Hate Your Job But Can't Leave? 5 Career Strategies to Survive, Thrive and Become More Marketable

Feeling forced to work in a job you hate is one of the biggest sources of job stress. It is critical to develop a game plan as early as possible. Many people promise themselves to stick it out, but eventually sabotage themselves because they hope they won't have to. Here are 5 strategies to get started.

Strategy #1: Change the way you talk about your job. It's easy to fall into the blame game. It's almost fun to call up a colleague and talk about how horrible your boss is and how you wish you could leave. But these conversations cause a downward spiral into deeper frustration.
Refuse to participate in negative conversations. Change the subject. Say your other phone is ringing. But do it.
When you find yourself feeling frustrated and angry, focus instead on what you want to feel, have and be. Instead of, "Why does he call meetings at the last minute?" say, "I want a work environment where we get at least a day to prepare for important meetings."
Some people find it helpful to create a mantra to recite when your company's name comes up in your thoughts. For instance, one person tried reciting, "Quiet. Respect. Reward." Over time, she was surprised at how calm she felt. She could think more clearly.

Strategy #2: Recognize areas where you can cut back on efforts without risking your job.
One of my acquaintances has a policy for his workplace. "When I get asked to do something that will take time, such as a change in the format of a report, I wait. Sometimes nothing happens. If it's really important, they will ask me a second or even third time."
Obviously this policy won't work everywhere. But you may be contributing to your own frustration by doing work that isn't valued or rewarded.

Strategy #3: Grow your career on company time.
Nearly every organization offers courses, seminars and growth opportunities. When you're feeling frustrated, it's easy to ignore them because you think, "I already have so much to do."
Meanwhile, begin using your free time to join networking groups and develop some free lance opportunities. You gain power as you gain independence.

Strategy #4: Schedule time to turn inward with meditation and silence.
When you're not sure what to do, it's easy to get involved in activity that doesn't carry much meaning. It's also easy to listen to a lot of bad advice. Some well-meaning friends will say, "You'd better hang in there. Good jobs are hard to find." Others, equally well-meaning, will urge you to resign even before you have another job lined up. You lose energy listening to this conflicting advice as you struggle to make your own decisions.

Strategy #5: Find a safe place to express your feelings, ideas and insights.
When you talk to colleagues and anyone who may become a colleague, keep your game face. You might miss out on a hot job lead because you're branded as dissatisfied or unmotivated. Anyway, complaining puts you in a one-down position.

Family and friends can be supportive confidantes if they understand your situation. On the other hand, you can jeopardize close relationships when you ask them to act as sounding boards. Every career coach has clients whose spouses have said, "Haven't you found another job yet? It's been a whole month."

Career coaching can seem expensive but it's a wise investment if you can hang on to your job while protecting your personal relationships and your sanity. Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., offers consulting services to mid-life, mid-career professionals who want to enjoy the first inning of their second career.

Improve Your Team Culture With Team Building Activities

Team building activities help build a purposeful team culture within your organization. One of the reasons companies have offsite meetings is to not only share and gather information, but also to improve their team culture by giving people "face time". If you're planning an offsite meeting, here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Build camaraderie with interactive sessions. When you have a quarterly or annual meeting it's a great opportunity for your team to get to know each other through interactive team building activities. When we are connected to each other, we participate. When we have trust, we take risks. When we care, we are willing to go the extra mile. Collaboration and creativity start when we begin to know each other as human beings, not just roles or titles. For example, we provided our Build-A-Bike workshop for a client in the New York area last month. Because of the interactive team building activities, the participants said they knew each other better after a half day session than after a year sitting next to each other in cubicles. And when times are uncertain, it's the relationship that matters.

2. Learn to think creatively. In today's economy everybody has to learn to do more with less. What happens when we have limited resources? How do limited resources impact our relationships and integrity? To not only survive, but thrive we need to do things differently to get better results. Going back to the New York team building activity we provided, participants were given a series of creative challenges and problem solving activities. What they realized was just because we've always done it that way, doesn't mean it's the way we should continue to do it. Rather than looking for what's not working - ask what's possible. This releases creativity and attracts those who care and are committed to making it happen.

