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Category: Advice

  • If I Knew Then…

    If I Knew Then…

    Advice on careers, finance, and life from Harvard Business School’s Class of 1963
    Each month, JobsPeopleDo will be featuring a special quote from a graduate of the Harvard Business School Class of 1963. The following quotes are insightful and can be used to inspire and encourage the right career path for you…

     

    Stay away from the “family business” and follow your own instincts.
    If you don’t truly enjoy what you are doing, seek change.

    ~Mathew Frauwirth~

    I cannot do better than repeat Joseph Campbell’s admonition: “Follow your bliss.”
    Seek work that you love and do it.

    ~Eugene C. Bell~

    To greatly enhance the odds of enjoying a career which is both fulfilling and successful, one must find an endeavor, a subject, métier, process, environment for which one has a passion. This could be aviation, geology, medical science, investing, writing fiction, etc.
    In my case, it was a love of markets and investing that my father inculcated in me very early on. This passion has led me to often declare, “I have never worked a day in my life.”

    ~Charles Hale~

  • Sure-fire Tips to Spark Creativity

    Sure-fire Tips to Spark Creativity

    There is an age-old rumour that well-acclaimed author Stephen King mostly gets his inspiration for his books from his dreams. Unfortunately, if you are facing a deadline for a creative project for school, you don’t have the luxury of time to test out this theory. The good news is that there are sure-fire ways to bring out your inner creative self.

    Brainstorm.

    Whether the project is individual or group, it always helps to bounce ideas off with your peers. This way, you get to learn different perspectives, and eventually you will find how to approach your task at hand. You would be surprised how much you can learn from your peers just by a short brainstorming session. Just take note that brainstorming should be a healthy discussion – so avoid any conflicts.

    Get inspired by other accomplished artists.

    The best examples that showcase people’s creativity can be found in works of arts, music, and film. If you have time, head to an art gallery, concert, or movie theatre. Even if your creative project does not involve any of these mediums, you could still be inspired- a great idea, is a great idea.

    Take a walk.

    You don’t have to be a poet to commune with nature and be inspired. Sometimes walking is what you need to bring out your inner creative self. Of course, don’t underestimate the power of an idea spark—sometimes it comes in the most unexpected places. Some creative minds have been known to have that eureka moment while they were in the shower or doing mundane tasks like washing the dishes.

    Make a list.

    Since ideas can strike anywhere, the trick is to note them down somewhere when they do strike. Always keep a notebook to jot your ideas down. However, if you are all for technology, always keep your memo or notepad ready in your smartphone or tablet.

    Are you ready for the next big idea? Try out these tips and you will certainly unleash your creative powers!

    SOURCES:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201402/how-unleash-your-creativity-and-find-inspiration-today

    http://www.virtuesforlife.com/10-ways-to-spark-creative-thinking/

    http://www.chopra.com/ccl/7-steps-to-inspire-creativity-within

    http://psychcentral.com/lib/20-ideas-from-creativity-connoisseurs-to-inspire-your-imagination/

  • Trying New Things

    Trying New Things

    Trying new things can bring up a variety of emotions like fear, anxiety, frustration, excitement and pride. It involves taking a risk, but that risk might be very rewarding. It’s often hard to remember but everything you know how to do was once new. You had to learn to walk, talk, read, ride a bike, use a computer etc. all of your favorite foods were once new, too. Branching out and trying new things can have a number of benefits:

    1. You might learn new skills that will be useful in the future. Think about how participating in sports has taught you teamwork, patience and hand-eye coordination. Or how playing video games has honed your computer skills and problem solving techniques. New activities will lead to new skills you can put to good use in other aspects of your life.

    2. Successfully conquering something new can give you a sense of pride and accomplishment. Even though it may seem difficult at first, it can be very rewarding. It can help improve self-esteem and self-confidence.

    3. Trying new things might help alleviate boredom. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and do the same things day after day. But it can be fun to mix things up once and awhile and try something you’ve never done.

    4. You might find something new you really enjoy like a new favorite food, sport, hobby or song.

    5. You might discover a future career path or interest you might like to study and learn more about. Trying new things can lead to discovering hidden talents you never knew you had.

    6. When you try new things you will inevitably grow as a person. Growth helps you adopt new ways of thinking and seeing the world.

    7. Learning new skills can be fun. Remember back to when you learned to ride a bike, or a skateboard or play your favorite video game it was probably exciting and exhilarating to succeed and improve.

    8. Trying new activities can help you meet new people and might lead to new friendships. People participating in the same activities as you will probably share similar interests as you.

    Although routine is important in many ways (it can help you become more disciplined, accountable and reliable). Too much routine can sometimes lead to boredom or a mundane feeling about your daily activities. The best way to alleviate these feelings is to try something new. Think of it as an adventure. If you are really afraid or nervous to try something talk with someone about your apprehensions. Not doing something you really want to do out of fear of the unknown may lead you to regret your decision in the future. It might help to voice your concerns out loud. Try not to let your fear control you. Trying new things makes life much more interesting and enjoyable.

