Headstuck: The Psychology of Work and Career Change

Laughing Baby

2011-08-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

This is what I'd like to do with my tax return, and this is how I'd respond if I did.

Dear Lovely Reader

2011-08-03T01:29:00.000-07:00

Thank you for visiting my blog! Just a reminder that I only infrequently update this blog these days. The blogs I use mainly are:

Headstuck! Career Change Blog:

http://www.thecareerpsychologist.com/headstuck-career-change-blog/

And Working with ACT for organisational leaders, HR managers, trainers and coaches:

http://workingwithact.com/

Look forward to seeing you there!

Being with Sadness

2011-05-29T06:52:00.001-07:00

I went home yesterday to visit my old Grandfather, 92, who now lives in a home, much to his disgust. He was grumpy because he felt he’d been locked in there against his will. He was surrounded by old women, many of them even grumpier, so we went outside for a cup of tea.

It was cold outside and windy. For some reason, we got onto talking about the gloomiest of subjects. We both felt low. We talked about how he missed his daughter, Rowena, who died before I was born. It felt uncomfortable and sad.

It was sad. I felt like crying.

Some years ago I would have taken this discomfort as a sign to run away. I may have cracked a joke, or left a bit earlier, or hurriedly changed subjects.

But this time I sighed and stopped and just sat there. In the middle of the day, sitting with my Grandfather, sharing time, sharing life, a perfect moment. I gave up the struggle, and shared what was.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Naomi Shahib Nye, “Kindness”

The Certainty Bias

2011-05-03T06:36:00.001-07:00

A fantastic interview with neurologist Robert Burton highlights the mind’s Certainty Bias.

The mind evolved to help us make sense of the world around us, because without that understanding it’s pretty hard to know how to act. Not many of our ancestors had time to make a list of pros and cons before making important decisions.

But in today’s context the mind’s pull for certainty has different consequences. The mind likes nice, uncomplicated beliefs which can help us make sense of a situation. Yet these beliefs often leave us trapped by our own perceptions:

“I must get this right”.
For important events and decisions, our mind will tell us how important it is to get this right. Yet the mind will be far slower to identify what ‘right’ is. The unspoken assumption is that right is perfect. Perfection is hard to achieve… so procrastination ensues.

“I need to know the likely outcome / if I can cope before I start”
The mind likes to dictate terms and the terms are – no movement towards a new project unless certainty is guaranteed! The trouble is this often stops us from taking action on the things we value most. Result: the mind’s goal will be achieved…by doing nothing.

“I need to have all my things around me / complete silence / the right people to work effectively”
The trouble is we rarely get the ‘right’ environment. Deep down we know this and that we need to start right now – even if it is with the wrong pen.
“If I was good at doing this it would be easier / life is about enjoyment”
The great happiness myth! The problem is life isn’t meant to be enjoyable in the sense that we should enjoy each moment. Our most fulfilling moments weren’t preceded by feeling good – far more often they were preceded by the most dreadful doubt and fear. Our intolerance of ambiguity keeps us stuck – which eventually makes us miserable.

So what can we do about it?
As Burton acknowledges, the most important thing with such thoughts is to recognise them. After all, you do not need “the right result” so much as you are having the thought that you need it. Even recognising this as just a thought – not reality – is effective.

Once you’ve noticed your thoughts, bring your attention back to your behaviour. The mind often leaves behaviour unspecified, because perfection is more certain than an imperfect first step. This makes purpose hard to find.

So try to counteract this by getting specific about what it is you will do:

I’d love to get the right result – so I will make a list of what that result looks like in practice.
I’d love to know more about the outcome I can expect – and the most important things I need to know are what the client really wants and why they want it.
I don’t want to fail – and the main risk to failure is that I don’t revise properly. Therefore, I will make a revision plan.
I want better working conditions – so I will make a specific list of improvements I could make, starting right here and now.
I want to enjoy myself – but I am willing to experience uncertainty now in order to make progress towards my goals.

A Sad Post

2011-04-22T02:35:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine, Rupa Patel, died this week from meningitis. She was 24.

I feel utterly wretched about this. Will you forgive me, blog readers, for writing about it?

Rupa was a lovely, sunny, kind person with so much enthusiasm for life. Everyone trots out these cliches but in Rupa's case they really were true.

After we graduated, Rupa asked me to review her CV which I gladly did. Frankly, it didn't read well. Nothing like the real Rupa, who was so fun and vivacious and natural. It was full of management speak, trying to sound professional, trying to sound as though she was someone else. The thing is, Rupa didn’t need to be anyone else.

In one hilarious example, Rupe wrote this under Interests and Activities:
In my spare time I like solving brainteasers, and other mentally stimulating word and numerical problems.

To which I wrote:
Do you really? Is that true? I am not sure how I feel about this. It sounds a bit weird!

I still to this day cannot imagine Rupa solving brainteasers, she was FAR more likely to be chatting animatedly with someone about psychology or the latest gossip in the pub, but there you are.

After the CV was finished I wrote this:
Overall, I think you should think about your core strengths. What are they? What are you really interested in? What are you like as a person? Your strengths – the real Rupa – are the things I would be really interested in as an employer. They are the reasons why I would employ you. So they should be the theme of the CV.
To help you, here are some of your strengths I have observed: bright, conscientiousness, funny (ha ha not weird), friendly, great teamworker, responsible, organised (very), fun to work with, willing to learn, highly capable, interested in psychology, ambitious, presentable and reliable (you’re always the first to respond to my e-mails), enthusiastic, intelligent. THIS STUFF DOESN’T COME OUT IN THIS CV.

Of course, Rupa didn’t need my advice really and she soon landed an excellent job. But there is something in what I wrote that consoles me a little bit. I hope she believed me when I said these things. I hope she felt good when she read them. And I hope she felt some confidence as she went out into the brave new world knowing that the people she met really did think she was amazing.

And at least I said them... So often I don’t.

Rupa, you will be missed terribly and my heart goes out to your family and friends.

Everyone at Bloom Psychology and The Career Psychologist will remember you, and we will do our best to honour you in the work we do.

How Many of Us Would Have Stayed on The Floor?

2011-04-08T07:17:00.001-07:00

The Rat Race

2011-03-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

"A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings.

Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high".

Jimmy Reid 1932 - 2010

Cat vs Printer

2011-03-11T02:39:00.000-08:00

Now that this is essentially my personal blog, look how quickly the quality is deteriorating.

So in the spirit of further rapid quality reduction, here's a video of a cat and a printer.

Radiohead Fan Does Therapy

2011-03-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

You know it's true.

Dog Confused by Escalator

2011-03-03T04:11:00.000-08:00

So, my main career psychology blog is now here at The Career Psychologist website.

This frees this blog up a little....

So finally, I can bring you films of dogs being confused by escalators.

Useful.

Running

2011-02-27T13:41:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I forget to run. Or rather, my brain finds short term excuses not to.
And I need to run to remind myself that I need to run.
I need to run to reconnect to the world around me. And I need to reconnect to the world around me, to remind myself how beautiful it is, and how privileged I am even to be here.

I'm moving! Come with me?

2011-02-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Look, we've been living here on Blogger for a while now. I've loved the time we've spent here, and am grateful to Blogger for all it has done. But the time has come to move on.

This blog is moving to a new, more focused brand called The Career Psychologist.

The content will remain the same. I write about the psychology of career change and the psychology of work. I'm interested in the difficulties our minds cause us when we try to change. I'm clear about the value of meaning and the need for acceptance, mindfulness and willingness as the engine of behaviour change and ultimately, happiness.

I write about the increasingly common trap of of career paralysis. I write about full, mid and quarterlife career crises and how psychological flexibility is critical to them all. And occasionally, I write about cats, mental health, sport, music, psychology, time management, and my own news and family.

We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll live the dream. But we'll do it all on Wordpress.

Follow me here!

Self Compassion in Business

2011-02-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I'd have laughed at the idea of using compassion - let alone self compassion - in a business context. It seems so incongruous.

But now I think it's indispensable.

I think it could be argued that the main problem with the workplace is lack of compassion. Showing compassion is often equated with weakness, or letting ourselves or others off the hook. In fact Paul Gilbert has shown that we fear that we will become lazy if we are too compassionate, so it is seen often as a bit soft, unbusinesslike.

Yet I would argue the alternative is far less successful. Effective leadership, organisational design, employee engagement, meaning in work, resilience - all of these start with compassion. And the evidence is growing to support this view:

Students with most self compassion were least likely to procrastinate (Williams, Stark and Foster, 2008)
Self compassion predicts resilience / re-engagement with goals following failure (Neff et al, 2005)
Self acceptance predicts willingness to receive and act on feedback (Chamberlain et al, 2001)

As Kelly McGonigal outlines here, self compassion correlates with lower depression, social anxiety, anger, judgment, close mindedness, less unhealthy perfectionism, greater social connection and empathy.

And not only that, but self compassion can be taught. The big question is how.

Many cognitive therapists would start with disputing or changing negative thoughts about ourselves. Yet I would start with context. And for this, no one says it better than Ken Robinson:

"Human beings were born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

And so what shall we wonder at? Our massacres, our missiles, or our symphonies?

The miracle of human kind is not how far we have sunk but how magnificently we have risen.

We will be known among the stars not by our corpses, but by our poems."

What to Look for In Your Career Coach

2011-02-11T12:32:00.001-08:00

Firstly, I'd argue don't look for a coach look for a coach and psychologist. I just think anyone purporting to work with people must have some idea of how the human mind works and what the evidence suggests is a reliable intervention. Call me old fashioned.

But after that, I agree with every word in this article, published in Psychology Today. Highlights below.

Here are 10 tips for finding and using a career coach:

1. Find out if they are they a member of a coaching organization, such as the International Coach Federation. While this membership is attained by simply paying a fee, the association does have professional standards which they agree to abide by. You can learn more about coaching standards here.

2. Obtain a copy of their resume and/or their biography which states their education and experience related to coaching. Ask if they possess any certificates or licenses. Currently, there are no licenses in coaching, so the most accreditation a coach can get is a certificate from a coaching training program. Ask for the name of the training program and look it up online. Notice what the coach had to do to complete the certificate, and what qualifications they had to have to enroll in the program. For instance, some coaching certificate programs require that their students already possess a license in a mental health field. You will be able to quickly ascertain if the program is legitimate. (Please note: I cannot recommend private practitioners or coaching training programs.)

3. Make sure you get a full disclosure of all costs or fees connected with the service. As a client, you have a right to receive an "informed consent" document. This document should list the credentials of the service provider (including any licenses or certifications), the procedures and/or treatments they will use, other sources where you could receive assistance, their fees for services, and a statement of the confidentiality level they can provide. (Note: in most states there is no assumption of confidentiality between a coach and client; if you are part of a legal proceeding, the coach can be called to testify about your meetings). You should review this form and it should be signed by both you and the coach.

4. Even if your coach also has a counseling or psychology license, they will likely refer you to another mental health practitioner if you require services for a mental health issue. Coaching is not therapy, and practitioners need to distinguish their clients and their practices. Coaching can be particularly powerful when offered in tandem with psychological services, for instance, in the case of someone being treated for an anxiety disorder related to their job search by a mental health practitioner while at the same time receiving concrete job-search techniques from their coach.

5. Ask for client references. Not just testimonials posted on a website-- ask to speak with a client or two. Because this is career coaching and not therapy, the coach should have a few clients who are willing to speak about the value of their services without concerns for confidentiality. Ask them to tell you about specific success experiences of their clients.

6. Ask what their coaching philosophy is. What knowledge base, theories or approaches do they use? If they state a particular theory, ask what training or education they have received in that approach. A good coach will be able to tell you their coaching philosophy and how they have developed it through their training and experience.

7. Ask about their scope of practice-- do they generally work with individuals with your particular situation? Although many career issues are common to all job-seekers, different groups will experience different challenges. A coach who mostly serves college students, for example, may not be the best coach for someone trying to plan their retirement.

8. As with any other business or service, check the name of the coach or their business name with the Better Business Bureau to see if any complaints have been filed and the outcome of those complaints.

9. Ask if you can have one appointment (maybe at a reduced rate?) before signing up for services. Determine if you enjoy speaking with this person and if they have services you would find helpful. Some coaches offer package deals, such as "5 sessions for $___ ." Find out what will take place in those sessions-- is there a standard method of service provision? Determine for yourself if you need that many sessions, or if one or two sessions are enough. Find out the fees for additional sessions if you go beyond the package price.

