Category: Career Advice

Leave it to someone who devotes one third of her blog to “fulfillment” to go all in on end-of-year reflections and goal-setting. I can’t help it.

I’ve always been achievement-oriented, and every January 1st, Nate and I draft up a list of individual and joint goals we’d like to achieve in the year ahead. But, this past year, I’ve felt stuck. Stalled. Frustrated at the thought of even creating goals for myself. I just haven’t had a clear picture of where I want to go, and the mere thought of planning ahead annoys me, because it reminds me of how directionless I feel. Then I realized that over the past two years, I’ve changed, and that shifting identity has turned what I want out of life…pretty murky. When what you used to want you no longer care about, what do you do? And who do you become?

To unlock that, I realized before I could even think about goals or resolutions, I needed to reassess myself, my interests and my career. Recently, Nate shared with me an exercise he assists people with as a sales training manager at Indeed, and I’ve decided to steal it to map out my year ahead—and share it with you, in case it’s at all helpful as you map out where you want to be in 2022 and beyond.

It’s called the TOP assessment, and it involves asking yourself a few very specific questions:

• What are you TALENTED in?
• How will the ORGANIZATION benefit from this?
• What are you PASSIONATE about?

Picture those questions as a triple Venn Diagram, and the section where the three circles overlap is your sweet spot of where you should aim to be, and where you can best grow and contribute over the next year. With that in focus, you can start to work toward goals that push you in that direction, helping you find a bit more purpose in your every day.

Lead photo by Candace Davison, showing the LH Agenda

Admittedly, the very term “languishing” makes me want to roll my eyes. It reminds me of the trope of a “hysterical” woman in the Victorian era, doomed to pout as she lies on a chaise, deemed “too delicate” to handle the world. But when I read psychologist Adam Grant’s description of it, the term took on an interesting new meaning. Languishing, as Grant put it in the New York Times, falls smack in the middle of the depression-to-flourishing spectrum; you just don’t feel like doing much, and you don’t really care.

“You might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive,” he writes. “You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference.”

He suggested it could become the dominant emotion of 2021, as our shock waves of anxiety and grief over the past year of the pandemic give way to an overall feeling of blah-ness. It resonated with me, not as something I’m currently feeling, but as a way I felt shortly after my daughter was born. I’d always been ambitious; always actively seeking a new goal and gunning after it. But in early 2019, I felt like I didn’t have a next step, and I didn’t really care. I didn’t feel depressed; I felt unmoored, and vaguely bothered by it, but also unwilling to do anything about it. And unsure of how—or if—I could ever muster that sense of purpose and meaning and drive I’d had in the past.

Strangely, it took the pandemic for me to find my way out of it. When my world was upended, I couldn’t go through the motions of life anymore. I was forced to try something new, and rather than set five-year plans (how could you, when every day seemed so different from the world you knew, and who knew how long this new, socially distant life would last?), I just tried new things. I opted for hobbies over big, career-shaping moves. As Liz Gilbert would put it, I followed my curiosity. I didn’t seek to master anything; I just wanted to try new things. Things like:

• knitting
• sketching
• baking
• video editing
• meditation
• becoming a Pound Fitness instructor (!)
• flower arranging
• hot chocolate bomb-making
• attending KonMari Consultant training
• barre
• candle making
• artisanal cocktail mixing
• container gardening

Following my curiosity allowed me to shift into a state of flow—that moment when you’re so absorbed in something that time seems to fly by—and derive a sense of satisfaction from these little victories. I didn’t need to have big victories or know the exact right next step for me; I just needed bursts of creativity. Certain interests snowballed into larger passions, which made me suddenly start dreaming of side hustles and bigger projects. With time, I no longer felt “meh” as my dominant emotion; was this what flourishing felt like?!

Grant discusses flow as a key to flourishing, but the only way to find your flow, he says, is to find uninterrupted blocks of time to work on those projects. I’d argue, however, that you also need to allow yourself to follow your curiosity and just try random, small things that seem “eh, better than nothing,” because when you’re feeling blah, you don’t really know what you want to do. So you just kind of…exist. And binge watch. And binge-scroll.

