I completely dropped the ball today. Not once: THREE times.
→ I was late for my first in-person client meeting because people in Charlotte drive like they’ve lost their mind when it rains. And I got every red light for miles.
→ I forgot my laptop charger at home so my computer died while I was going over a career report with my second client.
→ I completely forgot to call a third client because we scheduled over email instead of through my scheduling tool and I forgot to add it to my calendar.
Today was a life lesson that sometimes how we REACT to what happens to us ruins our day more than what actually happens to us.
I made a decision to refuse to let these set backs bring me down.
When the nits of life try to pull you down, hold up your fists and shout, “Get behind me! I’m not going down today!”
#resilience
Posts By virtuscareers
I Dropped the Ball!
Want More Confidence? Know Thyself!
Socrates is credited with the quote, “The beginning of wisdom is to know thyself.” I suggest knowing thyself is also the beginning of the road to confidence.
I’ve partnered with career coaching clients who’ve been at the proverbial bottom of the pit, and their confidence has taken a beating. From clients whose spouses have died or left them – never needing to be the primary wage earner before, to executives that were surreptitiously ousted coup-style by their colleagues, to countless others whose managers beat their spirits down through criticism (despite their own managerial deficits which contributed to my clients’ inability to be successful in their roles).
When doing career discovery and transition work with clients, my goal is simply to show them what they do best and help them determine the most desirable and feasible career options that align to those insights so they won’t dread Mondays anymore.
Not only do my clients and I accomplish that goal together, but I began to notice a trend. From the first time we spoke, until we finished working together, their confidence increased. They shifted from feeling uncertain, to feeling inspired about their future and their ability to pursue it. This has happened again, and again which has led me to conclude that people who are clearly aware of their strengths and abilities not only project confidence, but have achieved authentic confidence by internalizing it.
Some of the comments clients make after they go through the exercise of self-discovery have been:
“I’m so excited to learn so much about myself!”
“I felt so confident when I went into that interview!”
“I took my strengths for granted, and didn’t recognize them as unique abilities.”
“I have you to thank for guiding me in the right direction to have more confidence in myself and my abilities.”
This is why I love my work so much. I don’t just help people gain career clarity and the steps to achieve it, I help them gain confidence!
How do you increase your self-confidence? A potential first step is to understand your strengths. I highly recommend the Gallup StrengthFinder assessment. Read the Strengths Insight Guide that comes with it, and discuss it with people who know you, both at work and at home.
Ask people to share examples of how you’ve used your strengths, and then contemplate how you’ve used them from your perspective.
Next, take a free assessment to evaluate your character strengths.
From the VIA Institute on Character:
“Research tells us that individuals who use their character strengths lead happier, more satisfying lives. Only when you understand your unique character strengths can you begin to live a life that is engaging, exciting and rewarding to you.”
Again, share the insights you gain with people who know you. Ask them to share observations of when you’ve used these strengths.
Finally, assess what’s most important to you: your values. This brief exercise provides a third leg of the stool to have a source of pride in what makes you unique: your strengths, your character, and your values.
Our human tendency is to focus on what is wrong with us. When we focus on our assets, everything changes when we begin to appreciate what is right with us. We embrace our strengths, and hopefully start intentionally leveraging them!
All the best to you,
Kristin
3 Ways Nerves Kill Your Interview. 7 Ways to Keep Them in Check.
Have you ever visited a friend or family member with a dog that gets so nervous when people enter the house it starts to shake and pee on the floor? It’s quite pitiful, isn’t it?
When I was a hiring manager I interviewed a lot of people, and many of them were nervous. While being a bit nervous in an interview is normal, the image of the shaking, squirting little dog is not what you want to bring to a hiring manager’s mind when interviewing.
People get nervous for a variety of reasons. They believe a lot is riding on the interview. They’re concerned they may stumble on a question they haven’t prepared for. They lack confidence in their ability to perform well in an interview situation. They dread questions about their past, or the reason for leaving their last job, just to list a few.
Nerves that are detectable by an interviewer are self-sabbotaging. Knowing you’re preparing to sabbotage yourself should make you more nervous than the interview!
Here are 3 reasons why nerves kill an interview:
It undermines the interviewer’s confidence in you and calls your competence into question.
If you aren’t confident in your ability to do the job, the hiring manager has no reason to be.
You may also be giving off the impression you can’t handle pressure situations. Your manager isn’t going to feel comfortable giving you challenges, putting you in front of clients, asking you to give presentations or anything that could potentially undermine confidence in his or her team.
It creates a distraction that prevents you from building rapport with the interviewer.
An interviewee has two goals during an interview: connect your abilities to the position (I’ll talk about this later), and connect with the interviewer. Period.
Nerves don’t materialize out of thin air — They’re connected to anxiety-provoking thoughts you’re permitting to rent space in your head. If you’re nervous, you’re mentally focused on yourself, not the interviewer.
You can’t build a good rapport with someone when you’re focusing on yourself.
It affects your interview performance.
When you’re nervous, it’s because your brain is telling itself you’re in danger. Unless you walk into the room and find a venomous snake in the chair you’re about to plop into, an interview is not a dangerous situation, and turning it into one puts your body into fight/flight mode.
Let’s look at what happens when you’re in fight/flight:
The stress hormone, adrenaline, is released into your bloodstream causing your hands to become cold and sweaty (not pleasant to shake), your mouth to become dry (it’s not easy to speak eloquently with a dry mouth), and the pre-frontal cortex (which is responsible for personality expression, complex cognitive function, social behavior, and plays a role in memory), to experience lower levels of oxygen. This impairs your ability to recall interview stories when someone asks you to “Tell me about a time when…”
The decreased oxygen in your pre-frontal cortex also impairs your social interactions, your ability to portray your authentic personality, and your ability to think clearly. This is why we some times say irrational things when we are upset or stressed.