10. Once you've found a great career coach take full advantage of their knowledge and services. Make a commitment to be an active participant in the process-- not just a passive recipient of their information. Show up for your appointments with questions, issues, ideas, etc. If you're given homework assignments, do them. Bottom line: career coaching can provide valuable assistance to your job search, but in the end it will be YOU who gets the job.

That's Un Oeuf! The Revolutionary Time Management Technique

2011-01-29T02:03:00.000-08:00

I have written previously about the Pomodoro technique.

After a lot of research and some earnest experimentation myself, I can now offer a more scientifically validated time management technique which anyone can easily implement.

I have named this revolutionary system 'That's Un Oeuf!' (TM).

The 'That's Un Oeuf!' system is guaranteed to boost your productivity and increase your wellbeing through the simple expedient of a kitchen timer shaped like an egg.

Here's how it works:

1. Buy your Oeuf-shaped kitchen timer. It MUST be shaped like an egg to have any effect.
2. Have a clear objective for this particular Un Oeuf. Be clear what you want to achieve.
3. Set the timer for precisely 22 minutes. Start working through your Un Oeuf.
4. If you become distracted, simply notice that distraction and bring your attention self back to the present moment and to your objective.
5. Once the timer sounds, GET UP AND WALK AWAY. It is critical to move at this point. Get a cup of tea, do 2-3 minutes of cleaning, tidy something, do 10 press ups, walk to the printer. Whatever.
6. Repeat in blocks of up to 4 Un Oeufs.

After this, take a more extended break, moving around, doing e-mail etc. I often do household chores in this period if I'm working from home or I go and have a chat with someone if I'm in the office.

I recommend doing 12 Un Ooeufs a day, and the rest of the time should be doing e-mail or calls, meetings and more relaxed or creative tasks.

The science behind this approach is overwhelming, but if you want some primary sources here goes:

The myth of multitasking - read Brain Rules by John Medina
Distraction and wellbeing - read Gilbert and Killingsworth, 2010
Mckinsey Quarterly January 2011
The need to move - listen to this on the BBC World Service
The average length of human attention span

Please let me know how you get on with the revolutionary 'That's Un Oeuf!' Time Management System, I would love to hear your experiences.

But for now, That really is Un Oeuf.

Mindsight

2011-01-27T04:07:00.000-08:00

Mindfulness is more than a passing fad. It is at the cutting edge of scientific research into anxiety, stress, depression, OCD, pain management, work performance and resilience.

Dan Siegel is at the forefront of this research and if you don't have time to read his excellent Mindsight, this is a useful alternative.

I think this is absolutely relevant to career changers, but then I think it's relevant to all of us.

The Desert and the Dune

2011-01-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

I've just been in the UAE doing some leadership training right in the middle of the Liwa Desert.

Here are some photos. The final photo shows one of the enormous dunes outside the hotel.... (cont'd below).

At sunset, people would climb up the dune and sit and watch the sun set from the top (there are people doing just that in the photo - but they are tiny!). The dunes were so large that it was hard to make out whether the people were moving when you watched them. You had to look away and look back to discern any progress.

That to me is redolent of career change work. It can be a long and arduous business. Sometimes, it's hard to know if you are moving forward. So much work seems to be involved, and at times so little seems to be being achieved that it can feel like a whole lot of work for nothing.

Yet as with the dune walkers, consistent, regular action, does make progress. Each action, each moment spent in reflection, adds up to another step, and the steps add up to progress. I have clients who right now are working on their career chenge project and feeling overwhelmed or discouraged.

Yet for the most part they are still chipping away, being willing to feel uncomfortable. It can be hard to discern their progress at first glance. But from where I am, I can see it. And I know that very soon, when I check back on them, they will be enjoying the view from the top.

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Hemingway - The Sun Always Rises

2011-01-13T01:41:00.000-08:00

"We stare at our computer screens cataloguing our lives unaware that every important decisions has been taken by one goal: the avoidance of pain. We look out of the airplane window reviewing our belief system and realise that it’s an anti-belief system, a rejection of our values.

How did I get here?

We don’t see the consequences of one bad decision – I’ll eat this, I won’t go for a run tonight, I’ll take this job and pay off my loans, this job will give me confidence. But each decision makes it less likely we’ll do the ideal, and the effect mounts".

Career Change 2011 - Step 2: Who Are You?

2011-01-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

The question of who 'you' are is a tricky one. After all, there is no stable 'you', only a collection of relatively stable skills, traits, preferences abilities and experiences which are interpreted by our minds to be 'me' or 'I'.

Run that by me again... There is no 'me'?

If you doubt that the idea of a self is a fiction, then consider the case of extraversion. Imagine you have a strong preference for extraversion in social situations. Is there any situation where you are the opposite? For most the answer is yes. Or, consider the idea that you are loyal. Is there ever a case where you have been disloyal? Intelligence and personality are important and are fairly stable, but they do not override choice.

As career changers, it's important to accept this caveat, because otherwise we risk boxing ourselves in, and not thinking anew about our lives and careers. (As an aside, if you are seeking career change, by definition you are seeking to think anew).

I prefer to have clients consider which aspects of their personality do they choose to hold stable, in the context of work. Given this as the introduction, I enthusiastically endorse exploring 'self' using psychometric tests. The key with psychometric tests is to find those which have what psychologists call good external validity. Validity refers to the idea that if you know one thing about your personality, does that allow you to predict anything else out there in the real world?

Myers Briggs, Insights and other Jungian type personality tests often have very limited validity. You are far better off choosing one which measures the 'big 5' personality measures, such as the NEO-PI.

If you want to start this for free, one of the best free resources can be found here.
What To Do:

Take the test
Read the report
Think about which parts of the report feel true or valid to you, or which you 'choose' to make true in future
Think about what this says about the kind of job you want, and the criteria you want to apply to your career decision
Note down any significant criteria that come from the exercise and keep in a safe place - we'll be adding to those criteria
Sit down and have a ~~biscuit~~ a ~~pint~~ a refreshing piece of fruit, in line with your New year's resolutions.

Hodgson - A Failure Not Of Management But Of Meaning

2011-01-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine asked me what I thought of Liverpool's sacking of Roy Hodgson. My first instinct was feeling for sorry for a patently decent man who no doubt tried hard to give the club what it really needs: direction and leadership.

The exact question was whether Hodgson was a victim of the "grass is always greener" mentality? Possibly, but just as likely is that Hodgson was simply doing what most of us feel compelled to do: make the most of our opportunities, test oursleves in new and exciting situations and, to climb Maslow's hierachy. Hodgson was self actualising, but was not given enough time (in my view) to take others with him.

I am arguing that Hodgson should have been given more time and I am arguing that it was natural for Hodgson to take the job. However, I also believe that Hodgson was always the wrong man for the job. And the reason for this is to do with meaning.

Like any great institution, Liverpool Football Club is defined by its values. It stands for community and passion, uncompromising defiance and above all a sense of anti-establishment. It is the opposite of modern football in so many ways. Sky culture is anathema, as is awarding huge contracts to players who have no sense of the history and values of the club.

Put simply, Roy Hodgson was too establishment for Liverpool. He was too southern, too reasonable, too unconfrontational. 'Hodgson for England' was far more than a witty protest, it was a damning indictment. Hodgson is not one of us. He is good enough for England, but not us. This is why when I went to see the Reds on New Years day, only 35,000 were there.

His appointment was therefore a failure not of ability and skill but of values and meaning. Rafa was loved because he was an outsider. Stubborn, proud and acutely aware of the values of the club. Spanish, but one of us. In contrast, Roy disconnected the fans from the club, just like the owners before him.

Liverpool is are crisis for two reasons. The first is they have been chronically underfunded in comparison to their competitors. But the second is they have been run by people who do not understand its soul.

Of the two, it is the second which is more damaging, but far easier to overlook. Dalglish is a step back in the right direction. But his job is as much about what happens off the pitch as on it.

Your Career Change in 2011 - Step 1: Facing the Present

2011-01-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

January is my busiest month for career change clients. So many of us reappraise where we are heading in life at the turnb of the year. And frequently, we don't like the answer.

So where to start? At the risk of wearing out an already tired cliche, career change is a journey. And any journey begins by understanding where exactly we are in the first place.

So what exactly is the issue with your current career? For example, my clients present to me with different problems. Most often they:

Can't move into the area they really want to get into
Hate their job but don't know what else they could do
Fear change even more than they hate their job
'Just wonder' what else might be out there (read: are screaming at the meaninglessness of their current jobs)
Feel overwhelmed by the choices that seem to be out there and unsure of how to choose between them
Have lost confidence in themselves / are struggling with anxiety, works stress, even depression
Just simply feel stuck and like they're going round and round in circles.

Some people also feel more than one of these, some may even have the full house. But identifying where you are is an essential first step. Facing up to the reality of the present moment is one of the fundamental principles of psychological flexibility.

I am asking you to find a place which is quiet and still. Think about your current situation in all its nuanced complexity. Then, some of the key questions you may wish to consider at this stage include:

What precisely is wrong with your current job (list the reasons)?
In each case, what would be better or preferable?
When have you experienced better or ideal working conditions? What were you doing?
What would happen if nothing changed? How would you feel, both in the short term and long term.
What are the emotions and thoughts you are feeling about your career? List them.

I think it's also a good idea to do a number of psychological tests, to establish a baseline of how you're feeling.

My tests measure levels of engagement, wellbeing and psychological flexibility. If you provide an e-mail address then you can re-take the tests as many times as you wish and compare the results over time.

In addition, Martin Seligman's tests are also excellent. Log in and complete the PANAS, Authentic Happiness Inventory and Approaches to Happiness Questionnaire at a minimum.

The final, and most important suggestion I have is to write a 3 pages autobiography of your life so far. But to get that, you have to e-mail me!

So step 1. Facing up to the reality of the present moment, as it is. If you can do it, you are on your way.

.

Your Career Change in 2011

2011-01-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

Imagine you were tired of your current house so you decide that 2011 should be the year where you move. The first thing you might do is work out a budget - a price which you feel you can afford. The second thing you might do is draw up a list of criteria which would guide the decision of which house you want to buy.

These criteria would likely be influenced by your current living arrangements. For example, you hate your commute, so you decide that something nearer the station would be better, and so on. But the criteria would also (presumably) be influenced by the kind of life you want to lead in future. For example, you might envisage having children and prefer a bigger kitchen or garden. Your criteria therefore reflect the values you wish to hold important in future.

Your budget dictates the nature and extent of the compromises you must make in relation to these values, but you will always retain control over the most important ones.

To help with the complexity of the decision, you may spend a lot of time researching possible options, or you may employ an estate agent. Either way, you will likely brace yourself for a lot of time and money spent making the right choice.

Now imagine you are changing careers in 2011. A career is, according to nearly all research, absolutely critical to our wellbeing. Using our strengths more frequently at work predicts greater happiness, resilience and creativity. Having more control over our working lives predicts lower rates of stress, coronary disease and better productivity. Yet despite this, the way most of us go about our career change involves very different processes to buying a house.

We rarely draw up a list of criteria, for example. We rarely get clear on what is essential to us and what we could compromise on, and we rarely seek professional help. Instead we scan the classifieds. We brush up our CV. We become a bit passive. We drift. The only external advice we ever seek is with people who try to 'match' our 'personality' using expensive tests which tell introverts to become librarians and engineers and extroverts to go into sales or politics.

Meanwhile, we feel the pain of rejection far more than when buying a house, so we allow our doubts to inhibit our thinking. And that's why most career changers in 2011 will end up back where they were, and career paralysis will set in.

Of course, arguing that people should use professional help to make better career decisions may sound self interested. And at some level, it is. ~~IT'S MY BLOODY BLOG.~~ But I believe in what I do and I know I can help most people make better career decisions. As a psychologist, I know the many cognitive traps and biases we make when we try to do this alone and I can help prevent these. And as a human, I really give a shit about this stuff too.

That's why I want to outline some very simple steps that can be taken to dramatically improve the chances that your 2011 career change will work. My career decision making has been designed to counteract the automatic thought processes and cognitive biases we are all prone to. What it offers is not the ideal job, but a conscious decision which brings meaning and purpose and a sense of control.

