Often, when we face a setback, it's tempting to wish we could go back to the way things were before everything changed, to see if we could have done anything to change the course of events. If for example, you have just been told you didn’t qualify for a promotion, it can be really challenging to just show up the following day and act as if nothing had happened. If you have ever had a terrible or disappointing day and you just wish you could wipe the slate clean and start again, this article is for you.

Take the new day as a fresh opportunity
Yes, yesterday may have been one of the worst days of your life but there are a few things that you could keep in mind while treating a new day as a fresh opportunity:

• Yesterday is now in the past, no one can change it. All you can do is decide how to proceed from this point onwards. Accepting that the past can not be changed is what starts you moving forward and bouncing back.
• Be gentle with yourself. In treating the new day as a fresh start, you need forgive yourself if you feel that something you did or didn't do contributed to what happened. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of the human condition but that doesn't have to define us. What you do to address those mistakes is much more important and that is where your focus needs to be. 
• Watch the way you speak to yourself. Is there a voice that reminds you of all the things that you could/should have done differently? Would you let anyone else speak to you like that? It's time to treat yourself like a friend and offer comfort, not condemnation. 
• Considering your options for the future - whats the best thing you can do from where you are right now? Are there things that you can do straight away that will pave the way for the outcomes that you are looking for?  

​Life is full of ups and downs. It's unavoidable. Treating every day as a fresh start will certainly help you bounce back from whatever challenges life gives you.

Life is full of emotional injuries, it’s unavoidable. And the damage ranges from tiny hurts, like someone forgetting to hold the door open for you to huge, like when you experience loss of someone or something significant, like a parent or life partner. Some injuries are caused by a one-off event and others have a long timeline and result in a buildup of ongoing stress.

In my career, I have experienced a wide range of emotional injuries, and I believe its so common, I would love to hear from anyone who has a few years of work under their belt and has had a totally smooth ride. That said, some injuries are just small bumps and knocks and its easy to get up and get going and, generally, forget they every happened. And some knock you sideways and it’s hard to believe that life will ever be the same again once they are over.

Like with a physical injury, it’s worth having a process for dealing with emotional pain. This is a 4 step framework I recommend:

Step 1: Assess the damage
How bad is it? Is it just a bruise to your confidence or is it really impacting on your life possibly by interfering with your sleep or ability to concentrate? If it’s severe and your life doesn’t feel the same, then it’s time to get some therapeutic support. Your GP is a good first out of call for this. If its just very painful but you feel nothing is broken, it’s time to assess whether you are able to manage it yourself or hire a thinking partner to coach you through some exercises to strengthen your emotional resilience.

Step 2: Make a plan
Alone or with your coach, you will need to create a plan, to respond to the source of pain: do you need to get out of the situation you are in or maybe you need to make changes so that it’s better designed for your needs. Are there skills that you need that would make a similar injury less likely to happen in the future? Perhaps a change of perspective might make things look very different.

Step 3: Implement
Now you know whats needed, it’s time to take action. Easy in theory but sometimes a lot toucher in practice when it’s easy to get discouraged or otherwise put off. How are you going to hold yourself accountable, especially at a time when you might still feel emotionally under par, in order to see that planned changes though? Make sure you put a plan in place for this otherwise you risk letting negative behaviours like procrastination and fear of moving out of your comfort zone stop you making progress.

Step 4: Evaluate
There are no guarantees any intervention will be 100% effective. The only way of assessing how well you are doing is by observing and assessing. Are the symptoms still present? If they are noticeably easing, you will recognise that you are on the right track. Time to pat yourself on the back and carry on with whatever you were doing. If some time has passed and the emotional pain hasn’t reduced in any way or has actually increased, please consider getting some professional support if you didn’t take that option earlier. Either in the form of a therapist if the pain is acute and interfering with your normal life, or a coach who can help you build the skills to help shrug it off, now and ideally in the future.

Need help getting over an emotional injury? I can help you bounce back better than ever! Please use this link to book a free call so we can talk about whats going on for you.

Handling rejection and being able to bounce back from any setback are some of the most important skills for anyone to have. As you go through life, just as you experience achievements and highs, so is it normal for one to experience lows that could be in the form of rejection, failures, and setbacks.

