Together

Although I haven't posted regularly for a while, work/life fusion is never far from my mind. I believe in the subject matter here, plus it will always be my place of firsts. This was my first blog, the first place I ever wrote in public and the first time I ever invited anyone to join me in an open conversation about careers and work.

I also feel lucky to have a place like this because only a few years ago everything here would have been scribbled in a notebook instead of blogged out in the open. Which means none of it would have been found or changed or improved by anyone other than me. Without the open conversation on this blog I'd still have no idea about the difference it makes when you realise you're no longer struggling or battling alone.

Many, Many People: Together

[Image courtesy of TheBigTouffe on Flickr]

Blogging together has taught me that we can make a difference and our collective voice on this subject grows stronger every day. By sharing and exploring individual work/life stories we've seen ourselves struggle with the same things. We see the same doubts, the same fears and the same feelings of being alone in ourselves and other people. We've seen these things and realised we're no longer alone.

The feeling of being alone is real enough but it's also a red herring. We're not alone. We never were and never will be. Of course our career stories are all different but we're also tied together in so many countless and unshakeable ways. We go to work, we come home. We meet new people, we get along. We argue, we resolve our differences. We succeed, we fail, we struggle, we fall, we pick ourselves up and we start all over again. In short, We experience and it's our experience, alongside the experience of others, that helps us make the right and best choices for our situation. We're all making unique choices and that makes us the same.

Right now I couldn't tell you what the future looks like for this blog but I can tell you I am proud of its past and what it stands for. I'm also proud of myself and everyone else exploring their experience - past, present and future - in the battle to improve and do as well as they can. Our potential, our confidence and our progress together will continue to grow.

Thank you for reading, writing and sharing your experiences as always,

Paul

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We Always Choose For

A while ago I gave myself the task of figuring out a few simple things...

What I'm doing, Why I'm doing it and Where it's taking me.

Thanks to this task, every now and then you'll find me visiting and revisiting past decisions and choices I've made (big and small).

Now this might sound like a recipe for driving yourself around the bend but there's more to it than that.

For a start, you get a better handle on the whats, whys and wherefores when it comes to your career (and Yes, I'll happily admit the wherefores were new to me too) and they would be worth the ticket price on their own but, every now and then, I've also come face-to-face with a cracker of a brand-new-and-wonderful fact.

To give you an example, I recently discovered that,

Almost all of the time (and especially when it counts),

I have always chosen for.

Oh Yes, You do it too.

[Image courtesy of Auntie K on Flickr.com]

How We Make Choices For (as opposed to against)

A simple study of past decisions helped me realise that I have nearly always made choices for positive reasons.

OK, a sample of one doesn't make an expert but I'm convinced you make choices this way too.

Think about it for a moment...

There's something fundamentally positive at work when we make choices, even when we're not sure we're doing the right thing. Perhaps it's even more obvious when we have the hardest choices to make. When times are tough and/or the pressure is on, we choose for (and with) the things we really believe in.

I'm not talking about easy choices like, "Hmm, Shall I have chocolate or cake?", I mean the ones where there are sacrifices. When it's not at all clear cut or black-and-white. To give you a working example, maybe it's the honours graduate student who waits tables to put herself through college; or maybe it's the fully qualified physiotherapist who does shifts in a factory while his overseas qualifications await recognition in a new country (oddly specific but career facts often are).

In my case, I made a big decision a few years back to take my career into unknown territory. To head for the place where our individual choices and decisions come from. At the time it must have looked like I was choosing against the people around me or rejecting my more familiar work. Of course this wasn't the case but it was only recently, while reflecting on my choices (and their outcomes) that it stood out so clearly.

When it comes to work/life, we always choose for.

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The Career Explorer's Journal in 2011

Free on Smashwords, Barnes&Noble NOOKbooks, Sony ReaderStore & Apple US & UK

(Also available on Amazon's KindleStore US & UK)

A New Year always brings in the new

The 2011 Edition of The Career Explorer's Journal is here to bring something new to the way we think about and experience work - one career, one person at a time. Maybe your something new will be a better idea of what you want for the future or a clearer picture of what you're working towards. Maybe you'll discover something a little more fundamental, like new feelings of progress on a job search or a sharper sense of focus on that all important next milestone and what it looks like for you.

The Career Explorer's Journal is free now and for the rest of 2011 and it offers something new to everyone who finds it. ExploreYourCareer.com is also there for you to tell us what you think and share your experiences before, during and after your reader's journey. It's my hope that 2011 will be a year full of new career discoveries for everyone who picks up this book. From your very first choice to become a career explorer you'll join me and everyone else who has already taken exactly the same first step. Every single one of us on a mission to discover where we want our careers to go.