You have to re-establish your baseline for joy, and if that’s as simple as “watercolor painting might not suck,” then grab a paintbrush, resolve to wake up 30 minutes earlier, and commit that time to trying it! Maybe, after that half hour, you decide it does suck. Fine, onto the next curiosity! But maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t. And either way, with each creative moment, you’ll get closer to finding your spark.

Lead Photo: Didssph/Unsplash

Rachel Hollis has written novels and cookbooks; launched a fitness app, catering company, lifestyle media brand; has multiple product lines (including journals and priority planners sold at Target) and is a mom of four kids. But most people probably know her from one of her New York Times bestselling books (ahem, Girl, Wash Your Face).

Just listing it all can make your head spin. How does one person fit so much life into her days?! It’s a topic she delves into frequently, and in Girl, Stop Apologizing, she shares her unique approach to to-do lists, which can be a game-changer for anyone who feels like they rarely accomplish a third of what they set out to do. Or just keep spinning their wheels as they push toward a goal.

How Rachel Hollis Makes Her To-Do Lists More Effective:

First off, she doesn’t write to-do lists at all. That’s one way to succeed, right? Don’t even do ’em?! She prefers “Results Lists,” which are honestly to-do lists with a little more direction. Instead of a brain dump of vague things she needs to do in a day, like “work on book proposal, do laundry, work out,” she focuses on less than five things she wants to tackle—ideally two or three—that day and she makes each one very concrete and actionable. So those three things may look more like “write 2,500 words for book proposal, wash & fold three loads of laundry, run 3 miles.”

That way, she writes, there’s no questioning whether you achieved your goal. You can cross off “work on book proposal” if you brainstormed a couple title ideas then spent half an hour scrolling Instagram and replying to DMs. Technically, you worked on it…but how much closer are you to your goal?

She limits the list to less than five things just because she hones in on a few things that will take up a large chunk of her day, and she wants to give them space to get it done. It’s clear prioritizing, saying no to some things so she can say yes to what really matters. And, in the end, she gets the high of achieving what she set out to do, which motivates her to keep going.

Simple enough, right?

You can find Girl, Stop Apologizing on Amazon and at most major bookstores.

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Lead Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash.

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As a journalist, ‘why’ is my go-to. It’s how I get to the heart of issues, finding the story behind the story. But sometimes, it can hold us back—or trap us in a negative feedback loop, where we keep replaying dilemmas, using it to reinforce our biggest insecurities about ourselves. The better question, according to the Harvard Business Review, is ‘what,’ not ‘why.’ Here’s, uh, why.

Let’s say your boss delivers a harsh criticism. Why would she say that? you wonder. HBR’s research found that most people would start forming an explanation that “focused on their fears, shortcomings, or insecurities, rather than a rational assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.” Highly self-aware people wouldn’t obsess over why in this case; they’d ask the person directly: “What can I do in the future to improve?”

Instead of filling in the narrative with what they think the boss’s motivations are, they get clarification on what weaknesses the boss perceives and what concrete actions can be taken to do better. It shifts your focus from obsessing over your flaws to looking for solutions. And, the criticism doesn’t glom onto you, becoming part of your identity. It’s something to learn from and grow as a result of.

Lead photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

Eight-ish months into the pandemic, and we’re starting to find a new normal. The “wallet, cell phone, keys” pat-down before rushing out the door has gained the additional face mask check; we’ve logged many more hours video chatting. It may not be the “normal” we want—especially as we enter the third wave of the coronavirus, which continues to claim lives—but we’re adapting as best we can.

There have been a ton of stories about adjusting to spending more time at home, and how, more than ever, work seems to be seeping into all hours and areas of our lives, since many don’t have as clear a division between the two anymore. For all the extra time we have these days, we’re filling it with teaching and parenting and working and banana-bread-making and hobby-hopping and, well, anything and everything. We’ve found how to be busy again—to the point of burnout, and what makes things different right now, some theorize, is one crucial detail: a lack of cognitive transitions.

Uh, what?

Simply put, it’s those little gaps of time between activities that helps refuel and restore us—a few minutes walking between meetings, rather than having back-to-back Zoom calls. The time it takes to refill your water or dash from one conference room to another. Little breaks in the day that we’re not giving ourselves lately. Those little breaks, or “cognitive transitions,” matter, says Scott Belsky, the head of product at Adobe.