  • My friend is bossy—how to confront a friend at school

    My friend is bossy—how to confront a friend at school

    No one likes to be bossed around, and it is even worse if the person bossing you around is a friend. Everyone has a different type of personality, and some lean more towards the confident and controlling side than others; you might hear it referred to as “A Type” personality. While this can evolve into strong leadership skills, sometimes it can make those less controlling feel targeted and even bullied.

    Bossiness can come in a few forms: a person can be aware that they are being bossy and not care, or they can be unaware of it. If your friend is TRULY your friend, he or she will listen to you if you come forward about how their bossiness is hurting you. Often times an initial reaction to this kind of honesty may be denial or anger, but if you tell them how you really feel in a calm manner and give them space they will eventually come around. If they do not, they do not have your best interests at heart nor do they value the friendship you two share.

    Confronting a friend is always hard. But maybe you feel like their bossiness has embarrassed you in front of others, or demeaned you, or made you think less of yourself. Whatever emotions it raises, being on the receiving end of bossiness at a friend level rather than a boss/employee level can seriously damage your self-esteem and make going to school hard. Here are some ways you can approach the friend in question:

    1. Treat your friend to something or share a special snack.

    Ask to spend a lunch break together and treat your friend to a soft drink or share something special your parent packed in your lunch. This kindness will put forward a sense of comradery and friendship. Once you’ve relaxed into the break a little, calmly bring up a situation where they were being bossy, mention that it had hurt you and that you need to talk about it.

    2. If you are worried about how to confront your friend, ask for a teacher’s help.

    This can be tricky, because your friend might feel ganged up on. But if you explain to your teacher that you just want your friendship to be fun again, he/she will understand and try to make things as smooth as possible. Maybe ask that the three of you sit down and that the teacher mediate a discussion between you and your friend. Sometimes all it takes is a strong role model present to allow you to feel the freedom and courage to say what you need to.

    3. Explain what you are feeling in a way that makes his/her friendship valuable to you.

    Everyone has different feelings when a friend is being bossy, but usually one of those is that you no longer look forward to spending time with them. Start the conversation by saying that you like being their friend, but when they are bossy to you it makes you feel less close and even scared of spending time with them. Say that you don’t want that to happen.

  • HOW to search for scholarships- where to begin?

    HOW to search for scholarships- where to begin?

    In this day and age it can be hard to escape debt, especially if one has strong academic ambitions and little family aid. So scholarships are obviously of high importance, and with all the different kinds available in Canada narrowing down your search can seem overwhelming at first. There are many and it will take a great deal of time. Before you buckle down and hit the search hard, keep these few things in mind:

    • BRAG. When applying for scholarships DO NOT shy away from this. Now is the time to let people know how good you are at what you do and the kind of potential you have. Get ready to talk about yourself a lot.
    • Ask for advice and help from teachers, parents, school councilors and advisors…use every resource at your disposal. There is a lot of free money out there and you have to work hard to get it.
    • Apply for as many scholarships as possible. Just keep doing it. Modify your letters of intent when needed and make searching for scholarships a number one priority; a job.

    Here are some tools for your financial quest:

    Canadian scholarship websites and information on scholarships and financial aid:

    • www.scholarshipscanada.com
    • www.universitystudy.ca
    • www.studentawards.com
    • www.schoolfinder.com
    • jobspeopledo.com (of course!)

    Narrow down your school of choice

    Typically students start searching for scholarships after they find out where they are going. Some scholarships require this, and knowing what province you will be in will help with the hunt. Many sites have drop-down school lists and will provide you with a complete list of scholarships and awards available to students of the school. If you would like a specific recommendation for what to apply for, meet up with one of your new university’s academic advisors. Their job is to make your transition more relaxed, so pick their brain!

    Keywords and Advanced Searches

    What are your major/minor interests? Are any members of your family a part of any union, club or company that hands out scholarships? Does your job have a scholarship fund? Do you have a learning or physical disability? What are your extra curricular credits and strengths? Are you of aboriginal decent? What province were you born in or where will you graduate from? All these points and more generate hits on Canada’s best scholarship websites. Sift through the ones that apply to you. Don’t forget to search by grade point average, particularly if yours is high.

    After you are done the searches you wish, sort the result lists by deadlines (do you have enough time to gather references and write the necessary application criteria etc.?), award names and the amount offered. Some scholarships can be as small as $500, and some can be as large as $10,000 and beyond.

