Author: tessaarmstrong.co.uk

Five ways to achieve as a perfectionist

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Performance at work ,

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‘A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.’ (Albert Einstein)

Are you a perfectionist?

Do you set yourself standards so high that they are almost impossible to reach? Do you frequently feel disappointed with yourself for not being able to meet the standards you set? Do you worry about what other people would say? Do you view mistakes as failure?

If you answer yes to these questions, you may be a perfectionist.

Being a perfectionist, does not lead to perfection….

A perfectionist sets themselves extremely high standards which are usually unattainable. Furthermore, when they don’t achieve perfection, they can spend a large amount of time criticising their efforts leading to feelings of frustration, anxiety and exhaustion. Their unattainable high standards rarely lead to perfection but instead lead to feelings of not being good enough and a fear of failure which can ultimately stop them from achieving what they want to achieve.

Does this sound familiar? If so, I am sure you would admit that these experiences can be very stressful and leave you feeling really disappointed with yourself.

Now let’s turn to the good news which is that anyone can be successful without being perfect. Let me tell you how…

Being successful without perfection.

If you find that being a perfectionist is stopping you from moving forward with your career or any other part of your life, please believe me when I say that there are ways to achieve without being perfect.

Have a think about something you would like to achieve but have not pursued for fear of failure. Perhaps it’s a career change, a promotion or a new hobby. Now have a think about how you can overcome your fear of failure. Read the following five ways which will enable you to move forward and achieve what you want to achieve:

  1. Stop thinking ‘I am not good enough’ and start thinking ‘I am good enough’. Nobody is perfect!
  2. Be constructive and don’t worry too much about the detail. Instead ask yourself, what is the worst that can happen? Accept that we all make mistakes and use these to help you move forward (rather than feeling rubbish about yourself). How can you do it better next time?
  3. Be kind to yourself and lower your standards. You can still set high standards but make them achievable.
  4. What small step can you now take? Allow for some imperfection!
  5. Celebrate your achievements! Enjoy it!

Remember, you can be excellent without being perfect!

 

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

Six ways to find career happiness

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Career Change, Uncategorized ,

maze

Do you long to be able to say ‘I LOVE MY JOB’?

Do you want to be able to respond with passion and excitement to the frequently asked question ‘What do you do?’.

Do you want to enjoy Monday mornings and feel relaxed on Sunday evenings?

Are you so fed up at work that even answering these questions has made you feel depressed? You actually dread Monday mornings and feel full of anxiety on Sunday evenings.

Feeling miserable at work is really tough. It impacts your career, as you become increasingly disengaged with work, and your home life becomes a struggle too. We don’t want to feel like this but often we do not know how to make it better. How do we find a career that makes us happy?

Let me tell how….

You will find six action points below which will help you to find a career that makes you happy. Please take time to go through each step. Remember, it is a process that cannot be completed overnight. It will take time but will be worth it. 

  1. You – take time to think about you. What do you enjoy doing and what interests you? Think of times when you felt really motivated and fulfilled – what were you doing? Be as specific as you can. You want a career that takes advantage of these skills, strengths and interests.
  2. Your personality – Work out what kind of working environment would best suit you? Do you like going to the office each day or do you prefer being out and about? What makes you feel happy and comfortable?
  3. Your money – We are often preoccupied with how much we are earning and make this our primary focus in a career search. We all need money but how much do you really need to be happy?   Do not let salary solely dictate your career path. Decide on a realistic salary band. Remember some of the top 20 most satisfying careers are the lowest paid.
  4. Your vision – Having progressed through points 1- 3, now think about your first day in your ideal job. What are you doing? Who do you meet? Where are you? Who do you talk to? How are you feeling? What skills are you using? Focusing on the detail will make action five easier to achieve.
  5. Your investigations – spend time researching opportunities that you believe closely match your vision. Talk to people. Do some work experience. Keep asking questions and discovering what makes you happy.
  6. Your plan – Start making decisions and create an action plan to find the job you love.

These actions may require taking a step into the unknown. However, they will give you the best chance of finding the job that you love whilst providing your work-life balance with a happy boost.