Too many people drift into a career and then stay becalmed in those safer waters. Time ticks on, and eventually the question must be: is this what you want for your life?

If your job isn't meaningful to you then I think you should read this blog in 2011. Life is too short to be spent drifting when you couold be choosing. You wouldn't do it if you were moving house, you would act with purpose to change. Why should it be any different with your career?

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More Advice on Behaviour Change

2011-01-03T02:35:00.000-08:00

This is good and complements my previous post very well:

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change

View more presentations from Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford.

How to Form a Habit in the New Year

2010-12-31T04:13:00.000-08:00

At new year it seems nearly everyone wants to change some aspect of their lives.

But as we all know, new habits are hard to form. Many of us give up before a habit has formed. So the key question is, how long should we persist before we can expect new behaviours to become automatic?

A recent study by Lally et al (2010) reviewed a range of health related behaviours, for example going for a 15 minute run before dinner, eating a piece of fruit with lunch and doing 50 sit ups after morning coffee.

Of the 82 participants who saw the study through to the end, the most common pattern of habit formation was after 66 days. However, this average figure hides the variation between participants. Some reached automaticity after 18 days and others after 254 days! It's also worth noting that even after 84 days over half of the participants had not reached automaticity. So new routines should be persisted with for at least 3 months before we may expect them to be automatic. This is longer than previously thought, and complex behaviours (like practicing mindfulness) may take longer.

But finally, what about the effect of falling off the wagon? What effect does a day off from the new behaviour have?

This study suggests that a single missed days has little impact. However, repeated missed repetitions of the behaviour do have a cumulative impact. The conclusion is that a missed day or two is fine, but be willing to come back hard if you do miss a day. And be willing to persist for at least 3 months.

For fuller details of this study go here.

New Year's Eve Fun

2010-12-31T00:37:00.000-08:00

Look, I admit it, this has nothing to do with psychology, career change, ACT, anxiety, doubt or workplace effectiveness.

No. This is just a cat in a box. And it makes me laugh out loud every time.

Happy new year to all my readers.

May 2011 bring you peace, prosperity, meaning... and the joy of a thousand cats swiping out of a thousand boxes.

I Really Like Christmas

2010-12-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas everyone.

I'm looking forward to Christmas
It's sentimental I know
But I just really like it

I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu
To be honest

And yes I have all of the usual objections to consumerism
The commercialisation of ancient religions
And the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I really like Christmas
Though I'm not expecting
A visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My sisters and brother, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don't go for ancient wisdom
I dont believe just cos ideas are tenacious
It means they are worthy

I'm ambivalent to churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords
Though the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections to miseducation
Of children forced into a cult institution and taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right or wrong
But I quite like the songs

I really like London
Though Christmas is not quite as white as I’d hoped
It’s kind of European

I'm not expecting great presents
Ye olde combination of socks, jocks and chocolate
Is just fine by me

Cos I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My sisters and brother, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a petting zoo

And you’re too young to know
But you will learn one day
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people
Who'll make you feel safe in the world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if my baby girl
When you're twenty one or thirty one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself 9000 miles from home

You’ll know whatever comes
Your brothers and sisters and me and your mum.
Will be waiting for you in the sun

Girl when Christmas comes
Your brothers and sisters
Your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins
And me and your mum.
Will be drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental I know

What Is Clarence Reading This Christmas?

2010-12-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

I had lots of interest in Clarence's views on the year's best mindfulness books, so the natural question now is what will he be reading for Christmas?

Below is a list of the books he's already started. I'll let you be the judge of his favourites so far...*

Clarence is very curious about Todd Kashdan's excellent 'Curious?'

...but less so in 'To Have or To Be' by Erich Fromm

Clarence has already absorbed many of the lessons in Ian Price's 'The Activity Illusion'. He doesn't like to say 'I told you so' but...

As for Kelly Wilson and Troy Dufrene's 'Mindfulness for 2' - WELL TELL HIM SOMETHING HE DIDN'T KNOW.

Clarence would like to wish all his readers a very happy Christmas and a mindful new year.

* The author's view is that these books are all potentially life changing.

Happiness and ambiguity

2010-12-18T05:20:00.000-08:00

I caught a moment of happiness today. It crept up on me. It was just a moment where the silent, snowy beauty of the world outside coincided with writing Christmas cards to my clients inside in the warm, with Clarence sitting on my lap. I was thinking about my clients, their bravery and warmth, and then my own journey, and my nerves and anxiety about the future. All this came into the present moment and it was all OK.

I felt happy, but not as I would have defined happiness before. I'm learning to appreciate moments for what they are, not compare them to some imagined standard of perfection. Is this just age?

Maybe, or perhaps I am just beginning to understand Professor Kelly Wilson's work on ambiguity. The extraordinary power of appreciating the moment just as it is. This means accepting discomfort, embracing imperfection, being willing to appreciate the extraordinary range of emotions available for a rich and full life.

This would all have seemed like rubbish to me only 3 or 4 short years ago. And I wonder what I would have made of this poem, then, when it has such vast power to move me, now:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Career Boot Camp

2010-12-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

Do you feel stuck in your career? Uncertain of who to ask for advice?

I have teamed up with a leading executive coach and a senior talent manager at one of the UK's leading HR Consultancies to provide a 1 day workshop designed to get people unstuck and moving forward with purpose.

Our Career Boot Camp will run early in the new year (29th January) in London, and we've designed it to help people who want to kickstart their year with purpose. Everyone who attends will leave with a clear plan of action which is based on a better understanding of their strengths and career options.

Get in touch for further details: rob@bloompsychology.com

Career Change and Anxiety

2010-12-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

Many (most?) of my clients have a huge amount of anxiety associated with career change. This is something I know well myself - my mind has the capacity to get stuck on one long anxiety loop.

The next question I get asked is whether it's a problem or not. Difficult one. With other illnesses, we can safely say there is no 'right' amount to have. But with anxiety, how do we know what the 'right' amount is? None? Are you sure?

There are some basic checks we can make for depression surrounding sleep, appetite and exercise. But for other mood disorders people want help exploring, so I wanted to show this potentially helpful site which tries to identify the level or severity of mood disorders.

Of course, this is no substitute for a visit to a GP, but there's lots of dodgy information out there - this is a good first step before going to your Doctor.

Who will you be in 2011?

2010-12-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

The new year is my busiest period, as so many people take the chance to re-evaluate their career.

This year, to ease the congestion a little, I am planning my first ever group career course.

For those of you who don't know, I am an occupational psychologist who uses evidence-based psychology to help people find the career that's right for them.

The course is designed to get people 'unstuck' from where they are and moving in a direction more suited to their skills, style and values. Everyone who attends will leave with a clear plan of action for 2011.

If this sounds like it might be useful to you, watch this space! And if you know someone who this might be useful to, why don't you pass this link on?

Double Dream Hands and Career Change

2010-12-11T02:33:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me this video and I was so impressed I knew I had to put it on my blog. But how to link it to career change or psychology? Difficult, but I've managed it below. But for now, let me take you to Planet Rock:

See more funny videos and TBT at Todays Big Thing.

The thing about working with people changing career is that I often have my own thoughts of what would be best for clients. I sit there and think 'no! don't do that, it will kill you!' or 'yes, do that, you are so suited for it!'. But very often, those thoughts are more to do with my own value system than my clients'.

Mr Double Dream Hands offers me a salutary reminder that there are people out there who are so spectacularly different to me that it almost defies belief. He doesn't look so different to me, but he has reached where he is today with a value system that says 'yes, this video is a very good idea, I must teach the world how to do the double dream hands'. And he's enjoying it. Other people may enjoy it. He looks happy doing it. And who am I to argue?

Being aware of my own thoughts and emotions in relation to my clients' careers is an excellent way of remaining objective. The alternative is to try to suppress those thoughts, but suppression doesn't work. So I say to myself 'I'm having the thought you shouldn't be a lawyer' and instead of diving in I look back at our work together, and gently probe the workability of being a lawyer.

Far more constructive. And much closer to who I want to be as a career psychologist.

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Best Books on Mindfulness...by Clarence the Cat

2010-12-08T04:09:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I use mindfulness in my work with career stress and anxiety. Mindfulness also helps people contact what they really value in life - the ability to be present is a foundation of self understanding.

I've been working with Clarence the cat for some time on his work stress and anxiety, and so I thought I'd show you the ones that he's been enjoying in our sessions this year.

'Mindfulness' by Elen Langer

'Life with Full Attention' by Maitreyabandhu

'Mindsight' by Dan Siegel

'Acceptance and Commitment Therapy' by Hayes, Wilson and Strohsahl

'Acceptance and Mindfulness at Work' by Hayes, Bond et al

Clarence is now totally accepting of his thoughts and feelings and moving in a valued direction

Do What You Love. Really?

2010-12-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

It is so easy to say 'do what you love' when it comes to careers. Indeed, lots of career advisers do say this, but I have to say I'm wary of such easy statements.

I think 'do what you love' is the sort of thing which is said by people who've either a) already been successful doing what they love or b) got an incentive in selling their services to help other people do the same.

No one is interested in speaking to the people who did what they loved and failed. No one sells career books by saying 'it depends'. But the truth is, it does depend.

A job represents one of the interfaces between ourselves and the world. Negotiating that interface is a continuous process, full of ambiguity. We need to be objective about what we really need and what we can compromise on, if we're to negotiate with any coherence.

So I think a far better test is whether your job has meaning for you. That is, does it make sense to you in terms of the life you want to lead?

If it were a free choice, would you continue on this path or change?

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Strengths vs values

2010-12-03T04:30:00.000-08:00

I often work with clients in the area of strengths and values. But what's the difference?

To explore strengths, I often use the VIA signature strengths test, and it’s worth noting that of course ‘VIA’ stands for values in action. So are strengths the same as values?

In practice I find words like ‘strengths’ and ‘values’ become a bit overwhelmed by the meanings we load on to them, so probably more for my own benefit than anything else, I wanted to rehearse my understanding of the differences.

I bet you can hardly wait...

Values are defined by Harris (2009) as chosen life directions. I like this. Simple.

Peterson (2007) described signature strengths as:

“akin to what Allport (1961) identified as personal traits. These are strengths of character that a person owns, celebrates, and frequently exercises...which bring a sense of authenticity ("this is the real me"), and a feeling of excitement while displaying them, particularly at first”.

This fits Alex Linley’s definition of a strength which is:

“a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is authentic and energising to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development and performance”.

These definitions suggest a number of contrasts with values, not least that they are 'pre-existing' not 'freely chosen', and they’re linked with feelings of excitement, ‘particularly at first’. In contrast for me, the truly liberating aspect of values is that because they are a choice, they are far less dependent on how we feel in a given moment.

It's the difference between having a marriage which is based on feelings of love, or based on a choice to love someone.

Strengths can be useful to help people evaluate what course of action to take. But it is only values which enable us to freely choose that direction, work out what we want to stand for, and avoid getting stuck.
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Working For Yourself on Snow Days

2010-12-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

One thing about working for yourself is that you are extremely vulnerable to extraordinary events. My clients cancelled their sessions today. I didn't charge them, but it soon mounts up.

The upside is that I got to work from home. I stayed up late working, then I ran to Victoria Park. And I marvelled at the beauty and strangeness and stillness of it all.

My little garden at 2am

Viccy Park - with the City and the Gherkin in the background

From here, you can see the road where I once made Naomi Campbell laugh.

Husky running in the snow!

Bow Canal. Gherkin in the background. Turn around, and you see the Olympic Park.

Beautiful trees!

Goodbye Viccy Park. Til tomorrow....

The Pros and Cons of Evaluation

2010-11-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

At the heart of any career change is a process of evaluation. Evaluation is about objectively considering what's important to you (values), what's you need from your career, and how you will go about meeting your goals.

However, evaluation has limits.

To start with, evidence from social psychology indicates that humans possess a bias toward detecting and avoiding danger. Social psychological research shows that “losses loom larger than gains” (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, p. 279). The psychologist Csikszentmihaly found that negative thoughts were 'stickier' than neutral ones, particularly those emphasizing danger. So evaluation is a core process of survival - very useful.