  • Defining and Finding Value

    Defining and Finding Value

    What is value? The word is tossed around economically, religiously, culturally, and in just about every arena of human thought. It carries such colossal weight despite its vagueness. This lack of clarity means it can be easily construed and misconstrued. So many of us deal with low self-esteem and struggle to find value in ourselves and what we do, and this is often because we do not tackle the word head-on.

    The one word that most closely matches the aforementioned one would be importance. You must tune out all the other ideas of what matters, no matter what you may hear from friends, the media, and more, and tune in to yourself. Make a list of the things of all that is significant for you. Add notes on how each item affects you and how it affects others. What you want to look out for are the actions and behaviours that have a positive result in both of those fields. It is in those that you will find your value.

    An important matter to keep in mind is self-value versus self-esteem. You have likely heard plenty about the latter. Self-esteem has everything to do with emotion – it triggers reactions in your brain to make you feel good. Too much self-esteem leads to arrogance, and more importantly, it only paints part of the picture. Self-value, on the other hand, focuses less on emotion and more on actions. When you do things that are positive for yourself and others, you add value to yourself. This is why showing compassion and care for people of great significance in your life offers more happiness than staying at home and watching Netflix.

    Actions of value are critical particularly when you fall into the habit of devaluing yourself. Studies have shown that when you feel powerless or lower your opinion of yourself, the negative emotion secretes a huge amount of cortisol and is hard to balance if not fought within twenty minutes. In order to continue valuing yourself, focus on those items on your list that meet both criteria and continue to study your environment. Seek out the opportunities at school, at home, in your city, and beyond that correlate with those items.

    At the end of the day, value remains a vague term. Many people will try to define it for you. If you feel powerless and have a low opinion of yourself, you will be more likely to let others make that major decision. Take action immediately to remind yourself of the things you do that add value, and seek out what other actions you could be taking. It is never too late to act, but the longer you wait, the harder value is to attain. Define it and find it.

    Sources:

    Stosny, Steven. How Much Do You Value Yourself? https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201406/how-much-do-you-value-yourself

  • Cooking and Grocery Tips for Post-Secondary Living

    Cooking and Grocery Tips for Post-Secondary Living

    At times, student life can be so stressful that you often skimp on the things you should do to take care of yourself. Unfortunately, when juggling multiple responsibilities, maintaining a healthy diet often takes a hit. Moreover, by ordering Chinese food one too many nights a week, you’re hurting your wallet as well as your body. It’s important to prioritize your health as well as your finances by developing healthy routines, and making wise decisions about your groceries and meals is one place to start.

    Here are some cooking and grocery tips for student living. The following ideas will help you stay healthy and on track.

    Groceries

    Make it a routine. Set a reminder to grocery shop on a weekly basis. You should schedule a time when it’s most convenient for you to go shopping, when produce is the freshest, or when the grocery store has discounts for students. Even if it seems like you don’t need much at the time, this will prevent you from putting groceries on the back burner, and winding up with an empty fridge.

    Necessities first.     When compiling your grocery lists, start with the bare bones. Include fruit, vegetables, and the basic components of future meals before you go crazy with the cookies and candy. Plus, if you organize your groceries in this way and you’re short on cash, you can start at the top of your list when you’re shopping and leave the more indulgent items for a later date.

    Sharing is caring. If you have roommates, consider collaborating with them and buying groceries together. You’ll save money and waste less when you avoid buying duplicate items. If you live alone, consider working out a similar arrangement with a friend who lives nearby—for example, if you live near a bakery and they live near a fruit market, you can divide and conquer and take care of one another’s shopping in those specific areas.

    Cooking

    Keep recipes on file.     Take an hour out of your weekend and look up easy, quick, and healthy lunches or dinners that you can whip up whenever you’re out of culinary inspiration. Print the recipes out or keep the files on your hard drive for later perusal—you’ll be thanking yourself when you’re hungry and studying for midterms.

    Consult nutrition guides. Ensure you’re cooking healthy meals by looking up nutritional information about the ingredients beforehand. It’s definitely okay to treat yourself every once in a while, but you probably shouldn’t be eating ramen for dinner every night. When in doubt, make a side salad.

    Be practical. If you know you aren’t the greatest chef, you don’t need to go to great lengths to make elaborate meals. Sometimes, the simplest meals are also the most nutritious. Furthermore, consult your fridge before you start cooking: if you have ingredients you need to use up (or leftovers you should probably get rid of), let that guide your process before you get cracking.

  • Confessions of a Procrastination Junkie

    Confessions of a Procrastination Junkie

    You may be reading this as the clock ticks down on the deadline for that essay. Here you are again, desperately typing away to reach the minimum word count, while frequently taking short breaks to keep your mind from frazzling. Rest assured that many others face similar plights daily. So many, have fallen into the trap of putting things off until tomorrow again and again until there is no tomorrow and the midnight deadline fast approaches.