​What you do when you are faced with a setback and how you handle the situation are what determine how it is you will perform the next time. It is true that persistence is what guarantees success in whatever field you are interested in. But how is it that one can bounce back and stay committed after a challenging setback?

Below are five ways:
1. Redefining the term failure
We have all heard at one point that our setbacks usually lead to some of the best insights and opportunities for success, but it is not that easy to believe the words. When you get a no from your boss after a project that you had been working extremely hard on, or you even get fired, you should take a step back and remind yourself that what has happened is unchangeable and it is only a speck in your whole story. You probably need to channel your energy towards something better, you will probably be able to go apply and get the job of your dreams since you were a child because you no longer have the safety net of your old job. Once you start looking at failure as a door to something greater, bouncing back will be easier.

2. Allow yourself to feel disappointed but do not let it consume you
When you fail to get the promotion you have been yearning for, you will experience feelings of disappointment and even sadness. You may even be angry at the world, or your boss and jealous of whoever got it instead of you. When you get yourself in this situation, allow yourself to feel your emotions but do not allow your feelings to dictate how you act. Take a walk, process the news you have just received, and remind yourself that better opportunities are still awaiting you.

3. Do not focus on trying to pin the blame
Yet another issue that a lot of people face is trying to pinpoint the blame of the setback on someone. It is understandable because having someone to blame is considered an easy way to direct your anger and frustrations. Do not let this be you. Accept what has happened. Yes, your business deal did not go through but do not start blaming your intern because you are looking for an avenue to release your frustrations. Take it as it is.

4. Focus more on the process and less on the outcome
Focusing on the outcome of a project will often lead to people losing sight of what is really important, that is the process of what you are doing, and all the lessons they are gathering along the way. That is why if at they experience a setback, they are likely to get extremely devastated and not know how to come back from it. As you go through your daily activities, remember to be present in everything you do and enjoy the process!

5. Get feedback and move accordingly
If at all there is anyone you can approach to clarify for you why something did not go as you anticipated, do so. For example, after being let go, ask your boss what actions of yours led to the decision and accept the feedback. In doing so, you can take pointers and do better, and generally be better.

In everything you do, even when faced with setbacks always remember to be persistent and keep going and you will bounce back better than ever!

One of my very favourite tools for taking stock is a values assessment. Values define who we are and what matters to us. When we find ourselves in situations where our values are compromised, we can become stressed and anxious. When we hold goals that are in conflict with our values or don’t address enough of our values, we tend to procrastinate because the tension stops us being able to make progress. Values do change over time depending on circumstances. By being aware of our values, we are in a better position to:

• define what is truly important - I have worked with a number of people who realise that they are not channeling their energies towards what they value the most.
• clarify motivation - when someone is trying to achieve a goal that is in conflict with their values, they will feel a lot of resistance. The answer is to consider how to reframe the situation so that there is a natural alignment.
• identify areas where circumstances as in conflict with most important values - values definition is particularly useful when people feel “stuck”, because they tend to find that they are aiming for goals they don’t believe in.
• separate externally sourced goals from those acquired externally - many of our ambitions are shaped by our culture and society. When we take stock, we are better able to understand what our own ambitions are and what truly inspires us
• evaluate circumstances and identify goals that align with values - knowing our values, we can assess our circumstances and identify and resolve conflicts

​Use this list to identify the 10 values that are most important to you. Then order them in terms of their importance to you. 

My favourite starting point for taking stock is to take a measure of where you are right now, in a holistic sense, to answer the question “how are you doing in all areas of your life?”.

The Wheel of Life is a great tool for that. In its most basic form, it is a circle divided into 8 sections. Each section is devoted to an area of your life. ​The example on the right focusses on career, but the tool can be adapted to suit whatever circumstances you need to explore. 

Essentially, you rate each area of your life on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how satisfied you are with that facet of your life and then how important it is to you. The second rating is very important because it isn't worth spending time on on something that you don't care about much! You might find it useful to use a table like the one below:

By getting it out of your head and on to paper, you are able to see how you are doing and how important that is to you. It helps you decide what needs your attention and offers a glimpse of what might happen if you chose not to pay attention.