“I’ve never enjoyed taking out the trash and running errands more than I do now. My brain is craving the spaces in-between,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

It’s those moments when your back can unpack what just happened and process it. It’s a chance for introverts to collect themselves before being “on” again. And it can help you get through the sameness of each day, breaking things up and leaving you feeling more refreshed and inspired.

HuffPost founder and CEO of Thrive Global, Arianna Huffington, advocates mindfully adding those moments back into our lives, which she refers to as “resetting.”

“I use my reset many times a day, it takes 60 seconds,” she told the New York Times. “You basically put together the things that are joy triggers. It could be photos of people you love, pets, quotes, landscapes, music you love, a breathing pace.”

At first, you may need to set reminders in your phone to alert you to take a step back. Or schedule meetings to start at the 15th of the hour, instead on the hour or half-hour, just to give yourself that break (and a little time to switch gears and prepare for the next meeting, so you’re not frazzled and scrambling). The latter is something Nate started doing a few weeks ago, and he’s said it’s made his work week so much smoother. Now, I’m ready to try it too.

If you come across any “cognitive breaks” or “resets” that help you throughout the day, we want to hear about them! Email me (candace [at] lifebetweenweekends.com) or tweet @betweenweekends.

Lead photo by Lucija Ros on Unsplash

Here’s a confession anyone who knows me is all too aware of: I’m a Taylor Swift fan. I went to 1989 as a 27-year-old, feeling roughly five years too old to be there, but I didn’t care. I loved Red and 1989, and I was psyched for the launch of Reputation. Then it came out, and…I didn’t love it. The songs fell flat to me, but then I gave it another listen. And mindlessly left it on in the background as I cleaned the house. And before long, you know, I really liked “Gorgeous” and “End Game.” (“Ready for It” was an instant fave, TBH.) And…wait, maybe I liked the whole album.

Turns out, music theory scholars and psychologists have been analyzing this phenomenon (if you can be so bombastic to call it that) for years, and they have a name for it: the mere-exposure effect. Social psychologist Robert Zajonc coined the term back in 1968, based on his findings that the more you listened to a song—even if it didn’t fit your tastes—the more you’d start to like it. It made me wonder why that is, and as far as I can figure, it comes down to a basic part of human nature: We find comfort in the familiar. It’s why we’re drawn to routines, to things and people like us—and why we need to push beyond our comfort zones, so they don’t become too small to allow anyone or anything in.

It also makes the mere-exposure effect all the more encouraging: The more you push yourself into things that are outside of your wheelhouse, the more you can start to appreciate their nuances and see the differences not as something to turn away from, but as something to embrace.

As someone who’s resistant to change, I can attest to the many new classes or jobs or hobbies I’ve tried where on Day 1, my reaction is, “this isn’t for me! It’s the worst! I’m out!” and, with time, I gradually come to love it. I just need repeated exposure to ease into it.

Now I just need to bookmark this post and remind myself of my own words the next time I try something new.

Lead Photo: Mohammad Metri/Unsplash

I’ve never really followed the royals, beyond the awareness that my day job requires, but I haven’t been able to get Meghan Markle’s speech to the graduating class at Immaculate Heart High School out of my head. This year has been challenging on all fronts, and I’ve been trying to take more time to listen, process, sink into uncomfortable conversations and act mindfully.

I’m not great at that—I tend to clam up during conflict and try to do whatever I can to smooth things over, fast. And that’s what got me about Markle’s speech.

“I wasn’t sure what I could say to you. I wanted to say the right thing and I was really nervous that I wouldn’t or that it would get picked apart,” she begins. “I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing because George Floyd’s life mattered, and Breonna Taylor’s life mattered, and Philando Castile’s life mattered, and Tamir Rice’s life mattered. And so did so many other people whose names we know and whose names we do not know. Stefan Clark, his life mattered.”

It’s so easy to want to project yourself as knowing and doing the right things at all times that you stay silent. I know in the past, that’s been true for me. But the line that really resonated with me was the advice one of her teachers gave her in high school: “Always remember to put others’ needs above your own fears.” Oof. Yes. It was the medicine I didn’t know I needed to take.

