I’m not a big fan of the word “hate” but let me be honest: I’ve definitely felt some very, VERY strong negativity toward a few of my superiors in the past. Hey, I’m only human. This is probably one of the most common challenges I hear from professionals.
Working for someone you don’t like is the absolute worst. And yet, it can be a great learning experience if you approach it with the right attitude.
Here are 4 reasons you should love that boss you hate:
1. Personal Insight
You can actually learn a lot about yourself in a situation like this. Consider the following questions:
Why does this person get under your skin?
What values are being stepped on here?
How are you possibly contributing to the situation? (Ouch! Don’t skip this question; it will give you amazing insight.)
What do you really want from a boss? Are you, perhaps, expecting too much?
What kind of leader would YOU be?
2. Practice
Look, the business world is full of jerks. Consider this great practice for the future. You’re exercising patience and your ability to not take things personally. With practice, it gets easier.
3. Future Wisdom
After working for someone with whom you don’t click, you’ll be on the lookout for a better match in the future. Next time you’re interviewing for a new position, you’ll be more aware of the impact a supervisor has, and you’ll have more understanding of what you want in a boss. Perhaps you’ll see red flags you might have missed before.
4. Opportunity
I know this sounds a little nutty, but that jerk of a boss is giving you a great opportunity. You have the chance to adapt, to implement new strategies and, ultimately, build a bridge in some fashion. It might never be the perfect relationship, but there’s always a chance you can improve things. So don’t give up! Look for openings to strengthen your partnership. Use your relationship building skills and develop new ones. There IS room for growth here.
Want some help fixing this relationship? Join my free webinar!
How to Repair Damaged Professional Relationships
Date: February 9, 2012
Time: 2:00 pm ET / 11:00 am PT
Description: When it comes to career success, there’s nothing that can make or break you more than your professional relationships. They can be your biggest strength or your greatest weakness. If you aren’t paying attention to them, and doing everything within your power to strengthen them, you’re potentially causing damage to your career and missing out on exciting opportunities.
If you’re currently experiencing tension in the workplace—with a co-worker, superior, subordinate, client or anyone else—you don’t want to miss this free webinar session.
Attendees will learn…
How to recognize damage in your relationships
How to identify the cause of the damage
6 steps to repair damage (and prevent it from happening in the future)
I’ve written in the past about the pros and cons of job hopping. Yes, it’s true; you can spin it any way you want. But let’s be real: job hopping is no fun. Whether it’s a “good thing” or a “bad thing,” for your career might be debatable in theory. But, in reality, it’s a serious pain.
When you bounce from job to job, you find yourself in a perpetual state of transition, never really settled. You’re always “new,” trying to learn the ropes and figure out the next step in your “career”. You’re always playing catch up.
If you remain a job hopper for a prolonged period of time, you may even find yourself sliding slowly backwards. Five years down the line, you could look back and realize you’re not just standing still (professionally speaking), you’re actually regressing—your skills are deteriorating and your resume is becoming a scattered, inconsistent mess.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Oh no! That’s me!” I want you to keep reading. Don’t panic, but pay attention. I’m going to tell you how to stop job hopping once and for all.
First off, STOP. Don’t make any drastic moves. My guess is that drastic, spontaneous moves are what got you into this situation.
It’s time to take things slow.
Here’s what usually happens: You find yourself in a job that doesn’t match who you are and what you want. You decide it’s time to leave. But, instead of taking your time and figuring out the RIGHT move for your career, you get anxious. You start blanketing the town with your resume, talking to everyone you know. With every minute that goes by, your panic rises.
So, when the first opportunity comes along, you jump.
“It’s not perfect,” you think. “But it’s something.”
Then, a few months down the line, it happens again. You’re not happy. You panic. You jump onto the next thing, knowing it’s still not perfect but at least it’s somewhat better.
It’s a vicious, painful, stressful, self-inflicted cycle.
Now is the time to put an end to it. Your situation will never improve if you don’t slow down and think before making your next move. In the past, you haven’t taken the time or invested the energy to make strategic career moves. You’ve simply leapt without looking—out of panic, out of fear, or out of sheer frustration. You’ve taken the route that, on the surface appeared to be easier and faster, but ultimately lead to more pain.
To stop the cycle, you need to do everything in your power to make sure your next career move doesn’t lead you down the same path. You need to take a different approach. You need to follow a smart, strategic and structured process that has proven results. No more guessing. No more grand leaps of faith. It’s time to do the work on the front-end to make sure your results on the back-end are actually what you want.
But here’s the problem many job hoppers have: They don’t know what they want. They’ve been entrenched in this cycle for so long, they’re starting to worry that nothing will satisfy them. They start to think that no job within reach will pay a decent wage and still provide them with some level of fulfillment. They start to believe that settling is their only option.
Sound familiar? Snap out of it.
You deserve career fulfillment and yes, it’s possible—no matter who you are. If you haven’t found it yet, you haven’t made it a priority. You’re not really trying.
I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. There’s no mystery here. Finding the right career is a science. It takes some work, but there are few things more rewarding in life.
If you’re ready to stop the vicious cycle of job hopping once and for all, I invite you to join me for a free webinar:
How to Stop Job Hopping & Find Career Fulfillment
Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Do you bounce from one job to the next, never feeling satisfied? Do you worry that you’ll never find a job that pays a decent wage and makes you happy? You’re not alone! But you don’t have to accept this as a way of life. Everyone can find long-lasting career fulfillment and success…even YOU. During this webinar, I’ll give you real strategies for overcoming the challenges that have kept you professionally stuck and unhappy for way too long.