Click here if you would like an at-a-glance page summarising the tool. Please get in touch if you have any questions and do share your experiences of using this tool in the comments area below. 

According to recent research by McKinsey, 83% of leaders think they are unprepared for their new roles. That fully reflects my own observations. Organisations assume leaders are born, not made, and often make very little effort to help people understand what is required of them and how to shine in a new role.

All of the following mistakes come from not recognising that you need to adapt your tactics - either with yourself or others -  when you take on more responsibility:

1. Being too controlling - this comes from a fear that no one can do as good a job as you can, so you tend to just take on the work and not worry about the impact it's having on you or the team. The long term outcome from following this strategy is you feeling resentful and disappointment with your colleagues and them also feeling judged and much less likely to offer to take on anything that has the potential to disappoint you in the future.
   
   Whats the answer? The message you are sending loud and clear to the team is that you don’t think they are up to it. I get that they may not be your dream team but you may surprise yourself by trusting them more and seeing how it goes. People are different when they feel heard and trusted. Start by giving them easy tasks and build both your and their confidence in what they are capable of.
   
   
2. Pushing too hard - As its retirement looms, stories about staff at Microsoft working so hard to produce the Internet Explorer browser that they sacrificed their lives to achieve that seem to be circulating at the moment. There must be millions of identical stories from millions of less famous projects because our culture values short term success over long term outcomes. I once worked somewhere that had “whatever it takes” as the office hours in my contract. I was young enough to not think that was pretty outrageous!
   
   My suggestions? To start with, never ask someone to do something or put in the hours that you wouldn’t have liked to be asked to do when you were in their position. And as a follow up, think about your motivation vs their motivation. Are you asking them to burn the midnight oil so that you look good and get the promotion? Is that really OK with you?
   
   
3. Shiny object syndrome - I think it’s tempting for leaders to believe that a new tool or strategy or even a new team structure will shake out all the old problems and let the organisation (and the leader, of course) ride the easy path to glory. Sadly it never happens. I recently worked somewhere that thought that robots were the answer. I think they got sold some and are still trying to work out where to put the batteries in.
   
   My advice here? Don’t forget that, while the ‘how’ changes with technological progress, the ‘what’ rarely does. Humans evolve very slowly and not all at the same time. Jumping to the new flashy thing seems fun but, unless its a medical breakthrough, its rarely going to be as effective as putting in the hard yards to iron out the fundamental problems that need addressing.
   
   
4. Being too pernickety - Winston Churchill got it right when he said "Perfection is the enemy of progress.”. It’s super easy to get so caught up inhaling everything perfect, that nothing is ever ready. Perfectionists drive everyone, themselves included, totally mad.
   
   You might like to take a tip from the tradition of Persian carpet weavers who make sure there is a flaw in the carpet pattern in recognition that only Allah/God is capable of making something perfect. Another suggestion would be to define the must-haves (spelling, branding, etc) and don’t sweat the rest because no one is looking at it as critically as you are.
   
   
5. Saying yes too much - This one is a killer! Saying ‘yes’ is often what helps us make progress, and over time, we learn to do it as a default. As you make progress in your career, and take on more and more responsibility, this turns out to be less of an effective strategy because, at some point, you will not be able to deliver on all of your commitments. And if you continue to say ‘yes’ and not deliver, you will appear to be less and less capable which is exactly the opposite of what you were trying to achieve, right?
   
   To get on top of saying 'yes' by default, you need to take a moment to think through the impact of either taking the work on - OR - not taking it on. Asking for more detail about what the work might entail is a good way to buy a few moments to chew it over. You might find that saying yes is not automatically the best answer for you - or for them. 
   ​
   

I hope you have found this helpful. I’d love to hear which of these or other things are getting in the way of your success. Share in the comments or, if you want to talk about it, get in touch!

3. Reframe it
Is there another way to tell the story that you’ve been telling yourself? Let's say you feel that you don’t share the same background or went to a less prestigious university than your peers, you might benefit from reminding yourself that you bring fresh and diverse thinking that they can not offer. Same with not being the same age - your lack or abundance of life experience again offers a new perspective that your competitors lack. Getting in the habit of challenging yourself to tell a negative story in a positive light is a great habit to get into . It may help to make it into a game: how could you retell it so that it sounds like an absolute win? Celebrities and politicians do it all the time. So can you!

