affects your future happiness - but how can you figure it out?

I’ve taken many career tests in my life - found them interesting but not very helpful.  I got bits of insight regarding my preferences, but they didn’t give me a clear career direction.  I wanted more than just a job where I could apply my skills;  I wanted career fulfillment. 

Identifying your top “Deeply Embedded Life Interests (DELI)” is a good starting point to find your direction.   These are enduring motivational drivers that crave expression.  Your happiness depends upon them unless you meet your needs in other areas of your life. 

Dr. Timothy Butler, a Harvard University career expert, proposed ten major DELI career themes:

• Engineer, Application of Technology - likes technology and...

Are you hoping that this year will be the year you keep your New Year Resolutions?

Most of us start the new year with good intentions to improve our lives in some way.  We may want to:

• Create or improve something
• Start or increase doing things
• Stop or cut back on doing things
• Be better for others, ie. kinder, more generous, more patient

Yet, 85% of us give up by mid-January because we never truly commit to making them happen.  

Without a strong desire for something specific coupled with commitment to develop and implement a plan, we’ll have nothing to act upon.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to make this year different:

• Translate your intentions into specific criteria for what you want to see (one change or at the most two-related things)
• Get leverage on why this is truly important beyond a mere “should” or “nice to”
• Believe you can succeed; if not, figure out a way to build belief that you can
• Decide that the benefit of taking...

This video explains common mistakes in goal setting and how you can properly set goals.

Because self efficacy has a significant impact on how you approach tasks in your life, it's worthwhile to understand this concept and what affects it.

What is self efficacy?

Your self efficacy is your estimate of what you think you’re capable of achieving in different situations.  It determines the aspirations you have for yourself and the goals you will set in your life.  This is different from self confidence which is more of an appraisal of your self worth and how you approach situations in general.  

You formed opinions of your different abilities based on what you experienced in your life.  Perhaps you had few opportunities to stretch yourself or perhaps you took on very difficult goals and failed so now you’re afraid to go for more. As a result, you don't feel very capable of handling certain kinds of challenges. This limits what you do. However, you can act to change this situation.

Relationship to Goal Setting, Motivation and Performance

Wonder what you might do to motivate yourself to achieve what you want?  Here are 12 tips you can use to keep moving forward:

1.    Meditate daily to tap your inner wisdom and stay in alignment with what you truly want.

Meditation enhances your ability to concentrate and contributes to your overall well-being.  Zenhabits.net (http://zenhabits.net/meditation-for-beginners-20-practical-tips-for-quieting-the-mind/) provides a good primer for beginners. 

If you find the process difficult, you might want to try a guided meditation that will talk you through the process.  You can find some free guided meditations on the internet, such as at http://www.chopra.com/ccl/guided-meditations, http://www.mindfulmuscle.com/5-top-guided-meditations/, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyy0ra2WcQQ.  You might even try some hypnosis meditations to overcome obstacles such as those found at...