However, as Hayes, Gifford, & Wilson explain (1996), language extends the impact of the evaluative process beyond the immediate situation: "Human [language] means that people respond to a situation in terms of how they relate it to previous experiences and to future events. Given the tendency to emphasize losses, they may harbor a bias toward seeing the situation as threatening".

Evaluation is rarely, if ever, objective and has a tendency to reinforce existing stereotypes and self concepts, many of which may have caused the problem in the first place. This is something I have referred to in the past as functional fixedness. The trouble is, our minds (bless them) often do not detect this bias.

The dangers of evaluation show up in many other ways. For example, if someone has had an ambiguous encounter with a coworker may then they may interpret this negatively and act in more guarded ways in future, making further negative interactions more likely. A study by Biglan (2009) showed how 360 degree feedback in a school backfired and resulted in hurt feelings, resentment, and resistance, even when that feedback was largely positive. Supervisors, who themselves felt punished by these negative reactions, tended to avoid giving feedback.

Evaluation is useful in a career change but it is only one tool. It should be used with care. Rules and evaluations and judgments can help us, but they also have the ability to trap us. Words, ideas, concepts, identity - all are useful to help us describe reality.

But they should be held lightly. They are not reality.

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The Most Powerful Words to Use On Your CV

2010-11-30T08:48:00.001-08:00

Right here.

Creativity Exercise

2010-11-27T02:10:00.000-08:00

The second part of my career change process is a creative process. So I'm always on the lookout for creative techniques and tests. And here's another one - quite good fun. I scored 'average'.

Portfolio Careers and Pensions

2010-11-26T08:38:00.003-08:00

Good article from the perenially excellent Portfolio Careers Blog.

Autism

2010-11-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

I know (at least) one of my readers is interested in autism, so I wanted to post a link to this in the hope it is helpful.

http://www.simplestepsautism.com/

Paul McCartney And Doubt

2010-11-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

Hey Jude, Let it Be, All My Loving, Can't Buy Me Love, For No One, Penny Lane, We Can Work It Out, Yesterday.

Imagine writing these songs by the age of 27. Imagine how you would feel. Consider how your life might be different, how other people might treat you, how differently you'd feel about yourself. Surely if you had written songs of this quality you would feel better about your life - more content, confident, happier?

That's certainly my own assumption. As absurd as it sounds, my mind often wonders why I'm not Paul McCartney - why am I such a failure? Why can't I be like him?

Last night I watched McCartney speaking in a documentary about the making of Band on the Run. It was a timely reminder of how our minds work.

McCartney was candid about how his most dominant feeling after the Beatles was fear of failure. He felt pressure from looking all washed up by age 30. He worried about betrayal and disloyalty. And he described how his mind always tells him how he could have done more or better, and how he's never quite got it right, even when in The Beatles.

McCartney was in The Greatest Band Ever. He is a genius whose contribution to my life, and millions like me, has been unique and profound. And yet even his thinking is dominated by doubt and anxiety and fear of failure. He has a mind - just like yours and mine - which tells him he is not quite good enough.

You see, the truth is our minds work in a way that means that not even Paul McCartney is Paul McCartney. We will never good enough.

Always on the run.

Why Acceptance Is Critical To Career Change

2010-11-19T06:42:00.000-08:00

I regularly refer to Dan Wegner's research at Harvard University. He showed in a variety of studies that the more we try not to have a thought or emotion the more we get it.

This is the opposite to the external world, where if we don't want somethng we can generally avoid it. In the internal world, if we don't want something we get it even more.

Isn't that a bugger?

Actually, there are some parallels in the external world. For example, if you ever fall into quick sand (it could happen) the response your mind will give you is to struggle and try and get away. But actually, this makes the problem worse. The way to get out is to spread yourself as wide as possible, thereby distributing your weight. In other words, struggling makes the problem worse and increasing contact with the quicksand is the right response, even though that must seem counterintuitive to the mind!

Its the same with our emotions and thoughts. If we have parts of ourselves we don't like, our mind will tell us to try and get rid of that by (for example) avoiding situations which give rise to those feelings. The trouble is, this can lead us to sink deeper, because we start to avoid the things in life which are difficult but rewarding and meaningful.

Hayes (2006) has argued that an alternative approach is to increase acceptance of those negative thoughts about ourselves. One metaphor ACT uses is to encourage people to accept thoughts and feelings: “Hold them as you would hold a crying child” (Hayes & Smith, 2005, p. 130). In other words, people are encouraged to take a loving stance toward the parts of themselves they usually dislike and avoid. This is not to say they are encouraged to like or believe these ideas about themselves, but rather to learn simply to see those thoughts as just passing thoughts. In this context, it is possible for people to choose to act in keeping with their values (e.g., even if people feel inadequate, they can still work on tasks where they feel anxious or insecure).

Can you hold your negative thoughts lightly, and follow your values, even when your career change seems impossible or hopeless? Can you chip away at researching your options, even when you have the thought 'I'm going nowhere, fast'?

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What is Psychological Flexibility?

2010-11-15T01:28:00.000-08:00

I tend to rabbit on and on about psychological flexibility. Why?

Because of all the psychological phenomena that I have studied, this is the one that is of by far the most help to the people I work with. Becoming more psychologically flexible helps people not just cope with stress but to do more of what it is they really value. So what exactly is it?

Psychological flexibility is “the ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human being and to change, or persist in, behavior when doing so serves valued ends” (Biglan, Hayes, & Pistorello, 2008).

'Contacting the present more fully' means willing to be present with difficult thoughts and emotions and to accept ourselves as we are, not as we think we should be. This is a critical difference, because research shows that trying to get rid of our difficult thoughts and emotions increases their frequency, strength and duration (Wegner, 1994).

It also helps to understand psychological flexibility's opposite orientation—experiential avoidance (EA). EA is the tendency to avoid or control unpleasant thoughts and feelings, even when doing so creates problems for a person. For example, someone who has the thought that they “are stupid” may avoid situations (e.g., a classroom) that might embarrass them. However, this strategy has the effect of systematically narrowing one's options in life.

It's easy to see how EA can be a problem in career change, but empirical evidence also associates EA with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, poor work performance and chronic stress. Conversely, becoming more psychologically flexible allows people to cope with life more effectively and to derive wellbeing as a consequence of valued living.

Being psychologically flexible doesn't make life easier or more pleasant. But it makes it more vital and values-directed. And that, incidentally, is what most of my clients want from their career change; a life worth living.

How to be Kind

2010-11-13T06:10:00.000-08:00

I've written before about kindness, but today the excellent Psychologies magaine is tweeting about World Kindness Day and also have a test about kindness which you can take here. This got me thinking, most people want to be kinder but many of us feel we fail. So what does the psychology literature say about being kind?

I thought I'd start by looking at the opposite of kindness - for example prejudice and discrimination. How can we be less prejudicial towards others?

Interestingly, Dan Wegner's research shows that trying to get rid of prejudicial thoughts and replace them with kind ones is likely to increase the frequency, strength and duration of such thoughts. The alternative approach is something which I write about regularly on this blog: psychological flexibility. That is, instead of trying to change, get rid of or avoid prejudicial thoughts, we should accept them and defuse from them as literal truth. Instead of trying to change our thoughts, we should change our relationship to them.

A study by Lillis and Hayes (2007) showed that helping people to accept and defuse from their prejudicial thoughts was more useful than trying to discourage people from having such thoughts in the first place. In this study, the group which learned how to accept their thoughts but not fuse with them were far more likely to engage in behaviour which was kinder, more culturally diverse and less prejudicial than the group which received standard multicultural training.

This has profound implications because many of our past efforts to confront and challenge prejudicial thinking directly may actually have been counterproductive (Dixon, Dymond, Rehfeldt, Roche, & Zlomke, 2003; Mattaini, 1999).

Of course, we all want to be kinder. The reminder about World Kindness Day is important. But what is new is the research on psychological flexibility which shows us the psychological processes that lead people to be kind.

Not for the first time, they are not what we may have expected.

http://www.worldkindness.org.sg/

From Career Change To Career Transition

2010-11-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

I sometimes feel I need different language for career change, because it doesn't really capture the reality of what needs to happen for most of my clients.

Career change is not changing jobs. For most of my clients at least, they want to change jobs but they also want to change their lives. It is about changing identity. Identity is something that can help us make sense of the world, so it's understandable that our minds cling to it. Yet identity can just as easily limit our options. Cling too tightly to identity and we become functionally fixed. In other words, we think we can only do what we've always done and our potential narrows.

This is why career change is, at its essence, a psychological exercise. It is a process of creative reinvention in which we must geniunely think differently about ourselves, the world and the way we perceive it. Identity often needs to be slowly unfrozen and reconstructed.

This is also way 'career change' is inadequate. It is much more than a shift in your job - which is much more to do with contacts, networking and scanning the classifieds. Career change is a process of reflection and reinvention based on a better understanding of who 'you' really are. Who you really are is based on a reflection of your experience and your aspirations. There's no way round this process and no way to make it easy:

William Bridges puts this brilliantly in his book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes:

“Change is a shift in your job... it is situational. Transition on the other hand is psychological...the inner re-orientation and self-redefinition that you have to go through in order to incorporate those changes. Unless transition happens, the change won’t work, because it doesn’t ‘take’.”

Psychological Flexibility in The Workplace

2010-11-08T03:45:00.000-08:00

So many leadership courses are based on the idea that to improve performance we must firstly sort our thinking out. So we focus on motivation, confidence, self-belief or ways of controlling or removing anxiety and stress. Sounds logical enough.

The problem is whilst this approach makes such intuitive sense to us, the evidence does not support it. Our minds are expert problem solving machines which evolved to scan the environment for threat, propose hypotheses, and then prompt action to avoid, control or get rid of any threats. But when we try to apply the same techniques to our own thoughts, beliefs and emotional states, the evidence is that we make the problem worse, not better.

This may sound like a small distinction but it has profound implications for the way we learn, teach and improve performance in the workplace. In short, the evidence suggests that focusing on trying to alter, control or avoid emotional and cognitive states as the means to improving performance is flawed. From workplace stress to task concentration, innovation, depression, anxiety, OCD and even chronic pain management, all are showing that attempting to regulate our own internal states IS the problem. By trying to get rid of anxiety for example, we make enemies of our own thoughts and emotions and increase our distress.

In contrast, the alternative - psychological flexibility - gives people control over their lives, ironically by letting go of the struggle of trying to control their emotional states. It is the ability to focus on task-relevant stimuli whilst feeling negative emotions that drives better performance and reduces distress (see Gardner and Moore, 2008).

This is why I use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in my career work. It helps people move towards the life they choose whilst handling the doubts and fear that come with that move.

It's also why I'm slowly building a range of courses which use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in the workplace. This is a first for the UK, but for HR Directors and L&D managers everywhere, this is the future.

Danny Baker

2010-11-04T02:20:00.000-07:00

Danny Baker has just been diagnosed with cancer.

Danny Baker is a radio broadcaster who I used to find quite annoying. Astonishingly bright, quick witted and knowledgable, he sometimes came across as a know it all.

He isn't. He just knows a lot more than me. About everything.

If you ever listen to Danny Baker properly, you'll notice two things: his warmth and love of the absurd. He is constantly riffing from his callers, seamlessley weaving their anecdotes into those of his own. Driving his listerners foward with the strange and relentless energy of a terrier on red bull.

I once met Danny Baker on Breakfast TV. It was a strange affair, in which I was reunited with The Bobster - a dog I had taught to dance to the Match of the Day theme tune nearly 9 months previously. The Bobster was lovely, but could no more remember the moves to the tune that I could. Together, we had to perform this sorry half-routine for the nation on live TV.

It was a shameful and mortifying experience, made bearable only by the adorable Bobster who though totally unwilling to dance, never let her attention waver from me. We basically just stood there and watched each other whilst listening to music.

And at the end of our humiliation as Danny Baker and Vernon Kay looked on in horror, I remember Danny's words:

'Who said live TV was dead?'

Danny Baker. May you fight this battle and win. Your people need all the warmth and absurdity we can get.