3. Feel good by giving back. Team building activities that include a philanthropic twist have become increasingly popular in recent years. And with good reason! Service to others has become a strong part of the culture within many companies. Build-A-Bike is by far our most popular workshop because teams build bikes that are then donated to children in the community. Do you remember what it felt like when you got your first car - how it expanded your world? A new bike can change the life of a child, and it's a goose bump moment when you watch them ride it for the first time. Decide if a service mentality is an important part of your culture, and send that message at your next offsite meeting.

So if you want to improve your team culture, start at your next offsite meeting by building camaraderie with interactive sessions, learning to think creatively and be resourceful, and feeling good by giving back in some way. There is no power greater then a group discovering together what it cares about.

Colette Peterson is a speaker and trainer specializing in Team Building in New York City, NY that insert fun and energy into any convention or annual meeting.
( http://www.teambuildingnewyorkny.com/ ) Colette teaches team building events in major cities New York, Boston, Detroit, and Toronto.

Are You a Success Or a Failure? Only You Know For Sure

What is success? What is failure? For each of us, these terms mean something different. One person may obtain worldly financial riches and feel unsuccessful. Another person may easily find love and feel like a failure. Yet another person might be financially poor without a loving partner and manage to feel successful.

Do you know the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful person? Success results from a mindset, a consistent habit pattern and a way of being. Success in love, in finances, in health and recovery from illness, in business, in athletic or artistic activities, or in any life endeavor requires skills that high level marketers have developed. Inspired by teleseminars offered by top level marketers, I realized that we are all, always, marketing in our lives - in love, in business and in everything else. Some of us succeed. Other fail. What is the difference? What does it take to succeed?

For me, the deeper secret about success and failure is that those who are successful do what works. They are not attached to the results. They give and share, what they have and know, freely without holding back and without expecting something in return. They listen to the needs of the other person (customer, lover, friend, acquaintance, boss, employee, family member, organization, etc.). They discover the other person's perspective and find a way to offer what the other person perceives as valuable. They learn about the other person's pain, what is giving them anxiety and causing them to suffer, and they find a way to teach and encourage and convince the other person that they have what it takes to meet that person's needs and make their pain go away.

The unsuccessful person, on the other hand, does what he or she thinks "should" work and continues to do it without testing, or perhaps just gives up when it doesn't work easily. They do not take the time or make the effort to listen to what the other person claims they need. The unsuccessful person offers what he or she "thinks" the other person "should" need or want. The unsuccessful person feels entitled to receive (money, love, sex, happiness, recognition, respect, etc.) and is attached to receiving what they feel entitled to (becoming emotionally upset when not received). The unsuccessful person "expects" the other person to just "know" how valuable (wonderful, loving, important, expensive, worthy of being loved) they or their products are without finding out what is perceived as valuable to the other person.

The unsuccessful person has no idea what causes the other person to suffer, to feel pain and anxiety, but attempts to persuade the other person to want and desire what he or she is offering.

The successful person is a value creator, helping others to feel seen, heard, acknowledged, appreciated and helped. The unsuccessful person communicates from a place of self-interest, self-importance, self-concern.

Are you creating value for yourself and for others, right now? Does your daily interest focus on self-concern or greater concern for others? Do you feel successful or unsuccessful at this point in your life? And, do you have plans set in place for your own future success?

Dr. Erica Goodstone, a Healing Through Love Mentor, has helped thousands of men, women, couples, and groups to develop greater awareness of the issues in their relationships and their lives, to overcome and alleviate stressors and discords, and to revitalize their relationships and their own mind-body-spirit connection. Dr. Goodstone can be contacted through her web site at http://www.DrEricaWellness.com and you can take the Create Healing and Love Now Personal quiz and get your free personal report and bonus gifts at http://www.createhealingandlovenow.com.

The Danger of Workplace Negativity and Stress

Nothing is more sinister to the employee's morale than persistent workplace negativity. It saps the liveliness of organizations and diverts critical attention from performance.