Wishing all the very best to you and your career in 2011!

Paul

Experienced Job-Seekers Wanted!

We all struggle with a job search at some point in our careers.

But not all of us struggle with the same thing.

Someone out there (looking for work right now) could use your experience.

Someone else has experience that can help you.

Some people call this the wisdom of crowds.

I prefer to see it as the best reason for job-seekers to start helping themselves.

Discovery begins with experimentation
[Visual experimentations shared by Sanchtv on Flickr.com]

What it does for job-seekers?

If you're a job-seeker and you want to get involved (in something with the potential to help you and people just like you) to get the ball rolling just answer this short list of questions I'm calling The Job-Seeker’s Interview.

You'll get immediate pay-back if you do because this interview helps you understand your job search experiences and learn more about the support that you need.

Your pay-back for taking part will also grow as more people like you take this interview, adding to the knowledge and experience within the group.

If enough job-seekers share their stories and talk about the things they are struggling with (and I'm making it my job to see that they do) a cross-over of experiences will start to take place. Job-seekers will start helping job-seekers. People will be helping themselves as they help others.

OK, I'll take the interview. What happens next?

When you have submitted your interview, I’ll get back to you with a unique reference number for your answers. Right now the counter stands at ‘00000’, which means the first set of answers I receive will be labelled ‘00001’ and we'll go upwards from there.

When you have your number, I’ll post your interview up on the Explore Your Career blog so that you and other job-seekers can read it and the exchange of experiences can begin. Only you will know what number you are, so the whole thing can be anonymous if you want it to be.

Each numbered interview will have its own permanent page and can be commented on and even linked to other job-seeker's interviews where cross-overs happen. You and anyone else can comment on any interview and talk/network as much as you want. When you comment, you can use your own name, a nickname or your unique interview number, it's your choice how you get involved from there.

Looking Further Ahead

I see a community of job-seekers helping themselves. Sharing their 'real-world' job search experience. Encouraging and supporting one another as they go. It will take time to arrive at a place like this but I believe it can be done and that there is genuine potential to move careers and job searches forward along the way and when we get there.

In the meantime, whether your number is ‘00001’ or ‘01001’, I know there is value in this interview (even if you do it alone) because it gets to grips with life as a job-seeker and aims to do something positive with the experience. Something positive that has the power to benefit you and other people just like you. Out there right now looking for work.

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Be one of the first to take The Job-Seeker's Interview
Do you have any questions or suggestions?
Send them in here or add a comment below!

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On Difficult Times

Seeing others breeze through difficult times while we struggle is frustrating.

It's like being unable to do something, only to take it to your boss and see her do it in five seconds flat. Most of us will have moments in our careers like this. Not many make it onto our CV or resume for obvious reasons.

Seeing others cope while we struggle is discouraging but it can also be a false impression.

We just see the other person coping effortlessly. We tend to forget that they either had to learn how to cope, earn their ability to cope through hard-won experience or have it drummed into their heads by someone else so they would know what to do.

No one ploughs a straight furrow on their first go

[Photo courtesy of Joanna Young on Flickr]

Some people cope during difficult times because it's in their experience to do so.

Let's put these pesky, proficient other people to one side for a moment and look at difficulty from another point of view:

What difficult times do you make look easy?

What is second nature to you?

What has your experience taught you to cope with?

What’s been drummed into you?

As well as being personal to you, your answers show that there will be times where you’re the one coping. Times when you make things look easy. Situations that give others confidence in you. Settings suited to your experience.

We can find the same things difficult but what we find difficult also depends on our experience and our point of view.

When you are finding things difficult, look around and ask:

Who is making this look easy?

What experience is helping them to cope?

What can I learn from their behaviour?

What's the best way to ask that person for help?

Maybe questions like these will help you find a new point of view on difficult times.

All the best for now,

Paul

Café Culture Careers

Work Coach Cafe is one of my favourite career blogs but a big reason I like it so much only struck me the other day.

It's like Central Perk from 'Friends' or the diner from Seinfeld, if such a place could ever exist online for your career.

A place to pull up a (virtual) chair and talk about what's on your mind. You don't need an agenda; You don't have to worry about being preached at; No one will tell you what's best for you or pretend to know your situation.

Sit down, share a story. That's all there is to it.

Work Coach Cafe stands out from its peers because it's more than just a waiting place.

Bus stations, doctors' reception rooms and airport lounges are waiting places. We only visit them to get somewhere else. They're a means to an end. We're not there by choice. We're only there because we have to be.

A waiting place is no place to talk about your career.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with waiting places. OK, some of them aren't well loved. The carpet might give you electric shocks, the seats can be uncomfortable and there's chewing gum stuck where you're trying to stand up or sit down. But they're just about OK in general because they serve a purpose.

