I So Deserve it!
I was on the train this past week headed into New York City to give a presentation. It was late afternoon and the train was filled with high school students commuting home. As you can imagine, there were many animated conversations going on at once. I couldn’t help but hear the conversation four girls were having who were seated across the aisle from me.
One girl was telling her friends all about her plan for the summer. She planned on doing nothing; just lying on the beach, listening to music, and hanging out with her friends. She said with great conviction, “I so deserve it. I’ve worked hard all year.”
So upon hearing her declaration, I had to ask myself how often I have thought that or said that to myself or anyone else for that matter. How often have I honestly felt entitled to taking a break or time off because I’ve been working so hard.
What happens to me more often than not is that I hit a wall. I work really hard for long periods of time without a day off and then I find myself brain dead and exhausted. Can you relate?
It would be great if I could give myself permission to take a break and feel that I truly deserve it without all the guilt. How wonderful would it be for me to plan these breaks ahead of time so that I don’t reach the point of running out of steam? When I reach the point of exhaustion, I have no choice but to recharge and recover.
I’ve often heard that the millennial generation has a sense of entitlement, but is that really a negative? This teenager was acknowledging that she works hard and is deserving of some kind of reward or break from the push and stress to perform.
I seem to spend more time dealing with my guilt than praising myself and embracing the feeling of entitlement. Is this a generational issue or gender issue or both?
Note to self: You can learn valuable lessons from anyone anywhere as long as you are open to listening (in this case eavesdropping) and receiving the lessons.
PS. I’m now planning my own summer break!
What about you? You so deserve it!
What Do You Do?
Someone told me once that the first question Americans ask each other when they meet is, “what do you do? And I’ve noticed that this is true for the most part. Whether our first encounter with someone is at a cocktail party, a networking event, or the gym, people seem to want to know what we do more than anything else. Perhaps we ask this question because we think it’s the best way to find out more about someone with whom we want to connect. But is it also based on the assumption that once we know what someone does for a living, we know a lot about them?
This is an interesting blog post for me because my coaching work helps people answer this question and the advice I give about positioning yourself and communicating your value to others is the focus of many of my workshops. This post, however, is not about how you answer the question relative to your career. This post is about the importance of identifying and connecting with who we are as individuals because, quite simply, our profession has become our identity to a large extent.
Case in point: say you have decided to leave the work force to become a stay-at-home mom. You don’t have a “job” to speak of. When asked this question, your response may be more about what you used to do rather than what you are currently doing. In this situation, we can be defensive and even apologetic because we don’t place value on ourselves outside of a job.
Now I will ask a question that I often ask my clients relative to positioning themselves in the workplace, but with a new twist. Put your resume aside for a minute. What are you all about? What are your values? What are your strengths? Who are you today? What is unique about you? What have been your accomplishments as a person not an employee?
The answers to these questions help you define yourself as an individual. These are the unique core qualities that stay with you no matter where you work or what you do.
As much as I coach my clients to stay connected to their value proposition and understand what they bring to the table, I think it is also extremely important for us to realize that this is just a part of who we are. Our jobs do not define us. Our unique value proposition is who we are as individuals and that includes what we do, but what we do does not define our identity.
Finding Your True Place
This guest post is a deviation from my normal business tips, but one that I know you will enjoy. Recently bestselling author Brunonia Barry’s publicist sent me a book to review called The Map of True Places , and I loved the book. I am sure that many of you can relate to the theme about finding your true place in the world.
I am delighted to be able to offer this article today from the author and also give away ONE FREE COPY of this book for my favorite personal story of your own quest to find your true place. Please email me your response.
The Map of True Places
by Brunonia Barry
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.” ~Herman Melville
That quote was the inspiration for the title of my second novel, The Map of True Places, which recently came out in paperback. As I embark on the book tour, I am talking with readers about the true places in their lives. 
The maps we follow for our individual lives have always been subject to unexpected twists of fate, but lately our modern world has shifted in ways we never expected: economic collapse, global terrorism, environmental disasters. The recent earthquake in Japan literally rocked the world on its axis.
So how do we navigate our lives when our old maps have become obsolete? The answer, I think, lies in finding our own true places: safe havens that are homes to us. Sometimes these places are real. Sometimes they exist only in memory and imagination. Almost always, they are connected to the people we love.