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Career Change Statistics

2010-11-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

Over 60% of workers are not truly engaged in what they do (Towers Perrin / Gallup)
60% of employees would choose a different career if they could start again, 20% of us believe we've never had a role that suited us and 30% of employees feel their strengths would be better suited to another career (School of Life, 2008).
51% of twenty-somethings already regret their career choice and would choose a different path if they could start again (School of Life, 2008).
Given the chance to alter one thing, 25% of adults would choose a new job above anything else (Home Learning College, 2010).
Only 20% of us are happy at work (Roth and Harter, 2010).
Whilst 60% of us were content with our jobs in 1987, today the figure is close to 40%. (The Conference Board).
Approximately 1 in 10 people in the UK have a current intention to change their career. This suggests that roughly 2.5 million people might consider changing their career each year. This is likely to double over the next 20 years.(Guidance Council, 2010).

Lessons from Masterchef

2010-11-02T02:14:00.000-07:00

I've been watching Masterchef. There, I've said it.

And I love it, even though (because) pretty much every time (every single time) it makes me cry.

There's something profound about seeing this level of skill and passion laid out, raw and vulnerable. Each contestant struggles with the constant presence of self doubt, lack of confidence, anxiety. Hands shake uncontrollably as they struggle to place the final leaf on a salad, just so.

The lonely dignity of someone so utterly committed to their craft is moving enough. I mean, this is cooking that is hard to imagine exists, were you not to witness it. And they produce these unbelievable dishes in the same time as it takes me to cook my toasted sandwiches.

But it's the courage of committing to something so wholeheartedly that really gets to me. By committing to their goal, they truly expose themselves. By trying so hard, they leave no room for comfort should they fail.

How many of us commit like this? Very, very few. Most of us settle for a life of quiet comfort. We avoid at all costs any loss of dignity, the risk of appearing foolish, of being criticised. Increasingly as a society we bluff excellence. We're in jobs that don't require much of us and so we rely on our possessions to tell a tale. We worry about how much we're paid, what we look like, what others think, brands, logos.

Yet as these 3 astonishingly talented but modest chefs filed out of the kitchen this evening I knew something to be true.

When all's said and done, they will be able to look themselves in the eye and say 'I lived' in a way that most of us will not. Theirs is a life dedicated to passion rather than one where comfort slowly strangles the soul.

Theirs is a lesson not of cooking but of living.

Occ Psychs with Level A & B Experience

2010-11-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Call or email me asap for potential assessment experience overseas!

Rob - 07904 956 965
rob@bloompsychology.com

Measuring Your Career Engagement, Psychological Flexibility and Levels of Distraction

2010-11-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

This is a link to a survey we are conducting to help assist with our research into career change.

It's free for anyone to take and you can compare your scores over time by leaving a reference code or email address.

Please do try it! It would really help us out, it could be useful and it only takes around 15 minutes.

Click Here to take survey.

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Career paralysis - five reasons why our brains get stuck making career decisions

2010-10-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

I get some nice comments about my 'Career Paralysis' presentation which is very gratifying:

"I've since found the Career Paralysis slides show. This is incredibly valuable and relevant to me at this time". Grant.

"Very cool ... and a great reading list. Thanks for sharing it with me" Steve Hayes, author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life.

"How wonderful for you to have made this extraordinary presentation available on the net. its fantastic - its makes ACT enjoyable and practical - while there are fantastic PP on ACT web-site few have graphics especially engaging ones". Bernard.

"I have seen the presentation here on the website and can relate to just about all of it!" Richard.

"I just stumbled on your "5 reasons why our brains struggle..." and it's really hit the nail on the head for me. Feeling very paralyzed at trying to figure out a career path for myself!" Michael.

"Good on you! This is great stuff. You just made my day. :) Russ Harris, Author of The Happiness Trap

ps. you can download this by going here.
Best viewed in 'slide show' mode in Powerpoint - as it's animated.

Distilling the Essence of Your Value Proposition

2010-10-29T02:01:00.000-07:00

This is a useful article about how entrepreneurs can communicate their value to others.

Some highlights of the article:

Be clear: Your listener needs to understand in simple, specific terms what the heck you are talking about. Most entrepreneurs go too high and too abstract, or get way down in the weeds with technical jargon. Or they mistakenly think that teasing the listener by being mysterious is somehow clever and enticing. Instead, imagine how the Wall St. Journal or Forbes magazine might describe what you do to their readers. You are best served by offering a simple declarative statement that enables the listener to have a clear image of what it is you do.

Be credible: Too many entrepreneurs destroy their credibility by using too many empty superlative adjectives and over-hyping their value proposition, or over-stating their potential (“We’re going to be the next Google ....”). Maybe you are going to be bigger than Google, but saying that you are doesn’t make it so, nor does it help your credibility. Instead, if there is something impressive you have already accomplished that enhances your credibility (“Steve Jobs has joined our Board,” or more realistically, “We’ve already signed three paying customers”), let us know.

Be compelling: Your solution has to represent a dramatic improvement over the current state of the art, not just a nice incremental improvement. And you have to be novel or clearly differentiated – something your listeners haven’t heard before. You might be able to build a perfectly nice business if you have invented a better mousetrap, but if you really want the world to beat a path to your door, you need to offer a non-toxic technology that eliminates every single unwanted rodent in New York City. The trick is to state what is compelling in terms that are clear and credible. One of the best ways to do this is a simple metric: “We can demonstrate a 10x improvement in price-performance, based on our initial customer results.” If you have been clear about what you do, you probably don’t have to spew a bunch of market size and growth statistics; that should be obvious enough. Your Wow does not come from the size of your market, but from the size of your advantage.

Acting with Awareness - A New Study

2010-10-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I ask career changers to do is to start noticing their lives more. That is, notice what is happening in the present moment, be that something in the external environment, or thoughts or feelings experienced internally.

This awareness can help build a better understanding of what drives us, motivates us and what hooks us away from what it is we really want to do (otherwise known as experiential avoidance).

However, awareness is not enough. A brilliant new study shows that for wellbeing we must act with awareness and be willing to accept the internal states that come with that:

776 students (50% female) in Grade 10 completed measures of mindfulness, emotional awareness, and experiential acceptance, as well as measures of major personality traits. To study prospective changes, assessments of emotional well-being were completed across a 1-year interval.

Analyses revealed that "Acting with Awareness" (engaging fully in one's current activity with undivided attention), emotional awareness, and experiential acceptance were all linked to prosocial tendencies and uniquely predicted increases in well-being across the year.

Observing experience (noticing, observing, and attending to a variety of stimuli) was correlated with positive and negative aspects of personality and did not predict changes in wellbeing.

Source: Ciarrochi, J., Kashdan, T., Leeson, P., Heaven, P.C.L., Jordon, C. (2010). On being Aware and Accepting: A one-year Longitudinal Study into Adolescent Well-being. Journal of Adolescence.

It's acceptance AND commitment to action which boosts wellbeing. And that's why I study the handily named Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

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Venture Navigator

2010-10-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with my own CareerStorm Navigator, this is is a site dedicated to setting up your own business; Venture Navigator.

Venture Navigator was created by the Business Edge Consortium which cosists of the Universities of Essex, Cambridge, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow and Warwick plus The Open University.

In particular, I like the following (free) assessments:

Personal:

Leadership assessment.

Managerial assessment.

Your potential.

Business:

Five forces assessment.

General business viability.

Business Tools and Techniques.

There's also a groovy online community where you can ask questions and have clever people answer.

Nice.

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Take This Job And Shove It

2010-10-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

Quite like this.

A nice e-mail signature...

2010-10-22T01:26:00.000-07:00

Thank you Lisa Sansom!

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
--C. S. Lewis

A Brief Guide to Psychometric Testing

2010-10-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Clients are often interested in psychometric tests but not many understand what they are for. Many feel quite sceptical about them, whereas others trust them too much. Broadly speaking, there are three different types of psychometric test:

Aptitude Assessments
Aptitude tests look at your strengths and weaknesses as an employee. Aptitude tests usually focus on verbal skills, numerical reasoning and spatial awareness. Some jobs may have industry-specific tests such as creativity tests.

Personality Profiling
These tests match your personality to a career direction. Questionnaires look at aspects of character which can help to identify the environment in which you are most likely to succeed. Use the NEO-PI (or other measures of the Big 5 personality traits) for best results (and not MBTI)!

Occupational Interests
These tests (attempt to) match your answers to the career path (or paths) that interest you or which suit your style the best. Can be useful but not by themselves. Handle with care. You are a human not a type.

These assessments all have limitations. However, the better tests can be effective at helping to ensure that career decisions are made as objectively and with as much self awareness as possible. Tests must have good reliability and validity.

Further information on psychometric tests can be found at the BPS page on 'Psychological Testing: A User's Guide'.

Without doubt the most comprehensive list of psychometric tests I've seen is by my fellow Occ Psych Mark Parkinson. I couldn't hope to better this list, so here it is.

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10 Psychology Findings That Affect Career Decisions (6-10)

2010-10-19T03:09:00.000-07:00

6. It’s other people that make us happy – Csíkszentmihályi (1996)

You might not believe it, crammed onto the Northern Line, but it’s true. Evidence shows that it is isolation, not feelings of despair, which cause mental illness, depression and even suicide. This is perhaps unsurprising as being with other people and collaborating with them successfully meant that you were accepted in the tribe, which was critical to survival.

Conclusion: getting rich is unlikely to make you happy by itself. Instead, think about how you can best add value to or help others. Not only will this make you happier, it may well make you richer.

7. ‘Meaning’ is about understanding – Steger (2008)

If you want a meaningful life, you need to firstly understand your true self. Who are you? What do you stand for? Then you have to understand how you fit into the world. What do you believe in? What do you want to do whilst you’re here?

Without meaning we feel uneasy and anxious because we don’t fully understand what we’re doing. This definition of meaning can be applied for small things like understanding the meaning of a word in a sentence, or larger things like understanding our lives. Meaningful work can therefore be found at the intersection of where you use your unique strengths in a purpose that you believe in.

Conclusion: Focus on understanding what you uniquely offer, and then focus on understanding what sort of cause you want to contribute to. If you’re consistently doing that the end result will bring meaning.

8. Control over our work lives is critical - Langer and Rodin (1976), Whitehall study (2005)

A famous experiment in 1976 by Langer and Rodin showed that if elderly people were given a plant to care for they had much higher levels of happiness than if they were given a plant but the nurse cared for it. This finding has been repeated many times in many ways. The Whitehall Study is a large-scale experiment which showed that those with less control over their daily work schedule had poorer health and died younger than those who had great control. If you are looking to be happier in your work, look for ways in which you can increase your control over it.

Conclusion: ask yourself how you could exert greater control over your working life. What could you learn or train in that would help you? What role or field would you feel more in control in?

9. Goals work – e.g. Nicholls (1990)

The brain evolved to solve lots of different problems in different situations and it is very good at it. That’s why only motile organisms have a brain in the first place. There is evidence to suggest that even just writing down a goal will help you achieve it.

Conclusion: if you’ve been thinking about a career change for a long time, action beats thinking.

Finally...

10. There is magic in starting something

OK, this one can’t be proven, but we believe it intuitively. Once you commit to doing something bold, strange forces move to help you and opportunities open up. People you meet respond differently, the nature of conversations changes, you read about things that could help, you chance upon solutions. If you make choices repeatedly based on your vision, your values, your highest talents, you shift the whole universe to act in your favour. Doing work you love becomes somehow inevitable.

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10 Psychology Findings That Affect Career Decisions (1-5)

2010-10-18T02:01:00.001-07:00

1. We’re poor at decision making – Kahneman & Tversky (1979), Gilbert (2004)

When weighing up the costs and benefits of a decision, we make two errors. First, we overestimate the probability of failure in a new direction because of our negative bias. Second, we underestimate the benefits of change because we fail to imagine or visualise the results of that change in much detail. This has been shown time and again, not least by Dan Gilbert.

Conclusion: we have to think differently about career decision making. Firstly, we need to become more aware of our successes and achievements. Second, we should try to visualise what we actually want in life in greater detail. Sounds obvious. Not many do it.

2. Our brains are pre-wired for survival, not fulfilment – Maslow (1943)

We’re survival machines. Our brains think evolved to anticipate and predict the worst and we try to eliminate this risk. That’s why our cognitive functions and emotions evolved too – and why we’re 3 to 5 times more sensitive to negative stimuli than positive.

But as Maslow predicted, once we have survival we adapt and want fulfilment. And fulfilment isn’t created by avoiding risk, or by surviving. Happiness, after all, is not the absence of sadness. Fulfilment often requires us to imagine something better and to take risks to achieve it.