Attendees will learn:
How to stop negative job hopping patterns—and why NOW is the time to do it
Why conducting proactive career research will ensure you make the RIGHT career moves at the RIGHT time
How to identify your own career preferences (and ignore the negative influences of others)
The 4-step process you MUST follow in order to find long-term stability and peace-of-mind
Register for free here: THIS WEBINAR HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED–More information will provided soon.
Okay, listen up guys. I don’t say this often but here goes…
I was wrong.
Well, maybe not completely wrong. But a little wrong.
You see, I’ve written a lot in the past about why letting emotions guide you in the decision-making process is a dangerous thing. I, like the rest of the world, have been trained to believe that emotional decisions almost always lead to disaster.
“Calm down,” people say. “Don’t make a decision while you’re feeling emotional.”
Logic, we’re told, is the key to rational decision-making. Use your head, not your heart.
Only, the problem is, that’s not entirely true. Emotions aren’t just there to distract us. They have a purpose, and a rather important one at that.
Ignoring your emotions or simply “setting them aside” while you intellectually evaluate a problem means you could be missing a critical message from your subconscious brain.
I’m currently listening to an audiobook called “How We Decide,” by Jonah Lehrer. In it, he talks about the psychological pathways that lead us to make good (or bad) decisions.
Emotions, he says, can be a great source of intuition. Sometimes, your brain is able to connect the dots of the information it receives in a way that is so subtle it’s actually not even understandable by the conscious brain. The brain can see patterns we aren’t even aware of. Often, this information is translated into a “feeling.”
Let’s say you’ve just received an offer for a new job and you have a gut feeling that it’s not the right thing for you. When you set aside the emotion and just look at the facts, you see no reason to decline the offer. After all, it pays well, it’s close to home, it has all the elements you said you were looking for. And yet, something just feels off.
That feeling could be your body’s way of telling you there’s a problem. Perhaps your subconscious brain has picked up on signals you missed. Maybe it sensed patterns that matched dissatisfying past job experiences.
On paper, everything might look perfect. But, just because you can’t see it or understand it or explain it, doesn’t mean your brain isn’t picking up on real evidence that this is the wrong fit.
Feelings can be red flags telling you to sit up and pay attention. Don’t discredit them just because they aren’t supported by the kind of “logic” you’re familiar with. The brain is a powerful thing. And feelings ultimately come from the brain.
Now, I’m not saying that you can set aside facts and solely rely on your gut. That’s just silly. But I do believe that emotions can and should play a role in decision-making. And that’s where I’ve been wrong. I’ve long advocated that rational, unemotional, intellectual evaluation is the best path to making a good decision. The evidence in “How We Decide” proves that isn’t always the case.
In case you missed it, I held my first free monthly coaching call of 2012 last week. You can listen to the recorded version using the audio player below.
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Written by Chrissy Scivicque, January 15th, 2012 | No Comments »
Here’s a little bit of trivia about me you probably didn’t know: I was the senior speaker at my high school graduation ceremony. Now, let me be clear: I went to a very small, independent study high school where most of the students attended just one day of class per week. The ceremony was actually held in the parking lot. So I’m not bragging here. I wasn’t valedictorian, though I did graduate with honors. I was actually selected to be senior speaker by the students and the faculty, which—for me—is even better than if I had been chosen for my grades.
So, why do bring this up? Because I wanted to share a quote from my graduation speech. It’s one that still inspires me to this day.
In everything you do, shoot for the moon. Because even if you miss, at least you’re among the stars.
I’m not sure who said this or where it came from. I don’t even remember the first time I heard it. But the words were so powerful; they’ve stayed with me for decades now.
The other day, I was reminded of this quote while interviewing Dick Bolles, the author of What Color Is Your Parachute? (By the way, if you missed it, you can listen to it here.)
During our conversation, while discussing the concept of searching for your “dream job,” Mr. Bolles said the following:
You have to start with the largest vision of what you really, really, really want to do with your life so that if you only get 60 percent of that, you’ve gotten far, far more than if you started with a vision that you hacked down in the name of supposed reality.
How often do you find yourself aiming low because it’s more “realistic”? What are you perhaps missing out on because of that? What if you aimed higher? What if, dare I say it, you aimed for the very top? Even if fell short, would you not possibly end up better off in the long run?
Sometimes, it feels safer and easier to keep your hopes in check. Why try for something that seems so far out of reach? This kind of thinking only limits what you’re capable of. It doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t inspire you. And it forces you to play small.
So, as I told my graduating class back in 1996, shoot for the moon. Whether you’re looking for your next job, your next home or your next mate. Aim for the dream. You might not get it, but then again…you just might.
Written by Chrissy Scivicque, January 02nd, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I’m not a big fan of the word “hate” but let me be honest: I’ve definitely felt some very, VERY strong negativity toward a few of my superiors in the past. Hey, I’m only human. This is probably one of the most common challenges I hear from professionals.
I’ve written in the past about 
Okay, listen up guys. I don’t say this often but here goes…
Here’s a little bit of trivia about me you probably didn’t know: I was the senior speaker at my high school graduation ceremony. Now, let me be clear: I went to a very small, independent study high school where most of the students attended just one day of class per week. The ceremony was actually held in the parking lot. So I’m not bragging here. I wasn’t valedictorian, though I did graduate with honors. I was actually selected to be senior speaker by the students and the faculty, which—for me—is even better than if I had been chosen for my grades.