Quote Of The Week #337
Tag: Opportunities
Quote Of The Week #306
Quote Of The Week #279
15 Signs It’s Time To Quit Your Job
Though people have to be financially responsible, they give themselves the opportunity to explore and to search for a job that will make them happy.
Needless to say, quitting your job is a big decision, an exciting yet scary endeavor.
On one hand, we remember that we have to survive and pay the bills. On the other hand, we no longer have to put up with bad decisions, poor workmanship and slow processes.
Wondering how to recognize when it’s time to quit your job and how to effectively develop an exit strategy?
15 Signs It’s Time To Quit
Sometimes, we are in way over our heads, other times we just want to collect that paycheck and nothing else. It becomes hard to notice the signs that it’s time to quit.
You know it’s time to quit when:
#1. You Desperately Look For Reasons To Quit
Your job has become a problem and is weighing heavy on your shoulder. You feel it in your bones and your desire to quit roams your brain all day.
At this point, anything would justify your desire to quit.
If you don’t get your morning coffee, then it’s time to quit.
If your train runs late, then it’s time to quit.
If there is too much traffic today, then it’s definitely time to quit.
#2. You Believe The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side
You are low-key envious of people who quit their job and who start their own business ventures.
#3. You Are Burnt Out
When it’s time to quit, your intuition will usually let you know in advance that something is wrong.
If you don’t pay attention to your intuition, your mind ill start to go in overdrive.
Finally, your body will suffer the repercussion.
You are burnt out if:
- You are doing your best on the job but your best doesn’t seem to be enough.
- You don’t have the energy or the time to do your work.
- Your physical health suffers. working out doesn’t help anymore and you have probably put on weight.
- You don’t pay attention to your personal grooming.
#4. You Require A Better Work Life Balance
You bring your job home and incessantly complain about it.
You don’t take care of yourself or your family.
You believe that you deserve a better work-life balance.
#5. You Are Depressed Every Sunday Night
Sunday nights are extremely depressing because you remember your past week and because you dread Monday mornings.
#6. You Are Underperforming
You are underperforming and are making too many mistakes on things that you used to be good at.
You have been unable to reach deadlines, to defend your progress and perspectives.
You constantly look for distraction from your work environment whether you are on or off the job.
Furthermore, you don’t care about your workplace performance, your reputation, your well-being, the opinion of your coworkers, and the respect for our boss is gone.
#7. You Are Undervalued And Underutilized
You feel underappreciated and are bored to death.
You have no voice within the organization.
You don’t feel like your strengths and weaknesses are being adequately used.
#8. You Take Too Many Breaks
You have been absent and keep taking more absence leaves that you used to.
Basically, you cannot wait for the day to end.
You plan your breaks, your lunches and your vacations before you even start your workday. You obsess about your vacations and your mental health depends on them.
You go to the bathroom too often and take too many calls out of your office.
#9. You Just Don’t Fit In
Working gives us the means to survive and is quasi inevitable.
You need more freedom to express yourself and the company culture does not allow your form of expression.
#10. Your Job Does Not Align With Your Life Purpose
You spent time studying for a degree, graduated and your college degree doesn’t match your job description.
In addition, you don’t understand your task, get no satisfaction from doing your job and you start questioning the purpose of your job.
#11. You Cannot Project Yourself In The Future
There are no growth opportunities to evolve, to move towards a new position, to learn new skills.
You cannot project yourself in the future because you have other plans for your future, your leadership vision is not being executed, your life is changing but your salary isn’t, your colleagues are getting better paid than you do or because you have been passed up for promotion too many times.
#12. Your Social Life Is Affected
Your social life is stunted and your relationships are strained.
You don’t want to bring up work with your friends and family.
Conversations about work with people you enjoy depress you, project you in negative thoughts and negative emotions overwhelm you.
You are not a complainer but you start complaining NON STOP about your job. You bring up the subject with whomever even when it doesn’t matter.