How to Keep Your Nerves in Check
1. Pay attention to the thoughts going through your mind
Most likely your thoughts will subconsciously carry your confidence off like a runaway train. Consciously identifying your thoughts allows you to challenge them and counter-balance them with different thinking; not accepting them at face value.
Here’s an example:
“There is so much riding on this job. If I don’t get it, I can’t pay my rent.”
I’m willing to bet you’re not homeless, and if it came right down to it you have friends or family that aren’t going to stand by and watch you live in your car if you don’t get that job. When the thought surfaces, you must reassure yourself the right job is out there for you. And when the right job presents, you’re going to get it. I work with clients who are beyond miserable and gainfully employed. Not receiving an offer means you weren’t what they were looking for. But you’re exactly what someone else needs. Count your blessings you avoided a situation as bad, or worse, than the situation you’re in.
2. Take slow, deep breaths
Before going into your interview take three slow, deep breaths, holding them for a count of three, then slowing releasing. This will help oxygenate your brain. Yawning also accomplishes oxygenation.
3. Make sure you are prepared to interview for the position
You will rise to your level of preparedness in the interview. Preparation is a key defense to nerves. You will want to be very intentional in preparing for each specific job you interview for. This article outlines how to align what you do best to the job description. Also, this checklist will help ensure your ducks are in a row.
4. Think positive
The brain can’t focus on a negative and a positive at the same time. Knowing this, focus on your positives; those strengths that make you stand out. Everyone has strengths and, in fact, only 1 in 33 million people share the same top five in common on the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment.
I highly recommend taking the assessment to speak more confidently about your strengths.
Another positive approach is to tell the interviewer how glad you are to meet them, and that you’re looking forward to this time together. You’d be surprised how you can convince your brain that you really are happy to be in the situation.
5. Laugh a little, and smile
Just as adrenaline has a negative effect on interview performance, positive neurochemicals (which are released when you laugh and smile) have a positive effect. People who smile and laugh are rated higher in likability, and there is a lot of research about smiles being contagious. I was in Walmart two weeks ago in Nashville, TN, and the cashier didn’t look at me, or address me when I was checking out. At the very end of the transaction she looked up at me to hand me the receipt. When she looked at me, I gave her a genuine, big smile. Her hard exterior immediately melted and she returned a big smile back at me. It was a thing of beauty.
6. Think before you speak
If you’re nervous, you’re at risk of rambling. Poor impressions are certain to be made if the interviewer is subjected to a deluge of poorly thought out responses. If you don’t have an answer at the ready, ask for a moment (10 – 15 seconds should do it) to give the question some thought, or ask to return to the question at the end.
7. Exercise, get plenty of rest the night before, eat breakfast
Our coping skills suffer when we’re not well rested or nourished. Exercising the day before your interview should help you sleep better that night so you can show up ready to go.
Best of luck to you!
Why My Clients Get Job Offers!
In the past few weeks I’ve coached half a dozen people on interview preparation, all of whom were made an offer. I’ve made one crucial observation.
Most people answer the question “What are your strengths?” incorrectly, and poorly.
When I speak with prospective clients I ask them to describe their strengths to me. Here are some examples I’ve noted:
I’m organized and detail-oriented.
I’m committed and hard-working.
I get things done.
I’m good with people.
I am passionate and driven.
Now, let’s set aside the fact most of these are not strengths. A strength is a talent, yet most of these are behavioral traits. I won’t split hairs about this, however, because there is a greater problem afoot.
Let’s take these traits and juxtapose them next to the following question:
Would you, as a decision-maker, hire me if I told you the following?:
I’m unorganized and often miss the details.
I lack commitment and I’m not very hard-working.
I don’t get much done.
I’m bad with people.
I lack passion and drive.
All I’ve done is rephrase the prior answers as opposites, which strongly reinforces a salient point: The traits most people provide as strengths in interviews arerequirements of every candidate in the mind of the interviewer.
When you are explaining your strengths, be sure to share natural talents that you possess – those things that set you apart – that are not in abundant supply. What did you do in your previous jobs that others did not do nearly as well?
Here is a client example of two strengths, defined:
Achiever – You have a great deal of stamina and work hard. You take great satisfaction from being busy and productive. Your drive is the power supply that causes you to set the pace and define the productivity levels for others.
Learner – You have a great desire to continuously improve. Learning enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time.
Instead of simply saying, “I work hard and like to learn things”, a more effective strategy is to create a strength narrative that both explains the strength, andprovides a story to back it up:
“Two of my strengths are Learner and Achiever, which means I catch on quickly and have interest in many things. When these strengths work together they influence strong goal achievement. I enjoy learning, and then doing something productive with that knowledge. It’s where learning meets application for me. For example, the last two jobs I’ve held I didn’t meet the minimum qualifications, but because of my strong ability to learn and ramp up quickly, and my desire to be productive every day, I consistently outperformed tenured team members in exceeding productivity goals.”
The best way to hone in on your most natural strengths is to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, and receive a debrief on your strengths. This provides both the awareness and the language to help you convey your strengths effectively, naturally, and confidently.
Once you know your true strengths, you will knock the socks of an interviewer like no other candidates.
So, what are your strengths?
Book Launch!
I’m excited to announce my book, “Follow Your Star: Career Lessons I Learned from Mom” is scheduled to release on Amazon.com on Mother’s Day weekend, 2016!
Stay tuned for more details…
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Kristin A. Sherry 