You hate your job. So, do millions of other people. Whether you are unhappy with your current career choice or simply have become bored, changing careers is something that should be thought through thoroughly with great attention to detail versus just jumping right into it. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some people out there who are more than willing to take that “jump” who are lucky. But these people represent a very small minority.

5 Things to Consider If You’re “Considering”

1. Fail to Plan; Plan to Fail! Sure, you may have those days where you feel like you are just going to walk into your boss’ office and tell him that you’re quitting. However, while this may work for many people, in these economic times, suddenly quitting your job is not advisable. Think about a plan of action as well as how you are going to execute it. If you’re at a job that is somewhat stable and secure, you should plan to transition into a similar job.
2. What do You Want to Do? Knowing that you are unhappy or simply ready for a career change is the easy part. However, figuring out how you’re going to do it is another story. Tests such as the Myers-Briggs may help you figure out what sort of working personality you have.
3. Network! If you’re thinking about changing careers, and you know the career that your aiming for, then feel free to speak to someone in that field. Networking is one of the many ways that people end up in different careers. It truly is about who you know.
4. Time to Re-learn! It may be time to head back to school and bury your nose in some books if you’re really looking to do a total career makeover. This is a great time to head back to school as the economy has taken a slight nosedive and many companies are laying people off.
5. Re-Work That Resume! It’s never too late to give your resume a little face lift. Any time you switch careers or receive any type of rewards, make sure you add it to your working resume, which you can re-work later.

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Are some people born confident? Sometimes it seems that way to those of us who have had to unearth the roots of confidence virtually on our own. One business woman I know had a great insight from her own struggle. She remembered how her mother would criticize any woman perceived as going overboard in the attractive/assertive department with a disdainful, “She likes herself.” As she grew older she realized her mother was using that expression as a synonym for “she’s conceited,” but it must have delivered an early internal twist that stayed with her through adulthood. Whenever she started to feel strong and confident, along came the pangs of guilt and worry that she might be crossing the undefined boundary into “liking herself too much.”

Another woman talked about her lack of a family model for shaping and molding self confidence when she was a teenager. Since her mother was shy and anti-social, she looked to her very outgoing and nurturing dancing teacher as a role model, and filled in the gaps with self-help books to more deeply understand the origins of self-esteem.

Self-confidence can definitely be developed and expanded, a fact supported by personal experience. Though I spent the first half of my life grabbing at self-esteem and compensating for the lack of it, today the techniques I successfully used to enhance my own core confidence are also working well for many others. I’d like to share some with you here:

1. Commitment to Evidence
A common mistake we make is spending a lot of time trying to find out-in-the-world evidence that our lives have value, without any real clarity about what that evidence would look like if we found it! It’s a pattern reminiscent of a hamster spinning the wheel in his cage. One way to disrupt the pattern is to simply give up the pursuit.

Just decide to be committed to the fact that “I make a difference.” Then begin collecting evidence, however small, to support that commitment. This may take the form of a journal, log or scrapbook where you write down the evidence: something nice someone says about you, an accomplishment, something good that happens in your presence or something you enjoy about life.

2. Competence vs. Confidence
When the feeling of confidence is not strong, it may be a sign that you need more competence. For example, you wouldn’t want your surgeon to have confidence without competence. On the other hand, noticing what standard you are unconsciously comparing yourself to may reveal that you have set an unrealistic benchmark for feeling confident at your level of competence. If you come from a commitment of competence vs. a feeling of confidence, then even though you may not feel completely confident you will know that is acceptable for your level of competence.

3. Letting in Acknowledgment
Do you allow acknowledgement to come in, or do you discount it in your head–or even to the person bestowing it by saying something like, “It’s just my job.” You may be receiving acknowledgement of your value all around you while you are busy discounting it. Remember if you don’t let it in, it won’t be there to support when you are in need of a self-esteem boost.

4. A Statement of Identity
What is the identity of YOU? Is it a person of value who can co-create with others, or something else? This can be a little tricky to discover since it is somewhat like sneaking up on a shadow. With my own dyslexia, I overly identified with being “broken” most of my life. Until I defined my own mission and started identifying with it, anything I did seemed to center around fixing “broken,” the proverbial treadmill experience.

A mission in life used correctly can be both a lantern for guidance on your path and a shield to protect your self-esteem. I don’t know how I would have ever gained real core self confidence without an expressed mission in life to commit my life to. I like to think of it as being the steward of my own mission. Without this mission-steering mindset I seem to drift slowly towards a collection of complaints.

How are you nurturing your self-esteem? To repeat some useful advice: If you are not going to value yourself, why should anyone else?