Remember it is YOUR career – it is about YOU and what makes YOU happy.

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

How I made a career change possible

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Many people really struggle to see how a career change can be possible. Perhaps they are unhappy in their job but feel they should persevere with it. Perhaps they do not want to risk changing career for fear of failure. Perhaps they have absolutely no idea what they want to do.

I changed career and, although I did struggle at times to believe it could be possible, I am glad I persevered as I did eventually discover what I wanted to do. This is how I did it.

I initially trained in law and qualified as a family law solicitor. I was attracted to this area of law given my interest in problem solving and helping people move forward with their lives. I enjoyed tackling the challenges my caseload provided but, after a few years, my mind started wandering. I started to become more curious about the world of careers and the options available. I felt there was more for me to explore and that I might be better suited to something else, something that was really me.

After a lot of thinking time, I realised that I was not going to be able to leap into my ‘dream’ job from my current role and so I made the bold decision to save some money and take a six-month career break to enable me to experience different roles of interest to me and make a better decision about my career.

I remember one of the hardest things about making this decision was having to justify it to people. Why would I leave the certainty of my job in law? Perhaps many people wouldn’t leave their job but this decision was right for me and I always knew that I would regret not making this step. If it didn’t work out, I would return to law.

During my career break, my initial intention was to do some studying and voluntary work. My focus was on improving the lives of adults and children within the education and charity sectors.

Within a couple of months, I had completed a Foundation Course in Counselling Skills for Working with Children with Place2Be and was offered temporary paid experience working in a primary school. By the end of my six months and upon completion of my work in school, I was fortunate to secure a paid full time position as a Major Gifts Officer at Macmillan Cancer Support.

Working for Macmillan was fantastic and, through witnessing the courage of those suffering from cancer, I became even more determined to find a career I was passionate about.

It was during this time that career coaching started to feature in my mind. Given my experience of moving from the legal to the charity sector, several people approached me for career advice and guidance. I was surprised by the number of people who did not enjoy their jobs and the negative impact this was having on their lives. I started to investigate the world of career coaching and found this to be a career I wanted to do.

I established my business, Tessa Armstrong Associates, and have now been working as a career and performance coach for almost 7 years. I am using my past and present experiences and skills to improve the lives of individuals by enabling them to discover what they want to do and support them in getting there. I am also currently keeping in touch with my other interests (children, education and charity) in a voluntary capacity.

Finding this career path took a lot of research, planning and networking as I thought seriously about what I wanted to achieve. It also took a lot of perseverance to overcome the challenges and uncertainty along the way but it was all worth it. I enjoy what I do and hope my story has given you something to think about.

The biggest thing I learnt was that a career change takes time. There may be a few steps to take and decisions to make before you reach your destination. Be patient, be brave and focus on solutions.

If you do not enjoy your career, are thinking of a career change or struggling with your performance at work, have a look at my free resources here and start thinking about your next step.

Imagine a world where we all felt fulfilled, confident and excited about our career choices!

http://www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

Don’t give up on your career!

tessaarmstrong.co.uk fear of failure

career-coaching

Have you ever felt like a failure? You may remember an incident as if it happened yesterday. We’ve all been there! I can certainly think of a few times in my life when I have felt like this.

Feelings of failure can be very difficult to overcome. We often cling on to negative experiences, using them to justify beliefs that we are not good enough. We can be very hard on ourselves.

Unfortunately, these negative beliefs can set us up to fail. They can prevent us from doing the things we want to do achieve, especially in our careers. They also cause low self-esteem and perfectionism, making us feel miserable. We can miss some amazing opportunities through feeling like this.

‘Do not be afraid!’

As we prepare for 2016 Christmas, we will hear this phrase from the Nativity story a lot over the next few weeks so how about using it to help you move forward with your career journey. It may not be quite as dramatic as the Nativity but imagine how exciting it would be to start the new year no longer being afraid to pursue your dream career.

I know it can be difficult to overcome feelings of failure. However, it is possible and perhaps Christmas is the best time to start challenging those feelings.

Can you find the courage now to overcome your fear of failure?