The truest place in my life is a real one, a Victorian summer-house on a lake in New Hampshire. It was built by my great grandfather more than a century ago and has been handed down through the generations. The cottage hasn’t changed much in those hundred years, which makes it easier to conjure images of the people who have touched my life there, some who are still with me, many who have long since departed.
Standing in the old fashioned kitchen, I don’t have to look far to summon a memory. Here is the bucket we used to pick blueberries for the pies and muffins my grandmother always made. Over there is the megaphone my father used to call us back when we swam too far from shore. I can still hear the creaky slamming of the back door and the laughing of children as they rush in and out.
In the washroom across the hall, the medicine cabinet door won’t close properly. I can see my mother’s compact on the glass shelf, and I can see her too, standing in front of the mirror, her lips pursed as she applies Revlon Fire Engine Red lipstick, blots it with tissue, then puts on another coat.
In my true place, my mother still gets dressed to go dancing. She is not confined to her RA wheelchair. My father doesn’t shake from Parkinson’s. I don’t find him scared and frozen in place in the back hall but rather out on the porch playing with the dogs or pitching horseshoes with the uncles. My grandmother, gone many years now, is still the outspoken matriarch who so frustrated her son-in-law, my father, that one day he locked her in the pan closet in the kitchen and wouldn’t let her out until she promised to be nice to him, which she was from that day on.
In my true place, I can bring all of the generations back to life at once. My reverie supposes that time is non-linear, and that all the characters exist in their happiest moments. People who never knew each other gather together for a weekend celebration. A favorite uncle who read stories to me when I was little reads those same stories now to my brother’s grandchildren. My first dog rolls on the front lawn with my sixteen year old golden retriever whose hip dysplasia has miraculously healed. My grandmother sits on the front porch shelling peas with the great granddaughter she never knew.
My true place is always sunny and warm, except at about 4PM each day when a quick thunderstorm follows the curve of the White Mountains and moves swiftly across our little lake. We laugh and run for cover. The storm disappears as quickly as it has come. There may or may not be a rainbow.
My truest place, though real, has the luxury of fantasy. I am, after all, a fiction writer. Whether real of imagined, true places seem more important than ever in these times of great and sometimes devastating change.
What are some of your true places?
Please email me your response. I will post my favorite story on this blog and send you a free copy of the book!
Owning Our Success
Women are well positioned today to change workplace dynamics and use their strength and talent to assume more leadership positions. Thirty four percent (34%) of American women between the ages of 25 and 34 have bachelor degrees compared to 27% of men, and women have higher GPA’s and are more likely to receive higher graduate degrees.
We have what it takes to make significant changes, but we need to own our success to move forward. The reality is that currently women only hold 18% of top leadership positions. Yes, there is still gender bias as well as challenges balancing work and family for women who want to advance their careers. I believe it’s time, however, to change the focus from the obstacles to the opportunities. It’s time to take responsibility for our own advancement.
In 2010, McKinsey and Company published a report called “Women Matter 2010. Women at the Top of Corporations: Making it Happen.” As part of their research they asked 1500 executives across different industries what are the biggest barriers to increasing gender diversity within the top management of the company? Thirty eight percent (38%) of the women executives interviewed said they see the biggest factor as their hesitancy to promote themselves. In other words, the biggest factor was within their control to change!
It’s time to focus on what we can control; what we can do personally to own our own success and promote ourselves.
What does it take to own your success?
- Belief in yourself and an understanding of your value proposition.
- Taking credit and acknowledging your accomplishments.
- Speaking up and letting others know your opinion and thoughts.
- Advocating for yourself. Requesting sponsorship.
- Negotiating what’s fair and appropriate in salary and benefits.
- Letting go of language that minimizes and sabotages your credibility.
- Communicating your value to others.
- Being visible within your organization and community to showcase your skills and talent.
- Building and leveraging relationships that will assist you to reach your goal.
- Having a strategic and intentional focus to advance your career.
We need to own our success to be successful.
Embrace it.
Believe it.
Nurture it.
Communicate it.
Celebrate it.
Take advantage of my FREE 7 Day Boot Camp on Promoting Yourself for Career Success. Sign up on my home page. or on the right sidebar!
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