Negativity occurs in the attitude, outlook, and talk of one department member, or in bloating voices responding to a workplace decision or event. A new book, Joy at Work: Empowering Scriptures for the Workplace soothes the Soul. It is Spiritual 'first aid' to help you get centered--anytime, anywhere. Joy at Work is a collection of biblical principles and scriptures to help one navigate the crossroads of the workplace using screen beans illustrations.

Religion is always able to produce solutions to the various problems people face. One's faith does allow the person to deal with the problem usually in a calmer way. We can assume that the significance of religion is similar to the importance of understanding the job description. The buffering effect' means religion serves to buffer the impact of adverse circumstances.

Leah Smiley, President of Society for Diversity quoted, "Joy at Work: Empowering Scriptures for the Workplace is a must read for all those struggling with workplace issues or frustrated from seeking employment. The book has given me a sense of solace in the midst of turmoil."

It has been recently reported that employees are dissatisfied with the conditions at work. They are quitting in record numbers despite the fact they have no back-up plan. The rash of those quitting their jobs have most been contributed to pay, long work hours, and not enough flexibility in the workplace.

Nothing is more powerful than Joy at Work: Empowering Scriptures for the Workplace to zap workplace negativity and stress.

Ramona Clay is a Christian author, speaker, and inspirational coach. Ms. Clay is owner of Global Staffing Partners with over 20 years in recruiting, training, and coach. She has started Joy@Work.com seminars and has her own radio show on BlogTalk radio, Monday evenings at 7:00 PM. Ramona's website, http://www.ramonaclay.com

Building a Positive Workplace Through Situational Leadership

Situational Leadership is NOT something you do to people, but something you do with People. Developed by Paul Hersey, professor and author of the book Situational Leader, and Ken Blanchard, leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager. This Theory was first introduced as "Life Cycle Theory of Leadership" During the mid 1970's and was renamed later as "Situational Leadership theory".

The fundamental underpinning of the Situational Leadership Theory is there is no single "best" style of leadership, It is like giving everyone according to their particular needs. "there is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals". Effective leadership is task-relevant and that the most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the Maturity of the individual or group they are attempting to lead or influence. Treating unequal as equal is the great inequality that a leader may commit the level of maturity or the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task, and relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task is not all equal. So an effective leadership varies, not only with the person or group that is being influence, but it will also depend on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished.

Prescription: we need to learn how to diagnose the needs of the people you work for us
The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory rests on two fundamental concepts; Leadership Style and the individual or group's Maturity level.

Leadership styles
Hersey and Blanchard characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of Task Behavior and Relationship Behavior that the leader provides to their followers. They categorized all leadership styles into four behavior types, which they named S1 to S4:

• S1: Telling - For people who lack competence but are enthusiastic and committed. They need direction and supervision to get them started. This is one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, when, and where to do the task. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, it is a directing type of leadership or somehow called dictatorship style.

• S2: Selling - For people who have competence in themselves but lacking commitment. Direction and supervision is needed because they are still relatively inexperienced or unwilling to do the task. They need support and praise to build their self-esteem, and need to be involve in decision-making to bring out their commitment. The leader here is providing the direction and using two-way communication by providing the socio-emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to acquire into the process. This is a high task focus, & high relationship focus - The leaders here still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions from the group member. Most of the times decisions remain the leader's prerogative, Its like a leader giving a lessons or instruction merely I say its like coaching, but communication here is two-way.

• S3: Participating - For people who have competence, but lack confidence or motivation. They do not need much direction because of their skills, but support is necessary to bolster their confidence and motivation. This is now shared decision making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing less task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior. This is Low task focus vice versa high relationship focus - leaders pass all decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower. The leader role here is sustaining and or supporting by facilitating and taking part in decisions, but total control is in the hand of the follower.

• S4: Delegating - For people who have both competence and commitment. They are able and willing to work in an entrusted work or project by themselves with little supervision or support. Leader here is still involved in decisions but, the process and responsibility has been entrusted and passed in individual or group. Leaders here involved just to monitor the progress of given project or task. It is Low task focus, low relationship focus - leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower. The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved.
Of these, Leadership style none is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.

By Jaime Menor