All too often, I’ve let my fear—of failing, of what other people might think, of criticism, you name it—keep me from taking a stand. I get so focused on being completely informed before speaking up that I avoid speaking altogether. Which is strange, because my approach to the rest of my life has been “progress over perfection,” where I take a leap without knowing how I’ll get to the over side. I figure it out as I go along, using my mistakes as chances to learn. But when it comes to my reputation (or the perception of it), it seems that was too precious to risk. Well, no more. I’m going to say or do the wrong things sometimes, but I will learn from it. To be better as a society, we need to put ourselves out there. Try. Do. Fail. Grow. Pivot. Try again.

I don’t have the answers, but I’m reading, listening, learning, and I do know this: Black lives matter.

Leave it to Brené Brown to turn research on vulnerability into a must-watch video. Her TEDxTalk on the topic is one of the idea-sharing platform’s most viewed of all time, and over the years, she’s written several data-based New York Times bestsellers. What could be a totally dry topic is thrilling by her pen, so when she was recently asked what it takes to be a great storyteller, I sat up and paid attention.

Her answer was simple: Specificity. “We think that the stories that will resonate are not very specific so they reach more people, but if we want other people to see their lives reflected in our stories, we’ve got to be specific,” she says. “A story about how the screen porch sounds when it closes. A story about the smell of my grandmother’s beer bread. … The more specificity in a story, the more our lives feel connected to it.”

The more vivid the picture you paint, the better. You don’t have to share her exact experience, but you can relate to moments of it. Plus, you’re not expecting your audience to fill in all of the gaps with their own details, which can feel tedious pretty quickly.

It makes sense. Taylor Swift, for example, has been heralded for her songwriting. You don’t need to be a teenage girl in Pennsylvania to connect to the story of a first crush:

“Our song is a slamming screen door,
Sneaking out late tapping on your window,
When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow,
‘Cause it’s late and your mama don’t know”

Those details make the song come alive. It’s a scenario you can insert yourself into, feeling what she’s feeling. Connect that relatability to an argument you’re trying to make, statistics you’re trying to share or research you need to present, and it makes all the difference in whether people not only pay attention, but think about it for days afterward.

Lead Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

While reading the New Yorker this morning (yup, I do read things beyond what’s coming in the next FabFitFun box and the ingredients in Popeyes cajun sauce sometimes), I came across an interesting quote:

“We’re in the midst of this cancel culture: ‘This person is gay, this person didn’t fight in the military, this person called a black person an epithet in 1986. Anything I find that gives me a reason to cancel—done,” actor Dondré Whitfield said.

It was part of “Hype the Vote,” an article in the magazine’s March 9, 2020, issue, about a gathering of people from the media, tech and civic-engagement fields who were discussing ways to get youths and people of color to vote in this year’s elections. Whitfield was explaining how he’d heard people say they weren’t voting because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for “the lesser of evils,” and his note struck a chord with me: Has ‘cancel culture’ become a way to opt-out of responsibility—while simultaneously, perhaps subconsciously, making ourselves feel more self-righteous?

Initially, the notion of “canceling” someone or something was basically announcing that due to something deeply offensive a celeb or public figure had done, he/she/they would no lose their cachet in the public eye. It was a call to stop fawning over them, letting them fade from the spotlight. Though, as the term became more widespread, it seemed like just about anyone could get canceled—because, after all, haven’t we all done or said things we’ve regretted at some point?

Where do you draw the line?

That’s what made Whitfield’s quote so interesting to me: It reframed cancel culture as yet another social yardstick; a way of judging each other.

We’re not as bad as he or she is, and we call out their flaws and declare them canceled, all the while feeling a bit better about ourselves because, well, whatever we’ve done in our lives isn’t as bad as what that person did. Declaring someone canceled brands them as less than you; there’s no room for forgiveness or understanding. Like any other label, you’ve put that person in a box, so you don’t have to invest the mental energy to break down the full complexity of that human being. Things are black and white, good or bad, and you can move along, devoting your time to other pursuits, like the latest Bachelor fan theory or whether face oil or serum should be step three in your skincare routine.