#13. The Ethics On Your Job Are Questionable
You work in a toxic environment:
- Your higher-ups and your organization generally lack ethics.
- Your core leadership values don’t align with those of your organization.
- You experience an emotional rollercoaster daily.
- You are perpetually in fight or flight mode. You are either looking for conflict or hiding from everyone and everything.
- You are being bullied, your self-esteem is continually being attacked and your ethics are daily challenged.
- You suddenly cannot stand your colleagues and find faults in everything that they do.
#14. Your Leader Is Out Of Control
Employees don’t leave a job, they leave bad bosses.
You don’t admire or respect your leaders. You don’t ask them for advice anymore and question their decisions.
#15. Your Organization Is Laying People Off
Your organization is facing serious financial difficulties and you think that you will get laid off.
You have to financially take care of yourself and quit.
There are two options after quitting your job: either you find another one or you create one. Just remember that not all workplaces are the same.
Developing An Exit Strategy
Sometimes, we have reached our limits and it’s time to quit. However, it’s always important to develop an exit strategy.
- Examine your mental, physical and emotional health.
- Take time off to think about yourself. Identify your core values, your purpose, your strengths and weaknesses.
- Evaluate your motivations to stay on the job. Look around for clues that it’s time to quit your job. You can do a pros and cons list.
- Think about the consequences of leaving your job.
- Plan your future before quitting. It is imperative that you:
- Analyze your skill sets and check which ones you wish to develop.
- Find out which field you wish to work in and discuss it with people who are in your field of preference.
- Proactively look for another job. Keep looking for job and applying online while you are still employed. It is recommended to discreetly find a new job before moving on to the new one.
- Pick your next profession with care.
- Build a solid vision.
- Prepare yourself for the next opportunity and get rid of past baggage.
- Be comfortable with change and embrace the unknown.
- Speak to your close friends and family about your decision. Ultimately, you know what is best for you.
- Be confident in your decision, acknowledge that there is no shame in quitting and understand that there is no perfect time to quit.
- Leave on good terms even though you hated your job.
Last Words Of Advice!
Quitting your job doesn’t mean being jobless, giving up on yourself or that you have failed altogether. During the quitting process, it is detrimental to grow internally, to keep yourself busy and stay on purpose.
Furthermore, you can either go after your dreams or help someone else build their own.
If you don't build your dream someone will hire you to help build theirs.” Tony Gaskins Click To TweetHope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Mel Robbins
Mel Robbins is a motivational and keynote speaker. Mel Robbins is also the author of The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, And Confidence With Everyday Courage.
Acquiring Impressive Problem-Solving Skills In 6 Steps
Leaders are often faced with recurring issues in their personal and in their professional lives.
On a daily basis, they fight to retain talent, to keep their businesses alive, to keep up with the market, to increase their return on investment, to deal with clients, to evolve and to encourage growth.
Problems arise when there is a discrepancy between reality and expectations, when leaders are unable to successfully reach their goals.
Their ability to anticipate and to solve problems will determine their success and will increase their chances for promotion.
Wondering how to acquire problem-solving skills?
What is problem-solving?
Problem-solving is a cognitive skill that is useful in challenging, problematic and uncertain situations that require resolution.
Problem-solving is uncomfortable, takes time, requires practice and need constant monitoring. This intuitive skill is also sharpened by mistakes and failures.
Furthermore, problems encourage growth and change in us. That is why problem-solving requires facing inner demons.
It also helps us acquire innovative skills, people skills, communication skills, data gathering, conflict management and analytical skills.
How to actually solve problems?
Problem-solving gives leaders the opportunity to deal with change, to handle conflict, to delegate, to humbly ask for help.
Leaders who are unable to effectively solve problems lack knowledge in their respective fields, don’t establish practical methods, don’t commit to one solution, fail to implement their vision or to understand the problem all together.
STEP #1 Work on your character
You cannot control most of the situations that you will face in life. However, you can control how you react to them. It is therefore necessary to work on your character and to:
- Know yourself, trust your intuition and understand that your ideas are valuable.
