Monday 29 March 2010

Experience versus Opinion

Experiences stand where opinions fall

"Opinions are like small intestines: every body has one." Anon.

Ask these questions and you'll get an opinion...

What are my options?
Where should I go from here?
What would you do in my place?
Why am I in this position?

Ask questions like these and you'll get much more...

How have you made difficult decisions in the past?
What makes you confident about the future?
What got you through your last job search?
What tough times have you lived through?

The difference is all down to experience...

Nobody ever photographed an opinion
[Image courtesy of EBONY~CAT on flickr]

Opinions that read perfectly on paper or sound just right in conversation don't always work in the real world. When you are job searching or deciding where you want your career to go, opinions can be confusing and that gets in the way.

True experience is always grounded in fact. Good, bad or indifferent, an experience can teach you something. Someone else's experience can be just as valuable to you as it was to them. What you have learned through experience can always be relied upon, it happened to you after all.

Instead of asking someone's opinion, ask what they have done, find out what they lived through, what they rely upon and the lessons they have learned. Find out from them what has worked.

When an opinion just doesn't feel right, seize the opportunity to ask for an experience or share one of your own.

Discover for yourself why it makes all the difference.

Monday 22 March 2010

Over Time

I have a choice to make...

How will I know what to do for the best?

This time no one can tell me what to do...

Will I ever arrive at the right answer?

I keep hearing "You'll know what to do" when it's clear that I don't...

...Yet.

Sometimes you just have to try something new
[Image courtesy of bonnix (Scotty) on Flickr]


If you're reading this with a big choice or decision on your mind, one way to build trust in your judgement is to look back on the choices you have made in the past.

Not to convince yourself that you have always been right, more to prove what you know...

...and what you have learned over time.

Monday 15 March 2010

Keep Going

So many times I gave up in my head

Called it a day and went back to bed


keep going
[Image courtesy of victorsounds on Flickr]


Experts can talk about tough times for careers. How being laid-off is nothing to worry about. How the knocks and the setbacks on long job searches can be overcome. How to renew ourselves after long periods out of work.

But the choice to keep going is ours.

See that delightful break come your way

Ask Questions
Learn Lessons
Make Gradual Improvements
Keep Going

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Time, Space & Encouragement

It may feel like it sometimes

but other people are not in your way

No one is in your way
[Image courtesy of katclay on Flickr]

Monday 1 March 2010

Along the Way

Careers aren't like train journeys

We spend more time on the way instead of at our destination

There are no return tickets

There's no tea trolley either


The middle of nowhere or right where you want to be?
[Image courtesy of ecstaticist on Flickr]


Careers are like train journeys

They're best when we know where we're going

Even better when we know we're getting there

There's a strong case for self-catering too


On a train, On your career or both

Take a moment to stop and think...

How beautiful it can be sometimes, along the way.

All the best for now,

Paul