    As a teacher, I have spoken with many students who waited until the night before, morning of, or even the minutes prior to class in order to complete their assignment. On multiple occasions, I have watched students on one end of the classroom scurry to complete their work as I start collecting papers from the other side. It is a habit, and a widespread one. I think the only way to beat it is to take the wording a step further. Procrastination is an addiction.

    We are addicted to the immediate gains of putting off work. It means we get to relax in the immediate moment, and that gives us a short-term pleasure boost. Giving in to short-term gain for long-term suffering is not all that different from drug use. Eventually, habits become subconscious and we act without fully realizing our actions. In order to beat any problem, we have to accept it as a problem. Yet we also have to accept the reasons why we do it – we have to find the good in our addiction.

    Aside from that short-term burst of endorphins, students often speak of their love of pressure. Many of us think that the pressure of a deadline pushes us to work harder and produce a better end product. Time and time again, experiments have shown that humans make worse decisions when under pressure. Many people think that pressure drives results, but it does so at a cost.

    This ties into one last cause of procrastination I have seen, not only in students but in myself. After much deliberation, I realized that I put things off as a protective measure. By waiting until the last minute, you are physically incapable of giving a task your all. I realized I gave myself no choice but to rush. If the task ultimately failed, I could put the blame on my procrastination. I preferred thinking I could have done better over giving it my all, failing, and discovering my limits. I became addicted to this safety net which coddled me.

    Beating an addiction means fully analyzing it. You need to make sense of why you procrastinate, and from there determine the value and damage that results from it. Only then can you see its addictive nature, its misleading positives, and the hindrance it places on your potential. By facing those realities instead of a clock ticking down to midnight, you can take action now.

    Sources:

    Pychyl, Tomothy. I’ll Feel More Like It Tomorrow. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/201203/ill-feel-more-it-tomorrow

  • If I Knew Then…

    If I Knew Then…

    Advice on careers, finance, and life from Harvard Business School’s Class of 1963

    Each month, JobsPeopleDo will be featuring a special quote from a graduate of the Harvard Business School Class of 1963. The following quotes are insightful and can be used to inspire and encourage the right career path for you…

    Make sure you truly know who you are, your strong points and weaknesses. A solid self-assessment is an important step in the right direction. Many of us do not do this to the full extent.
    ~Gerald (Jerry) Wolin~

    As my good friend and author, Richard Leider, says, “Heed your life’s calling — that inner urge to give your gifts away.” This requires being clear about your gifts, values, and passions, and using them as a compass to find your career path. It is an “inside-out” process.
    ~Richard L. Peterson~

    Put up with boring, soul-destroying work only when you’re young, exploring your options, and establishing your credibility. Once you become established, become discriminating about your work, colleagues, clients, and associates.
    ~Shann Turnbull~

    Via http://hbs1963.com/wisdom/careers/

  • Is it Normal to Change Careers? Questions and Tips that will Help You Figure it Out

    Is it Normal to Change Careers? Questions and Tips that will Help You Figure it Out

    It’s perfectly normal to change careers in some cases. But at what point is it valid to pursue the risk? Here are some ways you can tell it’s time to change your career path:

    You’re frequently feeling tired, exhausted and unhealthy.
    If you’re experiencing work hours to be exhausting and long, you might want to look into what is causing the problem. Is it your workplace? Most of us spend more time at work and with our co-workers than our loved ones so it’s important to love the place you work and people you work with. Overly stressful workplaces do not necessarily mean it is healthy competition or a good challenge for you. Listen to your body when it tells you this job is taking a toll on your health and move on.

    Your values and skills do not align with those required of you.
    Sometimes it isn’t your lack of skill but rather a mismatch of values. You might be very good at what you’re doing right now but it doesn’t mean it aligns with your personal values or what you want to get out of your job. The thing is, if you don’t care about your job you won’t be able to give it your best. Caring about what you do is giving your time value. So value your life.

    The money you’re making doesn’t make up for the lost time.
    At some point the salary you’re taking home won’t make up for the time you feel like you’re wasting while going to work every day. There are people you will meet in life that used to make way more than they do now…the difference is they are happier making less. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of life? To be happy? If you aren’t in a financial strain, you can shop around for a job after resigning. If money is a problem, consider finding a new job before you leave your current one.

    You feel like you could make a better impact elsewhere.
    If you know you’re fit for better things than moping away at your desk job then don’t waste any more time than you already have. While it isn’t necessary to obtain a job that is related to what you studied in school, you also don’t have to settle for jobs that are of no relevance to your interests. It’s about time you took charge and changed your career. These days, it’s normal to change careers several times until you find the right fit.

    Sources:
    http://www.careershifters.org/expert-advice/how-to-change-career-when-you-have-no-idea-what-youre-doing
    http://www.quintcareers.com/career-change/
    http://career-advice.monster.com/career-development/changing-careers/10-worst-career-change-mistakes/article.aspx