Similarly, in regard to the election, “canceling” gives you an out—you’re not to blame if the next president falls short of your expectations, because you didn’t vote for any of them. You judged them all, you deemed them all less-than, so you opted out. It’s not your fault. Although the same argument could be made that if you don’t vote at all, you’ve effectively silenced yourself, and it is your fault for not at least trying to create the world you’d like to live in.

Granted, there are people who have done truly awful, terrible things who have been “canceled,” and I get the point of making a call to say, “Hey, can we stop giving this person media attention and shift our focus to people doing better things for humanity?” It’s just that at this point, the concept seems to have reached a tipping point, where—to Whitfield’s point—canceling can happen over a range of infractions, and it’s worth exploring why we’re canceling something (and its ripple effect) just as much as the act that deemed someone canceled.

Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

Somehow, I spent part of a Mediterranean vacation on a beach … reading a Harvard Business Review book about sustainably growing a brand. Yeah, I know — I live on the edge.

At 200 pages, Eddie Yoon’s Superconsumers is a quick read, even if the subject itself may not sound like much of a page-turner. What caught my attention, honestly, was its essential concept: The best companies don’t just have shoppers or fans; they have superfans. Or rather, superconsumers. They’re the type who eagerly await each new launch, who browse the store multiple times a week for fun (even if they don’t need anything), who account for 10 percent of total consumers but do 30-70 percent of the spending.

That kind of devoted fan base is an obvious target to reach if you’re running your own business (or building out a side hustle), but even if you’re working for a larger company, identifying the superconsumers at your job can make a big difference in how you feel about the day to day. Their excitement and enthusiasm for the brand can make you see the daily grind in a new light; you see how much of an impact the work you do has on another person’s life, and what it means to them.

Even when you’re totally burned out, there’s something infectious about seeing that there’s someone who’s devoted an entire Instagram account to unearthing the latest merch at your HomeGoods, or that someone’s willing to drive 3 hours just to try your restaurant’s latest twist on pizza. Their insights can improve the product or service you sell, too, making you a more valuable employee all-around.

So, how do you even find — or build — superconsumers where you work? Eddie’s research found that superconsumers tend to flock together, so looking at where your sales are strongest is one starting point. Or searching social media for hashtags that reflect your brand. Then reach out to those people. It doesn’t have to be a formal focus group; just a casual conversation to understand the various ways they use your product or service, why they’re passionate about it, and how it can fulfill a need and give them a sense of accomplishment. Their passion might just ignite yours.

You can pick up a copy of Superconsumers on Amazon or at most major bookstores.

Photo by Emma Matthews on Unsplash.

We got a late start to mapping out our goals this year. Normally, it’s a Jan. 1 tradition, but 2017 left me feeling a little burned out. I didn’t come close to half of my goals. For most of them, I didn’t even try to make progress toward them. I couldn’t really explain why, either. I just didn’t feel like putting in the work, so I kept pushing it off — which made me realize those goals probably weren’t for me. They’re things that’d look good posted on Instagram (ahem, yoga inversions!) or would make for a good conversation-starter (why yes, I DO speak Greek!), but my heart wasn’t in ’em.

So this year, I eschewed normal resolutions, giving myself an extra week to reflect and reset before designing this year’s goals printable. It sparked a few questions that I hope are helpful for you, too.

1. What do I want to achieve this year?
2. What am I so excited about doing that I can’t wait to dive into it, no matter what anyone else may think?
3. What are the little things that’ll boost my quality of life — and that of those around me?
4. What are the tedious things I just need to buckle down and get DONE?
5. What are the “shoulds” I can give myself permission NOT to do? (More on the red-flag nature of that word here.)

Once I identified those, my actual goals became a lot clearer, and it was easier to (1) create measurable steps toward achieving them, and (2) define what “success” looked like in those areas, even if it’s as simple as FINALLY recycling old electronics cluttering our office.

Work through those questions, take a walk, then jot down what you want, what you really, really want (the Spice Girls were onto something!) on the printable below. You know, after you’ve printed it. People still have printers, right? 😉

Top photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash