Success Archives - The Career Success Doctor

Success And Happiness: What Is The Connection? Which Comes First?

Written by Natalia

If you have attended our free webinar “How To Have A Career That Really Works For You”, you already know the truth about success and happiness and how they are connected.

The fact is that it doesn’t apply to career success only, but in every aspect of your life, as well.

So, what’s the connection between success and happiness? Which comes first?

We all have heard phrases like “If only I could get a raise! Then I would be happy”. Chances are we have all made similar thoughts.

We are raised to believe that if we succeed, then we will be happy. And every time we achieve our goal, we make a new one. And we convince ourselves that once we achieve that one too, then happiness is ours! And this goes on and on forever.

But that’s a myth! The truth is exactly the opposite: Happiness leads to success! You will be successful, if you have joy and positivity in your life. You might achieve success when you are unhappy, but it won’t last. Sustainable success comes from happiness.

Lenka Lutonska in her article in ‘Advantage Woman’, discusses the same topic and provides some facts based on scientific studies about how happiness drives success in every part of our lives.

– Journals from a convent of 180 nuns showed that the nuns who shared joyful content lived nearly 10 years longer than the nuns whose entries were negative or neutral
– Unhappy employees take 1.25 sick days per month or 15 extra sick days per year
– Happy people make 37% more sales
– Happiness increases productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%.

When we are happy, our brain becomes more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, healthier, resilient and productive. We attract effortlessly good things, people and circumstances into our lives, and achieve our goals – big or small – with ease.

Read the whole article here: “Success or Happiness – Which Comes First?”

Shawn Achor, the CEO of Good Think Inc. and the author of two best-sellers -“Happiness Advantage” and “Before Happiness”-, spent over a decade researching and lecturing at Harvard University on positive psychology and the connection between success and happiness.

According to Shawn, happiness leads to long-term quantifiable positive change. In his article for CNN, “Is happiness the secret of success?” he states:

“Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your single processor brain will devote its finite resources as you process the world. If you scan for the negative first, your brain literally has no resources left over to see the things you are grateful for or the meaning embedded in your work. But if you scan the world for the positive, you start to reap an amazing advantage.”

To find out more about this research, I encourage you to watch his popular TED Talk “The happy secret to better work” on the video below.

If 75% of job successes are predicted by our optimism levels and our brain at positive performs significantly better, then the first thing we should do in order to be successful, is to get our state of mind right.

As the psychologist says, “your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we’ve found is that every single business outcome improves”.

Now that we’ve learnt how happiness and success are connected, and that happiness actually fuels success, the next step is to change our mindset.

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If you need any help on what to do to change your mindset, claim your spot on our free webinar.

Female Leadership: The Most Undervalued Traits

Written by Natalia

It’s not such a long time ago that we wrote about a piece of research on female leadership , where we saw that people have actually started to recognise women as leaders. After our last post on Top Qualities Of Effective Leaders, I wanted to come back on the subject of female leadership. And, believe me, not without reason!

I received an email on Monday night telling me I had to read a great article published some days ago on Forbes. To be completely honest with you, even as I’m writing this, I have already read the article 4 times! And every time I see in it more people I recognise; traits of women I look up to, role models, even relatives. Glenn Llopis, the author, has written the most comprehensive article on women’s psychology and way of thinking I’ve read for a long time. And from my point of view, the most extraordinary thing is that it is written by a man.

“I was surrounded by strong-willed, hardworking and purpose-driven women. It is through their leadership that the traditions, values and legacy of our family have been upheld. My grandmother, mother, wife, and sister-in-law all possess natural leadership skills and they are masters of opportunity management – seamlessly keeping us all in check while running the family household and at the same time supporting our family businesses. They have taught me that a woman’s instincts and emotional intelligence can be off the chart. They seamlessly manage crisis and change and are turnaround experts – sensing and neutralizing any signs of danger well before it invades our path. It is because of the women in our family that we are well-organized, full of love, spiritually aligned and well-balanced. We are by no means a perfect family, but we are a modern family who embraces traditions even as we adapt to changing times.”

I could almost feel you nodding while you were reading that. And even for our male readers I bet it was difficult not to think of their mother, their sister, their wife. Throughout this article, you will see attributes of almost every woman you have ever known.

These attributes are what makes women great leaders. We are born with these characteristics. These traits are in our genes. It’s up to us to make use of these traits and become the leaders we were meant to be.

Although there has been a huge improvement over the last years on rejecting gender stereotypes that want women not to be “leader material”, we have a long road ahead of us. But we can’t expect the world to see things differently, unless we teach them how to see things from another perspective. We have to show them they are wrong. We have to show them that female leadership is not just a ‘trendy’ phrase, nor a joke. If we want to change the world, we have to show them that women can be great leaders!

Read the article here: “The Most Undervalued Leadership Traits Of Women”

I’ll close with the author’s last two sentences with the hope his wish comes true: “Rarely have I read something from a man who has been inspired and influenced by the wisdom of a woman’s leadership. Hopefully this perspective helps awaken more of us to the opportunity of learning about leadership from the women in our lives, whether in the home or at work.”