How you answer this question is your choice. You can choose to end 2016 dwelling on past negative experiences or you can choose to challenge your feelings, learn from your past experiences and enter 2017 with a new positive vision of yourself and hope for your career.

Taking responsibility to change your beliefs will enable you to experience all the amazing opportunities the (career) world can offer.

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

Stop waiting, take action!

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Career Change, job search ,

career-coaching

‘The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.’

Barack Obama

What a great quote! It truly sums up the message I would like to share with you in this month’s blog.

Stop waiting, take action

Waiting for good things to happen can be a soul-destroying experience, making you feel hopeless as you revisit past mistakes and wonder why good things always appear out of reach.

Living like this can be exhausting. Dwelling on past mistakes and waiting and waiting….and waiting….

Can I persuade you to free yourself from all this waiting?

Can you let go of past mistakes and associated feelings of failure?

Can you believe that good things are in reach and you can do something about it?

As Barack Obama says, the best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Find the courage to try new opportunities. If something doesn’t work out, try something different. Remember, there is no failure, only feedback.

Through believing in yourself and acting on your ideas, you can make this an exciting year for you and your career.

Stop waiting, take action!

http://www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

How to cope if you are put at risk of redundancy

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It can be a worrying time being put at risk of redundancy. You may feel frightened, out of control and unsure about your next steps. It can be very stressful time and so it is important that you look after yourself emotionally, be positive and take as much ownership of the situation as you can.

To help you move forward, here are a few steps you can take:

  1. Know your rights. Ensure you understand the consultation process. Seek advice on the process, your rights and your entitlements.
  2. Identify your strategy. What will be your approach? Do you want to stay or does redundancy appeal?
  3. Take ownership. Put together an action plan for your next steps.
  4. Build your self-awareness. Be clear about what you want from future roles. What are your strengths? What do you enjoy? What work environments suit you?
  5. Consider your career options. This may be a great opportunity for you to enhance your skills or change career.
  6. Start job hunting. Use all job search resources available such as LinkedIn, networking and recruitment agencies.

Be positive. Be proactive. Be prepared.

You can’t control being put at risk of redundancy but you can control your response.

For further information please read my fact sheet, ‘10 tips on what to do if you are made redundant’.

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

How to get a new job now – The three Ps!

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Career Change, job search ,

career-coaching

How to plan your job search strategy and make use of all the resources available to you to enable you to get the best job for you.

Is it becoming impossible to get a new job?

The job market is tough – we know this because we read and talk about it all the time. People are struggling to find new jobs and are becoming impatient and fed up. However, getting a new job is not impossible. You may simply need to expand your job search strategy to get the job you want.

Your Job Search Strategy

We can often be in such a hurry to jump ship that we forget about our job search strategy and all the resources available to help us. We end up limiting our opportunities meaning our job search will take longer and our chances of finding the right job will be harder.

Take the time now to focus on your job strategy using The Three Ps.

Planning: It is important to plan your job search, ensuring you use all the resources available to you. Be organised and maintain a record of everything.

Positivity: Go for it! Don’t get disheartened when you receive rejections. It will probably mean that job is not right for you and there is a better one around the corner.   If you focus on the negatives, you will only see the negatives. Having a positive focus is the best way to achieve positive results. Patience: Don’t expect a new job to come to you. Finding a new job can be time consuming. Giving your job search the time it deserves will enable you to move forward efficiently.

Planning, positivity and patience will help you get the best job for you.

Please read my new Job search strategy factsheet, ’10 Effective Job Search Strategies’ for further help on the resources you can use to expand and enhance your job search.

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

How to make the first step towards finding the job that suits you

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Career Change, job search ,

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‘Surround yourself with passionate people who inspire possibility.’

(How to find work you love, Scott Dunsmore (TED talk))

Sometimes we can become surrounded by negative people who, unknown to them, prevent us from exploring possibilities, reaching our potential and finding the job that suits us.