Conclusion: your brain will protest if you consider something new, but fulfilment probably depends on it. Fulfilment is about contributing something unique to a cause you believe in. And remember we adapt and learn from failure – very few decisions are irreversible.

3. We learn helplessness – Seligman (1975)

Let’s say you fail once at something. Then you try and fail again. The third time you don’t try quite so hard so you fail again. Then you give up. You stop trying. This is known as ‘learned helplessness’ and it is amazingly easy to induce. In fact, it’s possible to induce learned helplessness in about 2 minutes.

When we think about our careers we often come at it from the perspective of a learned helplessness. When all you’ve done is what you know, it’s hard to imagine that you could do anything else.

Conclusion: being aware of where you may have learned helplessness is a good first step. But second, ask yourself how useful these thoughts are to the achievement of your goal.

4. Negative emotions are to be expected – Hayes (1998)

We often treat emotions like fear and anxiety as though they must be avoided, when in reality they are an inevitable part of growth – and of being human. Equally we often treat our internal thoughts as representing the ‘truth’, when in reality they are just thoughts. Many people try to avoid negative emotions or ‘fight’ the pain, but research shows that being willing to accept these thoughts whilst progressing towards your valued outcomes is more effective.

Conclusion: Negative emotions are an inevitable part of any activity where we learn and grow. Acceptance of negative emotions whilst continuing to make progress towards one’s valued goals is a far more effective strategy than avoiding or fighting them. (If you feel the need to beat your negative emotions first, check that the valued outcome is valuable enough and check that you are truly willing to accept the emotions that come with it).

5. Happiness is not a luxury –Fredrickson (2000)

Many people see work as something to be endured. But happiness has consistently been shown to lead to better health, longer life and more productivity. Barbara Fredrickson’s famous ‘broaden and build’ theory explains why people who regularly experience positive emotions show heightened levels of creativity, inventiveness, and "big picture" perceptual focus. These experiments have also shown positive emotions play a role in the development of long-term resource such as psychological resilience and flourishing. However, it is happiness as the side product of meaning and engagement that counts. Hedonic happiness cannot be controlled!

Conclusion: The fact is, being happy is as likely to make you more successful at work, than less. However, chasing happiness by trying to limit our exposure to unhappy thoughts is a trap!

Attention Bias, Career Change and Getting Stuck

2010-10-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this video.

Most people don't spot it, but even if you do it illustrates the limitations of our attention. In short, we see what we expect to see. For a career changer, this brings serious drawbacks.

For a start, we tend to believe the stories we build up about ourselves. The mind is a consummate story teller, but it is not a faithful recounter of truth. It's less Reuters than Tass.

So our attention bias tends to limit our own view of ourselves. We become a 'type' of person with a certain degree of intelligence, a personality and a set of career matches....all staples, incidentally, of career coaches.

Yet these categories are just as likely to be limiting, inaccurate and even toxic as they are to be accurate, liberating and fulfilling. Our categoiries should be held lightly. Personality is a useful concept but should be no more than an input to a career decision. Ultimately humans can't be boxed into types. It has to be about conscious choice.

Career matching tests, psychometric tests, coaching, all have the capacity to reinforce categories which hinder more than they help. The reason we get stuck is not because we see the world as it is, but we see the world as we are.

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Advice to Live By

2010-10-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

By Rachel Collis.

'Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after -- lightly because you realize you never paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again.'- Louise Erdrich

In my twenties I was a junior hospital doctor. The nature of that work is that you spend a lot of time with people who are close to death. And the experience taught me two things - firstly, to cherish life, as you never know when it will end, and secondly, that those who had loved well and put effort into something that they were passionate about seemed to face death with more ease than those who had focussed on gathering wealth and status.

There was a beautiful show on Radio 4 some years ago called 'Advice to the Living' which was advice from people with terminal disease. I still remember one of the people saying:

'Am I loved? Am I loving well? When all else has been stripped away this will still remain'

Advice to live by.

Lessons from a Chilean Mine

2010-10-14T01:43:00.000-07:00

So, what now?

Florencio Avalos had just escaped from a dark, sweltering hole in which he must have assumed he would die. But now he had a chance for life, and his response was salutary:

"I've been buried for 40 years of my life. The truth is I'm going to be living more, along with my wife and daughters".

Death sheds light on what's important about life. Just as sorrow deepens our capacity for joy, we need death to remind us to live.

When I tried to imagine what I would want to do in this situation I realised I would worry less about happiness or stress or image, and more about life. More work, better work, more attention to friends, more present with clients, try more, fail more, live more.

Yet in the humdrum of daily routine it's easy to wander through our days largely on autopilot. We don't notice the autumn trees. How we disconnect from others over time. How our jobs, roles, identities can steal time from us.

"Welcome to life." Those were the words uttered to each miner by the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, as they arrived at the top of the mine shaft in the narrow and battered pod that hauled them.

Well, welcome to life. What now?

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The Dangers of Positive Thinking

2010-10-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Brilliant.

Russell Brand on the Meaning of Fame

2010-10-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

In an interview with Jeremy Paxman:

' I myself was seduced by fame, growing up in Essex, and I thought 'Yes, I want to be famous.' And now that I am famous, what does it mean? Ashes in my mouth. We should try to examine the things that we're using to make us happy - this pursuit of celebrity, wealth, status, consumption of products, ignorance of ecological and economic matters, and try to aspire to something more truthful and honest.'

Values Clarification

2010-10-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

Values are slippery concepts. Not goals, not feelings, they are chosen direction in which to travel. Essentially, they signify what's important to us in life.

However, I think it's useful to distinguish between values in action and aspired values. Values in action are what we actually do. They are what we make time for and therefore what we prioritise. Aspired values are what we aspire to do. Clearly, the ideal situation is a large overlap between values in action and aspired values, but this is often not the case. We drift through life mindlessly prioritising things that don't really matter. For years I prioritised making money with a vague aspired value of status, only to realise my aspired value was actually meaning.

That's why some values clarification work is useful in career psychology sessions. For people who want to try this kind of thing at home, I think this exercise is one of the best I can find on the web. Let me know what you think. For what it's worth, here are my top 6 - remarkably similar to other tests I've used.

Loneliness and the Career Changer

2010-10-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

The brilliant coach Rachel Collis writes about loneliness and dating in her blog.

I think loneliness can impact career changers too. It's common for people to be fighting their feelings alone - they're under pressure to fulfil a certain role and have come to be defined and known through their work. Other people can be as vested in that role as they are, so change can seem daunting and isolating.

Consciously meeting people who 'get' the need to change is essential, I think. I certainly found that's something I needed to do. The majority of my friends stuck through it with me, but I remember the silence of others and how bad that felt.

Rachel's advice is to put effort into building and maintaining a supportive network of friends and family so that you aren't so vulnerable. I think that's right, and the effort bit matters. I'd add that practicing your story for why the change is needed is essential because it helps others to relate towhat you're doing.

This is important because at some level, your career change is likely to be something they admire and fear in equal measure.

This October

2010-10-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

Why not use one of them to make a bold move?

Source: http://www.learnsomethingeveryday.co.uk/

The Age of Outrospection

2010-09-29T04:04:00.000-07:00

Nearly everyone I work with wants their life to be meaningful and fulfilling. My own research indicates that meaning is something that can be accurately predicted and defined. And one of the things that predicts it best is the idea of a transcendent purpose - an objective beyond your own interests. This does not have to be 'good' or 'worthy', but is more akin to Steve Jobs' idea of 'denting the universe' - impacting something beyond just yourself.

It's interesting to note that a transcendent purpose is something you can choose. It is not a trait, or even a state. It's more like a goal or a vision, but is also enduring like a value.

What a transcendent purpose leads to is an attitude of openness and curiosity about the world. And one of the key attributes that this outlook teaches over time, is empathy.

Empathy is an idea whose time has come. Introspection is essential, and indeed I use psychology primarily to enhance self awareness. But self awareness is only ever part 1 of a journey to find meaning.

Meaning can't be found in isolation, it can only be found by understanding the interaction between ourselves and the world around us. This involves empathy.

The brilliant Roman Krznaric at the School of Life has a better word for this. He argues that if the 20th century was the age of introspection, the 21st century must be the age of outrospection. And to examine this further, he writes a brilliant blog of the same name.

Making decisions

2010-09-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Psychology is frustrating because it seems at once to offer no answers at all and at the same time to prove things which are obvious. But occasionally, it strikes at the heart of something.

Robert Cialdini's book, Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion, describes an experiment whereby 17% of people agreed to have an enormous ugly billboard reading "Drive Carefully" erected in their front gardens. Two weeks earlier, a subgroup of residents had agreed to display a three-inch-square notice saying "Be A Safe Driver". Revealingly, 76% of those who agreed to the large billboard agreed to the smaller one.

The point is this is how most of us make decisions. Even big ones, like career choices. We drift into jobs often through chance, sometimes because it's what's expected of us or because it pays well or because we've done something similar before. But this small decision is likely then to shape a huge part of the rest of your life, because humans justify their decisions to themselves after the event. We seek consistency, above all.

As Oliver Burkeman says: Partly, this is a matter of keeping up appearances: if you've presented yourself as committed to road safety, you may fear, albeit subconsciously, giving a contradictory impression.

This is where career psychology can offer some insight. We need to know ourselves better, and as objectively as possible, if we are to make sound decisions. Otherwise we risk falling into something, then justifiying our decisions for the rest of our lives.

Mindfulness on the way home

2010-09-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

I just stopped and looked for a while.

Incredibly, my busy and important world didn't fall apart.

Steve Hayes at UCL

2010-09-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

Spent the last 2 days in a workshop with Steve Hayes, creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

To say the least, it is challenging. A common experience to nearly everyone is to feel lost and confused. And yet. ACT is taking off . Something resonates.

What?

For me, it is clear. ACT appeals to head and heart.

The appeal to the heart is that human pain is inevitable and normal. Even useful. This is a relief from the cutlural assumption that we can and should be happier. I know, deep down, that emotional control doesn't work, but having a way of renegotating my relationship to those thoughts helps a lot. Seeing the context of thoughts change allows me to live a more meaningful life - it's the thorn in the service of the rose. This is why, in my view, ACT represents the future of positive psychology.

And then the head. ACT has a growing body evidence to suggest it works in everything from chronic pain to workplace stress. From anxiety and depression to OCD. That's important, but perhaps even more important is that it is based on a clear theoretical premise, so there's has an explanation not just that something works but why. Having a theory-based intervention allows us to predict mdeiators (or mechanisms) of change, so we begin to understand the process of why something works as well as the simple fact that it works. That's what Relational Frame Theory brings.

It's a huge challenge to sit in a Steve Hayes workshop when I have a business to run. I panic when I think of the time I've spent training (over 5 years now). But each time I learn a little more and my head and heart tell me that this is what being a psychologist is truly about.

50 Side Businesses To Set Up From Home

2010-09-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

From The Guardian, some useful suggestions for side businesses you could set up to help finance a career change.

Watch your mind as you read - it will say things like:

1. I've read all this sort of stuff before
2. That's fine for someone else, but not me
3. I could never do that
4. I would look like a fool / cheap / a failure

See if you can notice those thoughts, thank your mind for its input and go deeper into the option. If you can find something that allows you to cling on financially, one of these options could help you make your escape plan work and help you find freedom.

In the Arena

2010-09-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

"It's not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with the sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause and who, at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt.