Dream Job: Turning Your Passion Into A Successful Career

Written by Natalia

In order to have a successful career, you need to find out what motivates you, what you are passionate about, what you would absolutely love to do and would make you happy. That is your dream job.

So, how to pursue your dream job and turn your passion into a career -a successful career?

I stumbled upon an excerpt from Josh Shipp’s book “Jump Ship: Turn Your Passion into a Profession“, which I found really educating and I wanted to share with you.

The author focuses on the laws of Supply and Demand. As he puts it, “passion isn’t enough if there’s no business potential“. He then continues on how your way of thinking should be to identify the opportunities, what questions you should ask yourself to figure out if your dream job is worth pursuing, and ends with a valuable piece of advice for every professional: “you need to become an expert on everything related to your dream job“, outlining what you need to learn before deciding to take the leap and turn your passion into a successful career.

“ The trick is finding that sweet spot where what you love to do and what other people want overlap. Opportunity lies at the point where your passion and its usefulness to other people converge.

(…) That said, it’s almost always possible to find a career (or make your own) in an area closely related to something you love.

No one is going to pay you to read books for fun, but there are plenty of jobs — book editor, patent lawyer, proposal writer, reviewer/critic, researcher — that require a great deal of reading. No one is going to pay you for working in your garden or taking care of your own lawn, but they might be interested in buying your flowers or produce, or in learning how to create and tend their own garden. There’s the opportunity. “

You can read the whole excerpt in this article by the Young Entrepreneur Council, in Brazen Life: “How to Turn Your Passion Into a Successful Career”
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Preparing For Job Interviews: 6 Secrets You Should Know About

Written by Natalia

Are you preparing for job interviews? Whether it is due to New Year resolutions and making plans, or because in January people are extremely motivated to achieve success in every aspect of their lives (including their career), or just that a New Year means a change and a new beginning for lots of people, the fact is that January is certainly one of the months that job hunting thrives.

If you’re looking for a change and are currently searching for a new job, you will soon need to start preparing for job interviews. You might even have some scheduled already. If that’s the case, you will surely find this article in Careerealism to be really helpful. The author, Anna Johnson, shares 6 secrets “for crushing job interviews“.

Although it is mentioned in the article (of course!), I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to do your homework! The more information you have about the company and its employees, the better you can prepare yourself and ace your interview.

However, you should keep in mind that this is a two-way road. You will get ‘googled’ too! That is why it’s so important to keep your social profiles, and any online information about you, always ‘clean’. Maybe having your Facebook photos from the New Year’s Eve crazy party viewable publicly is not really a good idea.

“Interviews are like spending the holidays with the in-laws – a necessary evil that’s never as bad (ok, rarely) as you’ve worked it up to be in your mind. I swear, I used to get hives at the thought of an interview until, by some twist of fate, the roles were reversed and I actually became an interviewer myself (bwahaha – insert evil grin here!).

However, I’ve come to learn that, contrary to popular belief, the interviewer isn’t out to set you up for failure… who knew? So, as a show of good faith, I’ll give you some of my best learned secrets from the other side of the curtain. Here are six secrets for crushing job interviews”

Read the whole article here: “6 Secrets For Crushing Job Interviews”

Another source that you might find useful is this “Interview Cheat Sheet” from The Daily Muse. You can print it and have it with you, in order that you won’t forget anything.

So, give yourself enough time for preparing for job interviews, have faith in yourself and your capabilities, be confident, calm yourself and, as Anna Johnson beautifully closed her article, “Que sera, sera!”…

Career Success In 2014

Written by Natalia

2014 has finally arrived, and among the wishes we all exchanged for this year, is achieving career success. We have already made our New Year career resolutions, but sticking to them is critical in order to be successful.

According to statistics, 45% of people make resolutions for the new year, but only 8% stick to them. This article by Carrie Pinsky in NCBR reveals the five steps we need to follow to stop being a part of the 92%.

As the author says, these strategies will also ‘help us live and work with greater purpose and meaning‘. The 5 steps she proposes can be summarised in these bullet points:

Identify your values
Revive your passion and get inspired
Improve your online presence
Review and update your resume
Improve your networking skills and invest in relationships

The only thing I would add is that another good strategy that will help you stick to your resolutions is to make realistic goals split in milestones. Besides the fact that it will be easier to achieve your mini goals one after another, you can also reward yourself each time you reach a milestone. We all know that positive reinforcement does wonders for keeping someone motivated!

” Business moves at a fast-forward pace. If we are just going through the motions at work or resting on past laurels, we soon will be left behind. Career planning is vital in today’s ever-changing market.
Whether you have a job you love or are looking for your next opportunity, it is equally as important to manage your career. What is calling you now? Where to next? And, what do you need to do to get there? ”

Read the whole article here “5 steps to career success in year ahead”