Only because without them we wouldn't get to all those places we want to go.

A hastily assembled montage of 'just-passing-through' places

What I'm saying is this: Your career deserves more than a waiting place.

And you need more than a rushed, 'get-me-somewhere-else' conversation to do your career justice.

Work Coach Cafe is proof there are places where your work/life can be visited and re-visited, and the experience is a pleasant, refreshing one.

We can feel comfortable. We're not being hurried along. We don't have to wish we were somewhere else.

Our careers deserve all this and more.

New places to talk about our careers are appearing and - better still - they're starting to multiply too.

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So what's your opinion?

Where do you like to talk about work - online or offline?

Have you ever been to a good waiting place?

What place does work/life fusion make you think of?

I'm keen to hear your thoughts!

All the best for now

Paul

work/life fusion selected by Alltop.com!

2009 has got off to a great start with the news that the work/life fusion blog has been selected by http://alltop.com for their 'best-of-the-web' careers page. You can now find us at http://career.alltop.com along with all the other top career related stories.

If you are new to Alltop - as I was a few months ago - it is a great resource that filters web content by subject. All the top stories are easy to find and updated using live feeds so you always have the latest on the subjects that interest you. For more information on Alltop visit http://alltop.com/about/.

Here's to 2009 continuing the way it has started!

Best Regards

Paul

Why the case studies?

Today's post was going to be another case study but I am happy to answer a reader's question about case studies instead. The question was, "Are the case studies real people and, if so, where do they come from?" A fair question indeed!

Each of the case studies are true and the individuals are real. In true Hollywood style, the names, times and places have been changed or omitted in order to allow the stories to be shared. The idea behind the case study format is to show how real people have dealt with real career situations and how work/life fusion can help - directly in some cases, providing a perspective in others.

All of the case studies on this blog have at some time or another been related to me directly in my past professional capacity as a researcher, recruiter, interviewer and assessor. More recently they have been directly related and interpreted through my professional capacity as a career management consultant and exponent of the work/life fusion approach.

I hope that this short post sheds a little more light on these case studies and how they fit into the discussion. New questions or case studies are welcome so feel free to join the conversation if you have a situation or event to contribute. Thanks for reading and thank you for your questions!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the first post on this new blog! I am completely new to posting (and hosting for that matter!) but have enjoyed reading blogs so much that I felt compelled to join in and start writing.

There is plenty to be found on the web already under the headings of work, career and job satisfaction but the writing and opinion pieces I find most interesting are something of a minority view at this time. The title of this blog reflects just one of the differences that is part of a new discussion and approach in this area. To start, I'll offer up a couple of definitions:

work/life fusion: understanding an individual's values, talents and goals and applying them to the pursuit of personal success.

and for all of us who aren't nuclear physicists

fusion: when two or more things join or combine.

The work/life fusion concept grew from a closer study of the work/life balance principle. In my current and previous professions, work/life balance has been a very useful, often laudable principle but, on closer examination, there may be a fundamental flaw in its reasoning.

Work/life balance separates 'work' and, for want of a better phrase, 'non-work'. Having made this separation work/life balance then sets us forward in a continual struggle to equalise the two. The fusion hypothesis argues that, in doing this, work/life balance essentially creates opposition. It goes on to suggest that where such an opposition is used to support reasoning, it can lead to one side feeling compromised or suppressed, especially at moments of critical decision (e.g. promotion, relocation, career change and so on). 

Regardless of how much we would like it to happen, we can't send someone else to work in our place and, because you are the same person who leaves the house in the morning and returns home later that day, work/life fusion looks at the individual in the singular, the individual as a whole.

In taking this approach, work/life fusion suggests that all of our individual priorities (decisions, behaviours, motivations, rewards and actions) can be interpreted using the same set of values. It also argues that when this set of values is trained and tested (i.e. underpinned by a greater degree of outward and inward knowledge, reliance and direction) the resulting change in our relationship with work can edge us all closer to a vocation and/or closer to our individual definitions of work/life success.

With the voices of those who comment playing a central role, this blog is intended to apply, explore, test, gather feedback, perspective and opinion on this subject and find out if work/life balance deserves further criticism and if work/life fusion can evolve into something that has genuine relevance to job seekers, employees and employers, today and into the future.

It is up to us, and by 'us' I mean anyone with an opinion (contrary or otherwise), to ask questions and to get the ball rolling. Please feel free to submit general comments or any specific work/career/balance related questions or issues. I will post more on the subject as regularly as possible and look forward to the conversations unfolding.

Here's to success in all our endeavours!

Paul