When I started telling people I wanted to move from being employed to self-employed, I was met with a mixture of advice, a lot of which focused on the potential negative side of self-employment. Have I thought about the risk? How will I get business? Won’t I be lonely? It would have been very easy for me to give in and continue with my current employment. However, I quickly learnt that if I wanted to try new things and push myself to the limit, I had to surround myself with people who filled me with inspiration, encouragement and support, rather than those who filled me with fear.

If you want to find the job that suits you, be cautious of those who try to put you off making a big decision due to their own fears. Choose to spend time with passionate people who will encourage and support you.

http://www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

How to stop stress preventing you from pursuing changes in your career (in two easy steps!)

tessaarmstrong.co.uk Career Change, fear of failure, job search ,

career-coaching

‘The best way to make decisions is to go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.’ 

How to make stress your friend, Kelly McGonigal (TED talk)

I recently listened to the Ted talk, How to make stress your friend by Kelly McGonigal, and it reminded me of the decision-making process I went through to make a career change. After a lot of research, I had reached a point when I had an idea of what I wanted to do but my fear that a career change would be too stressful initially prevented me from pursing my idea.

Like many of us, I was viewing stress as a negative thing. The thing that causes us to lose sleep, eat too much or eat too little. It can make us feel anxious and it can make us grumpy. We all respond to stress in different ways and, when our response is negative, we develop fears and avoid making decisions.

In her TED talk, McGonigal talks about how we should change our thinking and view our response to stress in a positive way to enable us to move forward with decisions. In particular, she explains how we can become resilient to stress through human connection and reaching out to others. In building this resilience, we can then trust ourselves to handle life’s challenges and we won’t be alone whilst doing it.  If you are at a crossroad in your career and finding it hard to decide which direction to go in, my suggestion to you is do a reality check through a very simple two-step process:

  1. Become aware of what is concerning you and making you feel stressed. I remember when I was thinking about a career change, I was concerned about telling people – what would their reaction be? I was also concerned about venturing into the unknown.
  2. Acknowledge and accept your concerns and create a simple statement such as ‘I acknowledge that the change will be stressful to me but I know my need is greater and it is worth going through the stress. The benefit is that I will have a job I want’.

http://www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk

3 steps to turn your fear of rejection into career success

tessaarmstrong.co.uk fear of failure, job search, Performance at work

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I recently watched a very amusing and informative TED talk by Jia Jiang titled ‘What I learned form 100 days of rejection’. As we all know, fear of rejection is extremely common and can surface anytime, anywhere and to anyone. It prevents us from trying new things, stops us from achieving our goals and pushes us away from what we really want in our life and career.

In his talk, Jia Jiang talks about how a fear of rejection can arise from misunderstandings. When being rejected, we often run away wrongly assuming we are the reason for the rejection. We don’t ask questions, we don’t engage in conversation and we don’t find out the true reason. We close the door to discovering other possibilities and we achieve nothing.

I can remember applying for a training contract as a trainee solicitor and being faced with a pile of rejection letters. Each letter took away a small chunk of my confidence and it felt like a personal attack on my personality and ability. I could have given up but I now know that these jobs were simply not right for me. There was in fact one firm I really wanted to work for and so I persevered with the application process and was successful. The rejections had taught me that the competition was tough and so I needed to work extra hard to achieve.

How can we all turn rejection into opportunities and success?

Jiang’s solution to overcoming our fear of rejection is simple and can be summarised in three steps:

  1. Embrace your fear (Don’t run)
  2. Ask the right questions (Don’t assume)
  3. Turn your findings into opportunities (Don’t stop)

It involves a desensitisation from the pain that rejection brings (step 1) and asking for what you want (step 2).   It is through asking the right questions that we can discover the true reason behind the rejection and uncover further opportunities (step 3).

‘When you get rejected in life, when you are facing the next obstacle or next failure, consider the possibilities. Don’t run. If you just embrace them they might become your gifts as well.’ (Jia Jiang)

To find out more, watch his talk and listen to how Jiang proved the success of embracing rejection by setting himself a challenge to seek out rejection for 100 days. It is only 15 minutes long and will certainly engage you in how to overcome the fear of rejection in an encouraging and inspiring way.

www.tessaarmstrong.co.uk