Job Hunting Tips

2010-09-21T03:16:00.000-07:00

from The Onion:

Today's job market is more competitive than ever. Here are some tips to help give you the edge:

Make sure your résumé is free of spelling and grammatical errors, grease stains, crumbs, blood splatters, and bits of hair and gristle.
Be aggressive: Don't be afraid to call a potential employer every few hours and say, "Is there an opening yet? How 'bout now? How 'bout now? Now?"
When waiting for a job interview and a fellow applicant is there, strike up a conversation. Then, when it's your turn to be interviewed, stand up and say, "See ya, sicko." Explain to the interviewer that he invited you to a goat-sex orgy.
If you attended Harvard, Yale, or another prestigious Ivy League institution, don't bother noting this on your résumé. Or even creating a résumé at all. Just have one of the other assholes from your school get you a job.
Be sure to pronounce résumé "REH-zoo-may," which means "a list of one's accomplishments and qualifications," and not like the word "resume," which means "to unpause Resident Evil 3."
After providing a contact number for your "former employer at Merrill Lynch," be sure to change your answering machine to say, "Hi, this is Merrill Lynch, we're not in right now."
If, during an interview, you sense that they have detected one or more of the falsehoods in your résumé, throw a smoke bomb on the floor and escape in the ensuing confusion.
When a job application asks you to list "Reason You Left Previous Job," make it clear you were not at fault. Write, "Boss was total Nazi."
Have a long history of experience in the field you're applying for and glowing recommendations. Either that, or print your résumé on really nice, heavyweight ivory paper.
Post your résumé online. This will give it an air of authority and legitimacy that only the Internet can confer.
When writing a cover letter to a prospective employer, stress that, although you used to admire their company, they totally suck now, but that if they hire you, you can help make them great again. That will definitely work.

Love after love

2010-09-16T16:26:00.001-07:00

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

(Derek Walcot, 1930 - )

Career Paralysis - Five Reasons Why Our Brains Get Stuck Making Career Decisions

2010-09-09T16:10:00.001-07:00

Well, over 4,000 people read the first version, but this one is better!
If you're in career paralysis and want to get out, read this.

ps. you can download this by going here.
Best viewed in 'slide show' mode in Powerpoint - as it's animated.

Career paralysis (pt 2) - Untangling Your Thoughts and Finding Your Direction

2010-09-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

Part 2 is all about getting out of career paralysis. Includes loads of free ideas to get unstuck and heading in a meaningful direction.

Warning: These presentations contain humour.

View more presentations from Rob Archer.

Happiness and Meaning

2010-09-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

When I was in my 20s and early 30s I dedicated my life (outside of work) to the pursuit of what you might call happiness. I was the life and soul of the party (transl. got very drunk indeed), went on fantastic holidays, bought nice things and generally lived a great life.

And slowly I grew depressed.

In 2003 I read a book called Authentic Happiness in which Martin Seligman explained how there were three different types of happiness.

The Pleasant life
Consisting of having as many positive emotions as frequently as possible.

The Engaged life
Achieved by knowing your highest strengths and using these as often as possible.

The Meaningful life
Consisting of using your highest strengths in the service of something that you believe in.

I intrinsically knew that this was true. Overall life satisfaction is not just a function of pleasure, it is a function of engagement and meaning.

On holiday, even my famous koala impressions brought only superficial happiness.

But I think that 'happiness' is most often interpreted as the pleasant life - in other words maximising the number of positive thoughts and emotions one has in any given day. Society certainly points us this way. Dare I say it, so does Martin Seligman. The trouble is this is a very poor strategy for pursuing meaning, and it was meaning that I lacked. That's why, for me at least, happiness is a trap.

Meaning involves taking a stand, following your values and quite often, change. But in turn these things bring anxiety, doubt and worry. In my case, I had to relinquish the pursuit of the pleasant life (or happiness) to pursue meaning. It was that stark.

There's nothing wrong with having a pleasant life, and I am quite sure some of Seligman's techniques can work to increase our 'happiness thermostats' from their set point. But now I think, why bother? I've realised you can't have the good without the bad (see Ryan and Deci, 2001) and if you have happy thoughts as a goal you compromise the pursuit of a meaningful life.

I think you have to be prepared to let go of happiness in order to find it.

So, does it work? Does letting go of happiness and pursuing meaning paradoxically bring happiness? Well, the honest answer is no, not for me. My levels of stress and anxiety have gone through the roof since pursuing meaning. I am not happier, at least in the way I have been programmed to understand the term 'happiness'.

But my struggle for meaning has brought a certain amount of compassion towards myself, too, and this affords me more strength to be compassionate to others. I am more grounded and stable than I was before and I feel far more purposeful. And slowly I'm feeling a certain amount of pride in what I'm trying to do. I even cry during My Way. All of this brings a form of happiness, but not as I would have defined it before.

As I write, shafts of sunlight escape the cloud and bathe the room with light. For a few moments I am typing with sunshine on my back. Happiness feels like that. Temporary, welcome, but out of my control.

.

The Real 'Secret'

2010-09-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

At the weekend, Oliver Burkeman highlighted the exciting sequel to 'The Secret' - 'The Power'.

Not, unfortunately, a homage to the legendary Phil 'The Power' Taylor but instead just some more bollocks on the magentic attraction of positive thinking etc etc.

The trouble is, this rubbish is easy to ridicule but the essential idea - that we can alter the content of our thoughts - has widespread following.

Career coaches are particularly guilty. They sell the promise that you too can discover your 'real' values and strengths, identify a 'true vocation' and that following a life of meaning and purpose will make you happier. Positive Psychology has carried this meme far into our brains.

Don't get me wrong; strengths, values, meaning and purpose are all essential ideas to explore as part of career change. But seeing them as a means of achieving happiness is a dangerous myth.

Wanting to be happier in life sounds seductively achievable. All we need to do is feel happy thoughts more often, and negative thoughts less often. In practice, this must mean replacing negative thoughts with happy ones, and avoiding situations that give rise to negative feelings.

This would be fine, except for the rather inconvenient evidence that suggests trying to control the content of our thoughts DOES NOT WORK. Avoiding negative thoughts is likely to increase the strength and frequency of those thoughts. And avoiding situations which give rise to negative thoughts leads to experiential avoidance - a strategy that is associated with depression and other mental health problems.

When faced with a career choice we want to feel happier and have more meaning in our lives. But ironically, life juxtaposes the two to confuse us. Pursuing a more meaningful course of action is likely to give rise to negative feelings, at least in the short term. But what you get in return is a life in which you can look yourself in the eye, and do the things that really matter.

And that's the real Secret.

The Secret:
if you really wish hard enough, it might just go away

Walking away

2010-09-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

Career change is ultimately about loss. It's no surprise that the root meaning of choice is 'to cut off' - we are cutting off the alternative. In the context of career change, this often means cutting off part of our old lives in order to start anew.

Humans have to do this in many different areas of their lives, of course, and this poem, Walking Away by C Day-Lewis, describes this beautifully as he watches his son go into school. I find it unbearably moving.

And I know in my own work with clients that the same words apply to career change too. A process of letting go is needed for us to move forward, but its necessity makes it no less painful.

This is my testimony to those who are in this painful situation now. If this is you, can you find the courage and compassion to let go of your past and embrace an uncertain future?

Can your love be found in the letting go?

Walking Away
This poem first appeared in the colleciton The Gate and Other Poems, published in 1962. It is dedicated to Day-Lewis's first son, Sean.

It is eighteen years, almost to the day -
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I can never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give and take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show -
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

.

Career Paralysis - 10 great free resources

2010-09-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

This is basically a list of brilliant articles, ideas, pamphlets and exercises about the process of career change.

As a regular reader of this blog, no doubt you will be shocked to learn that there are other, nearly as brilliant writers about career change out there. Well, there are. They are out there. And they are nearly as brilliant.

One such example is Roman KrZnaric. Roman has the soul of a poet but the brain of a scientist. Much of what he says has empirical evidence behind it, even if he doesn't reference it, and his brilliant pamphlet Work and the Art of Living can be downloaded here.
Two of the best careers blog posts I've read are by Seth Godin here and by George Monbiot here oh and by Seth again here. And the best careers speech ever is here and the best speech about using one's passion at work is here.
In this article, Bill Taylor asks how much would it take for you to leave your job.
Next up is Barrie Hopson's excellent blog on portfolio careers. This is an absolute treasure trove of information for those looking to diversify their income and Barrie's books are highly recommended. (Though admittedly they aren't free).
There are many different tests out there, but one of the best resources I've come across is this one - a kind of meaning or values generator. Good fun!
In terms of practicalities (i.e. getting a job as opposed to career direction), the Guardian's career website is as good as it gets.
I think financial awareness is nearly as important as psychological awareness in career change. This is a fun and creative response to the need to start saving, and this is the site to use if you'd prefer something a little more direct and to the point, and here is the FSA's site which is meant to be 'independent and jargon free'.
I think this is a great site for tools, tests and resources to think creatively about your life, and by extension career.
Dare I say it so is this...(shameless self promotion)
I do like a good quote, so I recently blogged about the best inspirational career quotes. Please do add your own and if you know of any great free resources, please do let me know!

Your career if you don't read my blog

Career Paralysis - Further Reading

2010-09-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

I wanted to provide a list of books that have helped and inspired me in my own career change and which I also now use in my day to day work with my career clients.

Note that the first couple of books must be used with care - too many career coaches focus on self understanding as a kind of panacea - follow your strengths etc. But this ignores context, and in real life clients need tools to help them cope with the messiness of real life. That's what this list of books provides in abundance:

Best for getting organised: What Color Is Your Parachute? Dick Bolles

Close second: Finding Square Holes by Anita Houghton

Best for using non-logical approaches to getting unstuck: Getting Unstuck by Tim Butler.

Best for understanding strengths: Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman.

Best for inspiration: How to Find the Work You Love by Laurence Boldt

Best for understanding how we get stuck: The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.

Best for getting into action: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steve Hayes and Spencer Smith.

Best for understanding cognitive biases: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

Best antidote to 'thinking happy' (but still remaining positive): Curiosity by Todd Kashdan.

Enjoy!

HBR Interview - Creativity and Dance

2010-09-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

As part of my research into creativity and career change I came across this brilliant interview with choereographer Mark Morris.

Quote:

Q: What do you think accounts for your company's success?

A: I think the reason we are so popular with audiences is we don't lie or bluster. We don't inflate ourselves. The dancers dance honestly—that's the best thing I can say about them. Indeed, one of the things I scream about the most is "fake, fake, fake," or "chicken, chicken, chicken." I want the dancers to reach a level of authenticity that is surprising—not only to audiences but also to themselves. In the end, we have to mean what we're doing or else it's all worthless.

That's the point about genius, really. It involves both skill and honesty. Consider Maria Callas, whom we all loved and adored even though she was singing so horribly flat half the time. Yet she had this terrific authenticity. Horowitz made lots of mistakes playing the piano, but it worked because it's not about playing note perfect. That doesn't mean that you have to be touchingly imperfect to be a genius, but you do have to be real. And that's the essence of my company: We are real people who are incredibly skilled.

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Creativity in practice

2010-09-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

A classic mistake in career decision making make is to take a possible new career - let's say psychology - and then reject it because we don't like the psychology-related job ads we read in the paper.

Because we generally know what we don't like, but are far less clear about what we do like, the new option is easily discounted because it ticks more negative boxes than positive. As Dan Gilbert argues, we don't compare the past with future possibility on equal terms.

This was the mistake made by yours truly about 6 years ago. It cost me a year of inaction and further pointless deliberation.

However, if I had been willing to sit with my interest in psychology, imagine its possibilities, and not worry so much about my thoughts at the time (i.e. 'this is a waste of time!') then I could have set off on my path earlier. That's time I'll never get back.

If you're in this position, can you notice the urge to get rid of options and to close down creative thought? Could you be willing to go deeper into an option you're not sure about? Play with it? Cross it with something else (try my Creative Problem Solving booklet for ideas here). Can you try inventing a story that includes the option? Or imagine yourself at 80 having tried at it and succeeded?

As this fascinating study shows, thinking from these perspectives allows self understanding to develop at a more abstract level.

Your mind won't enjoy it - it will protest this is a waste of time and you should be analysing your options. But if your mind really knew best then you wound't be looking to change career.

Willingness and creativity

2010-09-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that refers to our tendency to "see an object only in the way it is traditionally used'.

This bias has been shown to apply to our own identities, hence our tendency to think that we can only do what we've always done. Not a great strategy when what we've always done has made us miserable...

To offset functional fixedness, career change must involve a creative process. We need to sneak up on the mind to think anew about our options.

Many people think of creativity as a skill, or a talent. Yet creativity is really neither - it is a choice. At the heart of this choice is a willingness to sit with ambiguity and imperfection. Although creativity often sounds sexy and analysis dull, in reality our mind far prefers analysis. It craves certainty.

Yet if we reach for certainty too early, we terminate a conversation with ourselves just at the point when it's getting interesting.

If you know a career changer...