Its time to banish impostor syndrome from our lives. If any of these approaches work for you, please let us know in the comments - so that others get inspired to try them!

There are many points in a persons career where finding a job seems absolutely impossible: at the beginning, it feels like you are trapped in the can’t-get-a-job-until-you’ve-had-a-job catch-22 cycle, whenever you want to do something different like change career or refocus, and then at around 50 when it seems no one wants to hire an”older person”. Essentially, we live in a world that makes a lot of assumptions about people formed around basic demographics that really need to be exposed and refuted!

Hiring managers often believe that

1. Past performance (school grades) are an indicator of future (work) performance.
   It turns out, none of this is actually true. Google had to review its strategy of only hiring people from certain educational backgrounds when they realised that sometimes graduates from elite universities actually lacked the skills that were needed in the workplace, like the ability to learn from past mistakes and knowing when to step up when needed. And that approach seems to catching on across Silicone Valley.
2. Younger is faster, more flexible and all around “better” and older is slower, more rigid and “less good”.
   In his book, Late Bloomers, Rich Karlgaard collects all the facts and research and shows us that this is not the case at all. It’s true to say that mental processing power declines with age, but that is often counterbalanced by an improved capability to process complex data, like other peoples emotions, which peaks in our 40’s and 50’s. And we are still gathering and utilising facts and information well into our 70’s. A study of air traffic controllers exposed the fact that while processing speed and short term memory do decline, this is balanced by calmness and reasoning capabilities that only come later in life.
3. Hiring graduates with no experience is risky, so it’s best to avoid that altogether.
   True there are some risks, but they are enthusiastic, don’t expect the pay that their more experience peers will want, are very up to date on the latest tools and techniques of their particular specialism and don’t come with any pre-installed bad habits and expectations.

Here are three suggestions for persuading potential employers to see your potential:

1. Take stock by conducting a personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Consider what you are really great at now (Strengths), what you are less good at these days that your competitors excel at (Weaknesses). Then look at whether there are trends or market opportunities you could exploit (Opportunities) and what new threats might leave you vulnerable, such as trends or your own weaknesses (Threats). Be open minded and honest and you will have a good sense of the lie of the land and how you fit into it. You will see changes you may need to make, maybe to your own outlook or how you position yourself, in order to make progress.
2. Remember that everyone is acting in their best interests, not yours. So make sure you communicate with a WIIFM (whats in it for me?) approach, structuring your messaging around the contribution your skills and experience offer the hiring manager and their company.  Their biggest fear will be making a mistake so focus on reassure them by letting them see how you are the best hire they are going to make this year.
3. Tap into your network. Research suggests that up to 70% of all jobs are not formally advertised its estimated that as many as  85% of jobs are filled through networking. This applies at all career levels, so it’s time to get out more, and reconnect with old colleagues and friends. You never know who knows about that perfect job you are looking for and a personal recommendation carrels a lot fo weight and cuts through many of the preconceptions.

Tried any of these suggestions? Please share how it went for you!

Some people seem to have a very clear vision of where they are going and where they want to get to in life. Whether or not they make it seems to be less important than having an end point to aim for. In contrast, many people don’t have a clear set of goals and find the idea of creating them quite daunting. For the people in the second camp, they often slowly get a sense that they are failing to achieve their potential. And, I find, this can lead to a negative spiral, a catch-22, where you never know if you are on track if you have no clear destination.

Richard Boyatzis, an expert on intentional change says that “we become what we dream” and that in order to do that, we need to be clear about who we wish to be and what we want to achieve in our lives. He is fully aware of how overwhelming it is to allow ourselves to dream and has come up with a series of tools that shift out out of the negative spiral and open up the creative side of our mind. There is one thing I'd recommend doing - one of Boyatzis' “Dreams of the Ideal Future” exercises - that can be very effective at helping with this. It’s also very simple. You just need to list 27 or more things you’d like to do or experience before you die.