Martin Brossman - Success Coach / Trainer / Author - www.CoachingSupport.com - martin@coachingsupport.com Podcast: www.Inquireonline.info

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Humor in the Workplace
by Martin Brossman

Humor to me is much more than telling a silly joke. It’s about a state of being, an attitude of looking for humor and joy in things. It’s about realizing that you can create humor and joy in just about any context.

I learned this empirically during the years I volunteered at Duke Hospital taking a humor cart around to cancer patients. At first a volunteer with Carolina Health and Humor, I expanded my own humor horizon over several years as volunteer trainer and certified humor presenter, grateful for the honor of receiving the Volunteer of the Year award from Governor Hunt in 2000. These years taught me that humor goes way beyond making someone laugh.

One particular afternoon when I was first volunteering, I had taught a workshop for a group of very stressed-out corporate employees before heading to my volunteer shift. It

was especially obvious to me that evening that most of the patients in the hospital beds were more alive and courageous than many of the people who had sat in the classroom with me earlier that day. There in the oncology ward I met people who sometimes had very little time left, who were lit up by telling me a joke or wearing a Groucho nose-and-glasses on a head which had lost all its hair.

As my experience grew, I began to teach the new volunteers coming to help out with our cart, The Laugh Mobile, that their job was not to entertain the patients. Our job was to bring compassionate humor into their rooms, allowing them to experience whatever they needed to experience, in the context of humor and joy. I created definitions of these concepts for the volunteers:

Joy–a state of serenity that allows us to embrace whatever experience we are having in a constructive way.

Compassionate humor–humor which creates a joyful environment that allows a person to have a greater sense of being accepted.

But it was the individuals who taught me the far-reaching effects of even small doses of joy and compassionate humor. One particular woman needed a multiple organ transplant due to cancer. I made a balloon dog for her, telling her it knew two tricks, how to lay down and STAY when I taped it to the wall. She said, “ Maybe the dog could look out for organs for me.” I said, “ Great idea, lets hang it up here on the wall so it can get a good view,” and attached the little blue balloon dog so that it overlooked the room. I enjoyed listening to her stories of her grandkids and then moved on to the next room, wearing my red clown nose; I announced myself at each room by knocking on the door and saying, “Can I come in? They just let me out.”

When I returned two weeks later, I noticed she was gone. I was concerned about what happened to her, but the hospital could not tell us anything about the patients. During my rounds. I visited a man’s room and there on the wall was a slightly shrunken version of that blue balloon dog I had made two weeks before. I said, “I see you have a pet. I didn’t think they let pets in the hospital.” He told me that he was waiting for an organ transplant and a woman he met on the ward had gotten word that organs were available for her, so she had given him the watchdog that worked for her. Then he smiled. I realized that my balloon dog was a great example of what I was there for.

Another time I walked into the room of an elderly woman who looked like she had been hit across the face with a baseball bat. The family was in the room, and you could have cut the sadness with a knife. Her eyes lit up a little bit when she saw me come in with my clown nose on. I explained the Laugh Mobile to her, asking if she would like to check out any humorous books and tapes. She saw I was really listening and answered, “I used to enjoy walking here in the halls before they had to remove my teeth due to the cancer. I trusted instinct and said to her, “What are you going to say the next time you walk around the halls?” It caught her slightly off guard in a good way, and she sat up in bed with a smile and pointed over her shoulder. She said, “You ought to see the other guy. It was a heck of a fight!” The family members also sat up, in a shock at the change in her state. You see, I was listening for humor and not trying to entertain her.

What does this have to do with humor in the workplace? Everything. Because at work we so often become overburdened with significance, losing track of the more important things in life and forgetting that all of that could change in a moment. Many times I entered the oncology ward tired or in an off mood, but I never left it that way. It reminded me of the importance and the responsibility I have to bring joy and humor into my own life, versus waiting for someone to entertain me. For years I used to carry a clown nose in my car and would put it on if someone seemed to be suffering from too much anger.

The Laugh Mobile taught me a few things about humor and the workplace.

1. The value of listening for humor in other people.
This doesn’t mean inappropriately laughing at something that is painful to them. It’s an attitude of looking for opportunities at work and in life to laugh together. Humor is like a muscle that atrophies if you don’t use it.

2. The importance of being able to laugh at yourself.
If you haven’t noticed, you are human. We humans do silly things with our emotions and biological brains, so you will get over things more quickly if you can laugh at yourself.

3. The wisdom of compassionate humor in leadership. Some people believe that leadership and humor don’t go together. Yet look at some of the most effective and compassionate leaders you have known in your own life. I am sure you can recall a time when they were able to laugh at themselves. And the most memorable leadership quality is a compassionate perspective that permits the type of real unconditional listening that allows talent, contribution—and yes, actual workplace joy—to flourish.

Martin Brossman - Success Coach / Trainer / Author www.CoachingSupport.com - martin@coachingsupport.com Podcast: www.Inquireonline.info

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