2010-08-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

This is what they need:

Advice.
Tea.
Opinions.
IT support.
A beer.
The odd text.
Spotify suggestions.
A good laugh.
The odd comment on a blog (mentioning no names, Rachel)
A good cry.
You to buy the drinks.
Referrals, recommendations and general word of mouthiness.
You to mention them to that friend of yours who could be looking for someone.
Your custom (if appropriate).
Patience.
To hear stories of people who hung in there and succeeded.
That you 'get it'.
Honesty.
And tact.
Probably by now another beer. (And yes, it's your round again).
Belief.

But above anything else...they need you to tell them how much you admire their guts for trying.

The Non Paradox of Choice

2010-08-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Paradox of Choice offers a well known critique of the assumption that more choice is better. It argues that in fact the greater the choice the more stuck and dissatisfied we become.

The argument rests on a number of studies, the most famous of which is set in a grocery store where customers were offered a sample of 24 different flavors of jam and then afterwards a sample of only 6 flavors of jam. With 24 flavours, more people came to the table, but only 1/10th as many actually bought jam.

This paradox seemingly shows up everywhere, from pension funds to speed dating. And indeed I have used the paradox of choice to help explain Career Paralysis - a situation where people hate their jobs, but get stuck when they try to think about all the alternatives.

The trouble is that as with any seemingly intuitive life rule, reality is far closer to 'it depends' than it is to the rule.

Recent research has questioned the existence of any such paradox. A meta analysis by Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd in January 2010 found the overall effect of 'choice overload' was virtually zero: "We could not explain when and why an increase in assortment size can be expected to reliably decrease satisfaction, preference strength, or the motivation to choose," the authors write.

Indeed, sometimes they found that more choices actually facilitates choice and increases satisfaction, exoecially if we have strong prior preferences or expertise. (This is why in career decision making it's so important to enhance self understanding and build a clear set of decision criteria).

But we should all beware of the 'big idea' book which seems to explain a general rule about human behaviour. Beware of experts who seem to peddle easy solutions to difficult situations.

9 times out of 10 there is no general rule. In psychology, context is everything.

Career quotes

2010-08-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some nice quotes that have resonated with me over the years, but I'd love to hear more - do let me know.

It may get tough, but that's a small price to pay for living a dream.
Peter McWilliams

Most of the important things in life have been accomplished by people who kept trying even when there appeared to be no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
Frank Tibolt

Don't be afraid your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.
Grace Hanson

No amount of security is worth the suffering of a life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.
Uknown

The lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul.
Khalil Gilbran

The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe to be great work. the only way to do great work is to do what you love. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
Steve Jobs

Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable.
An entrepreneur does not yearn for the key to the executive loo.
Carl Mortishead

I honestly think it's better to be a failure at something you love than a success at something you hate.
George Burns

The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.
Unknown.

Year after year, the monkey's mask
reveals the monkey.
Basho

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On the danger of psychometrics and career matching tests

2010-08-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Much of what occupational psychologists do makes me uneasy. Not as uneasy as the legions of career coaches who offer to help people based on a 2 day course in NLP but that's another story.

Psychologists are very keen to put people into boxes. We like to label people - schizophrenic, depressed, anxious. For occupational psychologists we like ENFP, conscientious, emotionally intelligent. Of course, most of these labels are useful because they have good reliability and validity.

However, when we use labels such as these we must be mindful that we are creating a reality as much as describing one. And, particularly in the field of career psychology, I think there's a danger that we are reinforcing a kind of paternalistic role model that may even be the root cause of the issue.

Freedman and Combs (1996) write: "Speaking isn’t neutral or passive. Every time we speak, we bring forth a reality. Each time we share words we give legitimacy to the distinctions that those words bring forth.”

Anyone who's seen the TfL advert will know we tend to see things that confirm what we seek. In career decision making we tend to see behaviours or judgments which confirm our existing views of ourselves and owe believe psychometric tests which are in any case only modified versions of what we have told ourselves in the first place.

But the unquestioned use of labels and categories can consolidate problems that the client is experiencing and reify something which perhaps did not exist - or half existed in the messy, ambiguous reality of being a human.

The science of decision making and the art of possibility

2010-08-24T02:24:00.000-07:00

Dan Gilbert argues that one of the reasons we aren't great at making decisions is because we tend to compare against our past experience, not against what's possible. We have a a rich understanding of choices taken, but only an abstract idea of the choice not taken.

Usually, our future possibilities are not that well defined in our minds, so it's our experience of the past which dictate the decisions we make for the future. We're bad at estimating the odds of our future gains and the value of our present pleasures.

Conservatism - and consumerism - is usually the result.

The conductor and teacher Ben Zander deals with this cognitive bias by giving all of his students an ‘A’ for their report for the year, in the first two weeks of the course.

In return for this exceptional grade, Zander asks his students to write a letter dated the following year, in which they describe the person they have become to justify this grade. He then asks them to fall passionately in love with this person.

This is a perfect example of how articulating a future, and imagining it more vividly, allows us to live in possibility rather than being defined by the patterns of the past.

Monitoring internal dialogue

2010-08-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin writes intriguingly today about monitoring one's internal dialogue. I think it's imperative to do the same when making important decisions, especially career decisions. Why?

It comes down to a simple idea: your mind is not your friend and it is not your enemy. It is an evolved problem solving organ whose primary responsibility is to keep you alive.

It's like having a very loyal, very powerful dog outside your house. Your dog will deter intruders, keep you safe, protect you. But, if you let it, it may also deter friends. Its instinct is to prevent you from leaving the house at all. If you let it, it will make your life smaller in the service of safety.

But what language has given us is the unique ability to examine our own thoughts - metacognition. By seeing thoughts as having a specific role, we can begin to see when they are useful to the kind of life we want to lead, and when they are not.

Perhaps some of the thoughts in your career decision are like the dog. Well meaning but limited. By being willing to examine our thoughts, we can become better at recognising why we're making decisions.

If your next career decision is about staying safe, well that's fine. But if your life is about more than staying safe - living a vital or a meaningful life for example - you could do worse than read Seth's post. And start bringing that dog to heel.

Identifying a bold move

2010-08-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's worth asking once in a while whether the way you're living reflects the way you want to live.

If the answer is no, may I ask, gently and with due deference to your no-doubt logical decision making processes, when exactly you will start?

I often get my clients to identify a 'bold move' in the direction of their values, because they are often so stuck that making no decision is beginning to look suspiciously like a decision.

Start by picking a value that reflects what you really want from life and then think about how it could be expressed more fully. What would it be like if you had a project which gave full expression to that value? The move can be anything at all, but it must be an action and not a thought.

For example, a common value amongst my clients is freedom. This may not be surprising when we're routinley told to try and fit our identities into a job 'role' which goes on to define most of our waking hours. So freedom is a value that often feels encroached.

How could you set up a project which lives the value of freedom more fully? The project would define the next steps to make this possible and the order in which they’re taken.

Some examples:

You define freedom as 'creative freedom' and set aside every Saturday morning to work on a creative project. With a deadline of 3 months you will deliver the result to someone, somewhere, without apology.
You define freedom as 'time freedom' and make a plan that will allow you to work 4 days a week, or 1 day from home. Yes, I am serious.
You define freedom as 'physical freedom' and set yourself the challenge of walking the highest peaks in Britain* next year.
You define freedom as 'autonomy' and make a project to earn money from something that excites you. This can start small - for example selling cards on e-bay or to friends. But your plan could be scalable - for example making a website (very easy) or blog (even I can do that) to sell things from.

NOTE: what your mind will immediately give you is reasons why you can't do this. I encourage you to thank your mind - it's just trying to keep you safe bless it - and to carry on. You're in control of your decisions, not your thoughts.


What's your bold move?

* Or Peru, for any Peruvian readers.

The role of inspiration in career change

2010-08-19T03:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes after sessions, clients will tell me they feel inspired into action. And this always makes me wary.

It's nice and everything, but feeling inspired is like assuming you've reached your destination when you see it on the map.

Emotions convey information and using mindfulness in career decision making allows us to listen more clearly to that information. But when it comes to moving into action emotions are unreliable.

What we most value in life and what we most fear are two sides of the same coin. If you want meaning in your life, then there's a price to pay for that. In my case, it's anxiety, self doubt, insecurity. But whatever shows up first when you move towards your values will be negative emotions.

So if you rely on the feeling of inspiration to act, you'll be at the mercy of these conflicting emotions. It's far better to use inspiration to choose a course of action and then to be willing to experience whatever comes with that choice.

Ultimately, this is what will free you to move into a new career - not because you feel inspired, but because you chose it.

.

Language destroys happiness

2010-08-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend with my family. It was lovely, but I noticed how much language helps us worry. Taxis that will or won't come. Plans that will or won't work. Hats that may or may not be lost. I do this too - what if, what if?

Without language, it would just have been a family, sitting and eating; a silent testimony to a common bond. Present.

With language, we ruminate about the past, worry about the future. And life ticks by.

And yet we can't un-learn language. The human choice is about learning what to do from here. So we must learn what to do with language.

Learning to enjoy the present even in the presence of language allows us to reach for something higher and more noble.

To stay present with the moment even whilst feeling anxiety - now that is something to aspire to. In fact, from here, it is the only thing.

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Money vs meaning

2010-08-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

“If you are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life … your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.”

George Bernard Shaw

Don't wait to be rescued...

2010-08-14T02:44:00.000-07:00

Paul Gauguin was a painter who made a mid career change. He was initially a stockbroker, but art was his passion. He realised that money wasn't buying him the life he wanted, and he wasn't becoming the person he wanted to be.

So Gauguin left his job and family (in Denmark, without enough money) and moved to Paris and then to the South Sea islands to paint. He wanted to live simply 'on fish and fruit'.

However, Gauguin's career change never answered life's biggest questions. He titled his last painting, "What are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?" He eventually died of syphilis and alcohol abuse facing a prison sentence.

This reminds us that chasing happiness and fulfilment is the wrong strategy. It's an illusion that there is some other place, job, direction that can rescue us from our despair if only we could find it, choose it.

Ironically, this understanding rescues us from the tyranny of choice. It frees us to become present and enables us to start living our values now. We can become the change we wish to see.

Kelly Wilson argues that we should learn to accept the present moment, in all its ambiguity, as it is. He quotes the poem Burnt Norton:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

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Minds - a User's Guide (1)

2010-08-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

I live in a near constant state of anxiety, yet what am I actually anxious about? Often the answer is fear. Fear of what? Failure perhaps. Or of looking like a failure.

And yet, my experience of failure is actually very rare. In truth I have very little direct contact with the experience of real pain.

Yet the distress of 'failure' is so tightly woven into my brain that seemingly unrelated events remind me of its possibility:

Speak to a successful friend? You are failing in comparison.
Hear of a new restaurant opening? Why didn't you do that?.
Read about Naomi Campbell. You've never received a blood diamond!.

My ridiculous mind has given me the exciting opportunity to experience anxiety, fear and shame on a daily basis without experiencing it directly. The thought of failing is enough to feel distress.

Wilson et al. (2001) summed up the trap language sets for us:

“Thus comes the paradox that a species that has by far the fewest contacts with direct sources of pain… through language is able to suffer with a degree of intensity, constancy and pervasiveness that is literally unimaginable in the nonhuman world... Because of [language], we can judge ourselves and find ourselves to be wanton; we can imagine ideals and find the present to be unacceptable by comparison; we can reconstruct the past; we can worry about imagined futures; we can suffer with the knowledge that we will die.”

Ring any bells?

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You don't need a big idea

2010-08-04T15:15:00.001-07:00

Starting a business is not about big ideas. Many (most?) successful businesses take an existing concept and do it better. For example, Innocent started by making fruit drinks that were actually made of fruit. Imagine! Moneysupermarket.com changed the way we bought insurance and Google...OK, Google was new.

Bloom isn't the first to use psychology in the workplace, but we are pioneers of contextual behavioural science. This means we equip people with tools they can actually use to change their lives, as opposed to telling them they're an 'ENFP'.

The point is that many of my clients want to start a business but don't have a big idea, so they stop. But all you really need is a passion to do something better, faster, cheaper or simpler. Oh, and a good story. Then stop waiting for “an engraved invitation and a guarantee of success” as Seth Godin puts it, and bloody well get on with it.

That's it really. The Fallacy of the Big Idea.