- Be mindful that problems arise every day and that you cannot solve everything all at once.
- Write down all the rules and core values that guide you so you can remember them in time of need.
- Be open-minded, explore other fields than your own and to frequent people from other industries.
- Educate yourself on your business. Read books and articles on your field.
- Avoid jumping to conclusions. Challenge your assumptions before you restrict your opportunities
- Be patient but take action before it’s too late and before the opportunity expires.
- Pay attention to other people’s opinion but don’t worry too much about the naysayers.
- Admit if you have made a mistake. Great leaders are able to face issues without shifting blame and shifting values.
- Embrace change and avoid criticizing new ideas.
- Welcome failure. Don’t beat yourself up or don’t blame yourself for failure. Most successes or most innovations have broken through from failures.
STEP #2 Defining & Understanding the problem
Problems are synonymous with difficulty, issue, trouble, worry, complication, obstacle or setback. Problems trigger fight or flight response when handling a problematic situations.
There is no need to immediately appear decisive or to impress people. You must first define and understand the problem:
- Get the information about the problem.
- Identify the complexity, the symptoms, effects and root causes of the problem.
- Take time to reflect on your situation and to observe.
- Talk to the people implicated in the situation.
- Look for patterns and for trends.
- Find analogies to your situation that can help spark ideas.
- Reverse the problem: find the opposite problem or envision a worse problem.
STEP #3 Solutioning
Anticipating problems is the best option. But, the key is to staying focused or finding a solution. You must be able to study all the possible solutions of the problem:
- Explore all ideas even if you think that they won’t work.
- Suggest solutions that would make the problem worse.
- Think about your past experiences when you have been put in sticky situations. It can be a conflict with your coworkers, It can be a discussion with your clients or situations with your family.
- Look at what is being done by experts and evaluate the opposite solution.
- Ask for help from people around you. You can use brainstorming, mind mapping or road mapping techniques.
- Remove yourself from the situation to clear your mind and gain a different perspective.
- Break down the situation into simpler components.
- Write down pros and cons of the solutions.
- Clarify the criteria that your solution must meet.
- Test the feasibility of the solution.
- Organize your thoughts and pick the solution that will maximize your return.
STEP #4 Making a decision
When you have evaluated all the solutions, it’s time to make a decision. One decision is better than none.
- Look up the “unwritten rules“ that you are about to break before making a decision.
- Weigh in the consequences of your decisions. Rapid decisions can have serious implications, especially if you are a leader. So, be aware of the economic, social, political challenges of your decisions.
- Luckily, the leader does not have to resolve every problem on their own. To make better decisions, involve your team in the decision-making process. However, the final decisions is up to you.
- Seek to solve the problem long-term.
- Take the necessary time to make the right decision. You don’t need to impress or to act fast, you need to act right.
STEP #5 Executing the decision
After finding the perfect solution and making your decision, start implementing it:
- Set goals and deadlines that align with your goals.
- Keep your goals in mind.
- Focus on the outcomes of the solution and visualize the best scenario.
STEP #6 Measuring your progress & Monitoring the problem
Unfortunately, problems don’t solve themselves and can grow as time passes by. If the roots of the problem still persist:
- Assess the impact of your current decision.
- Reward yourself if your solution is bringing positive results.
- If your plan doesn’t work, cut the losses and get back up.
- Ask for additional help.
- Execute your plan B if you have one. Revisit the problem, start over the solving process otherwise.
- Take a break before moving on to the next problem.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Overcoming Procrastination & Becoming More Proactive
Whether you work from home or go to the office, procrastination plagues everybody.
However, a leader has no room for procrastination. Leaders who procrastinate are ineffective, unproductive and unaware of their own abilities.
They are unable to make the right decisions at the right time, to take action, to bring forth their vision, to reach their goals, to effectively manage their time, to discipline their thoughts and behavior, to properly manage uncertainty.