I would encourage everyone to have a go. You may not get to 27, and that’s OK. Its less about specifics (e.g. places you’d like to visit) and more about experiences (e.g. go for a walk with a future grandchild or give a speech at your child’s wedding). It may help to explore what you would have liked to have achieved at different future life milestones, like having gone skydiving by your 75th birthday or climbed Mount Everest by the time you are 50.

I really encourage you to play with this. Time is a curious quality and most people don’t have a good sense of how quickly it passes, especially when you are focussed on other things. My vision for the future is to help people find their happy path in life and at work because being unhappy is just a sign that something needs to change! And if you want some help with seeing your future more clearly, give me a shout. 











McKee, Boyatzis and Johnston, Becoming a Resonant Leader: Develop Your Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, and Sustain Your Effectiveness, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass. 2008

There are a lot of myths and legends about work, how it works and how do survive and thrive while you are there. Some of them seem more true than others but, to be honest, they are all contextual because it depends on the culture of the place you are in. What goes in one office is totally taboo in another. Whats incredible is how much these “rules” guide us and often make us very unhappy in the process. Over the years, I have encountered plenty of them, but here are 5 particularly damaging ones:

Success means having to climb the career ladder
This is something society pushes at us quite hard. It is also reinforced by going to school where we are rewarded for doing well and at the end of each year, we take a step up the ladder. By the time people get to work, this pattern is very established in our minds. The truth is, not everyone wants to or is a position to get to the “top” and sometimes it is hard admit to - either just to ourselves or in public. I often coach people who have very mixed feelings about where to go next in their careers because of this type of belief.

I need to make an amazing impression all the time.
This is a really dangerous one. Yes, avoiding mistakes, from terrible career bloopers to typos, is 100% recommended, but the fear of making mistakes can be so inhibiting, it can lead to nothing getting done at all. I talk to people who lose sleep, family and holiday time because they feel the need to make every output, every email, every presentation into a work of art.
Whats needed here is some perspective: how much does it matter? Is the extra effort worth it? For this second question, I’d challenge you to find evidence to back your answer. I know people who spend days scouring the internet for perfect images for presentations, which is lovely of course, but makes no difference to anyone in the big scheme of things. The big question for this situation is “is it really worth it?” And if it isn’t a resounding Yes” then its time to make your peace with good enough!

Saying “no” is a career killer!
This is a myth I certainly bought into in the past. I would say “yes” to anything because I thought saying “no” would totally scupper my career. I eventually learned that if you say “yes” to too many things, you just get asked to do more and more until you are so overwhelmed you start malfunctioning. And, it turns out that saying yes to something you later are unable to deliver on is the career killer, not saying no! It took me a long time to learn that one! A great way of managing your workload is to be open abut your other commitments and get feedback on priorities before you make a decision about picking up or dropping tasks.   

Asking for help makes you look stupid/incompetent
This, to be honest, can be a cultural issue. I have worked in places where it was obvious that if you admitted you could do with a bit of support somehow indelibly marred your track record forevermore. Ugh! The worst thing is that not getting help when you need it can be more damaging - for the person and for the organisation. The individual gets discouraged and is likely to start to be less effective and that impacts on the organisation because its needs are being served less optimally.

Sometimes, its just easiest to do it myself
This is a killer.Learning to trust others, to give guidance when needed and then stand back and let them get on with it can feel very exhausting and scary. The big fear is that they won’t do a great job and it will reflect badly on everyone. Which leads us to think that we’ll only have to re-work their efforts later, so why not do it now? That may make sense in the sort term but it’s also a terrible trap. Because you are not letting them learn how to help you, you set up a scenario where you can never step away from the tasks you always do in order to take on new challenges and grow new skills yourself. Over time, you will start to feel weighed down by the burden of all the tasks you are responsible for and maybe you will notice that your less encumbered colleagues are making better career progress than you are!

So, it’s very well worth challenging ourselves about what we believe to be true about how work works because it may help us see what is getting in the way of enjoying our time at work. Like fish having no sense of the fact that they are swimming in water, many of these beliefs are invisible to us at first. Coaching can help you explore your thoughts in a way that you may not be able to do alone. Give me a call if you want to find out more!