Consequently, followers start questioning their leadership potential and credibility.
Wondering how to stop procrastinating and to become much more proactive?
What is procrastination?
Contrary to popular belief, procrastination is not being lazy. Instead, procrastination is a defense mechanism.
Procrastination is the action of putting off an important yet unpleasant task, it is avoiding pain and pushing it back for later, it is neither starting nor completing a task.
Procrastination is ruled by fear, memories, avoidance of negative emotions, avoidance of pressure. Procrastination is often times linked to being a perfectionist.
Everybody procrastinates in different areas of their lives. You are a procrastinator if you:
- lack motivation and resilience.
- are often overwhelmed and frozen by tasks at work.
- are afraid of failure or success, are afraid or paralyzed by the limelight.
- don’t know where to start, are waiting for the right time and for everything to be perfect.
- don’t find the time.
- don’t feel like doing anything.
- are waiting for all your ducks to line up in a row.
- make excuses for your excuses.
- doubt yourself and the task that you have to undertake.
- don’t meet deadlines at work.
- unable to make decisions or are motivated by the last minutes pressure.
How to stop procrastinating?
Leaders don’t have the luxury to procrastinate because it is similar to self-sabotage. However, they are all subject to it to some extent.
Indeed, the more the task is daunting , the more we push it back. The more we push it back, the less time we have, the more the task becomes daunting.
Stop procrastinating will help you gain a sense of satisfaction and will increase your chances of success.
- Take care of yourself first and foremost. Procrastination can affect different aspect of their lives as well.
- Assess your strengths and weaknesses, be confident in your own abilities and maximize your potential.
- Stay positive, think about your past successes and boost your leadership self-esteem.
- Identify your purpose, your goals and understand the 80/20 Principle.
- Find meaning and satisfaction in your job.
- Learn self-discipline and increase your emotional intelligence. This will help you monitor what you say about yourself and to yourself, make clear and immediate decisions, to fight and understand your emotions. Don’t be afraid of challenging the status quo. Don’t let fear dictate your behavior and your decisions.
- Avoid overwhelming yourself, overthinking or over-analyzing a task. Measuring how difficult the task is and being afraid of failure will deter you from achieving any consequential result.
- Our perception of pain is programmed by past society and by past experiences. To get rid of that perception, visualize your success and your task accomplished.
- Write down what you have been procrastinating on and why. Write down 3 tasks that you must do. Work 5 minutes on each task successively without distraction.
- Break down on task in smaller feasible steps. Take the first step, focus on one step at a time and create momentum.
- Prioritize these steps: discern urgent tasks from important tasks, use the 80/20 principle. Take care of the hardest and most important task first and focus your energy on that.
- Estimate and isolate the time needed to execute your task. You can set a deadline and use a timer
- Commit to your tasks.
- Measure your progress and remind yourself of your accomplishments.
- To manage your time appropriately, anticipate obstacles, withstand challenges and find solutions.
- Make sure that your workspace is organized for the work at hand.
- Stay away from distractions. Stay away from internet and social media, turn off your phone, don’t check your emails.
- Develop a sense of urgency. It is critical to remind yourself that you will lose the opportunity, to remind yourself of the consequences of not making decisions or taking action, to remember that there is no right time to accomplish your task.
- Create a vision board in order to better visualize your goals.
- Create a routine and aim for the long-term.
- Don’t try to be perfect.
- Surround yourself with like-minded people.
- Watch motivational videos to get you started.
Don’t wait until you are 100% sure. The perfect time is now.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
The Importance Of Innovation In Leadership
Welcoming innovation and creating an overall innovation culture at work is not easy but necessary.
Most company cultures have very limiting unwritten rules when it comes to innovation. For the most part, innovators in corporate culture are seen as irresponsible, unmindful, nonconformist and disruptive. For instance, some organizations will not hesitate to shut down dissident voices and to punish rules breakers.
Furthermore, the longer you have been in a leadership position, the more you become complacent, the more you get stuck in your ways, the more you start believing in erroneous paradigms, the less you are willing to take risks, to change your processes and to innovate.
Wondering how to avoid complacency and to enable the innovation process?
What is innovation?
Innovation is a natural or acquired process that is present as a core value in most organization and that can make all the difference. It is the ability to deliver new positive data, value, concepts and systems. Somewhat, innovation implies creativity but not the other way around.
Furthermore, innovation is a mindset but not everyone is able to trigger innovation. Innovative leaders are capable of:
- Self-awareness and of assessing situations.
- Creativity and of generating new opportunities for themselves.
- Identifying issues, understanding them and exploring different perspectives.
- Finding long-term solutions to problem and making strategic decisions.
- Having a vision, short and long-term goals.
- Performing at a higher level, effectively restructuring organization, implementing a vision and appropriately using their resources.
- Communicating effectively.
- Adapting to different circumstances, taking action despite the circumstances and reinventing themselves.
- Taking charge of their behavior and their emotions.
- Adequately handling failure and success.
Why innovate?
Leaders feel pressure to adapt to the market, to create new products, to maintain a stable work environment, stable results and still welcome innovation. Jump starting the innovation process within your organization will help you and your organization:
- Stay relevant.
- Gain a competitive advantage.
- Remember that what worked in the past, will not necessarily work right now.
- Demonstrates your effectiveness, adaptability, capacity to handle issues and to overcome challenges.
- Pay close attention to the customers.
How to trigger and maintain an innovation culture?
Every organization has their own culture and every leader has their own norms. So, in order to avoid complacency and to trigger an innovative spirit:
- Live a healthy Work-Life Balance.
- Identify new ideas to integrate into your leadership style.
- Keep an open mind, focus on the positive, give yourself the time and the opportunity to explore, always ask questions and always be open to learn. Pursue truth and knowledge.
- Challenge your own knowledge, your assumptions and your preconceived notions.
- Avoid using your life and work experiences to drive innovation. Question and learn from everything: read, observe and explore more than usual. You can even look at other innovative ideas and see if they fir your situation.
- Get out of your comfort zone, challenge conventional wisdom and the status quo.
- Create a personal mission statement that measure your progress, that helps you follow through on your commitments and that incorporates your willingness to innovate.
- Rephrase a same issue multiple times to gain more clarification.
- Don’t hesitate to break societal rules to get where you want to go.
- Demonstrate that innovation is necessary. Incorporate it in your core values and in your actions.
- Listen to different ideas and appreciate other people point of views, especially if they are not related to the issue. However, this doesn’t mean that you will need to apply their point of view.
- Be confident in your vision and embrace change.
- Write down every idea that comes to you even if you don’t have the opportunity to use them.
- Learn to take calculated risks, to handle failure as well as success, to plan for the unknown and for failures, to celebrate success. Failure and success can inhibit your ability to innovate because you are constantly thinking of what could go wrong. It is therefore important to see failure as an opportunity to grow and to get closer to success.
- Analyze the time and the cost needed to implement your innovative idea.
- Identify the passionate people and change agents on your team. Besides, expecting people to be passionate, demonstrate your own passion and convey it to your team.
- Identify the people who are blocking your ideas in the organization. It would be wise to share your vision with them and try to convince them.
- Ask for constant feedback and give feedback yourself.
- Empower your team at all levels, trust them, allow them to speak their minds, to find different alternatives to a problem and help them achieve their goals.
- Encourage dissenting voices who can challenge in new ideas and analyze their every aspect, who can identify areas in the organization that need optimization.
- Welcome brainstorming activities and filter out ideas with potential.
- Set deadlines to build pressure and to get more out of your team.
- Train your employees to hone their skills, to appreciate change and set high expectations for them.
- Avoid criticizing your team when they come up with new ideas and avoid shifting blame when something goes wrong.
- Remove your ego and potentially collaborate with your competitor.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
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