Embrace the experience.

"Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

                                                      Harvey Mackay, author

In other words, it’s easier to work in something you are passionate about (it wont feel like work at all) than to be stuck in a 9-5 job that you don’t mind and sometimes hate.

Although this option isn’t always available for everyone (social situation, money restrictions, vacancies, etc…), the trick is to have a positive attitude and build up some passion about your current work.

Any trade/office job has its secrets and its benefits. To make it easier on you, dig deeper. Become an expert in what you do even if you didn’t like it at first.

The more you know, the easier your work becomes and the more you’ll end up enjoying it.

People hate their job for many reasons (Too complex / Not interesting / Pays little / etc…) and they won’t make the effort to fully understand it due to lack of interest. By changing your attitude, the job you hate will become easier and more appealing thus less annoying. I’m not saying don’t pursuit your ultimate job, I’m saying don’t spend your days feeling bitter about what you are currently working on. Your ideal job will come sooner or later; the road to it is full of pit stops in few inconvenient places but necessary to tune your skills, sharpen your mind and to gain experience. I worked in not so “normal” places; sometimes I didn’t enjoy it at all for different reasons. I ended up learning how to deal with a moody boss, a frustrated customer and to take charge and run a meeting. At the time, I couldn’t really see all the benefits but i made sure to have a positive attitude.

At the moment, I find myself deeply satisfied with the way Careerbox.net is progressing! I'm just enjoying it and it doesnt feel like work at all!

All in Attitude! Build up a passion about it and embrace the experience.

The Marshmallow "Experiment".

Last Friday a friend of mine told me about the Marshmallow "Experiment". So after few search results online, i would like to share it with you.
 
It is a famous test of the concept of delayed gratification conducted by American social psychologist, Walter Mischel, at Stanford University.
   
In the 1960s a group of four-year-olds were tested by being given a marshmallow and promised another if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one.
the researchers would put one marshmallow on the table and leave. This would leave the kids with the marshmellow on the table and no one to influence his decision.
if they wait till the researchers come back, they will get another one!
 
Some children could wait and others could not. Some children were patient, some werent.
 
Flash forward 20 years or so...
 
The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence, and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable (determined via surveys of parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
 
In other words, more successful!
 
Think about this next time you see an instant gain and the potential for more later on? which one would you go for?
 

Work / Life balance

It looks that i haven’t blogged for a while now due to many reasons (working on other projects, being on vacation).

Anyway, let’s talk about how to maintain your work and life balance. How to improve your quality of life without affecting your quality of work. I find the following very helpful:

  • Don’t bring your work back home with you: easier said than done, but try to avoid it. Finish what you have to do in the office, go home and relax.You earned it. An exception would be a deadline or an emergency but that’s why it’s called an exception.
  • Seek and do whatever makes you happy: we all have to do different sort of tasks,some of them would bring us more satisfaction than others. Do those more often and minimize the rest. This doesn’t happen overnight, take some time to think about “happy tasks” and try to incorporate them in your routine.
  • Don’t stay inside: make it a point to go outside the office, it always feels good under the sun.
  • Go on holidays: do i need to say more? well maybe this small tip: “Stay away from the computer”. There’s a time and a place for everything. A friend once said to me: ” Work never ends while life does”.
  • Be good in what you do: if you are a guru in your work, the stress becomes something from the past. If you are not an expert, look for training or ask for help and soon enough you’ll become one. I find unqualified people working in vain for extra hours, stressing over tasks and messing up their personal life only to achieve so little. You lose on both ends.

hope my tips helped you , feel free to drop me your thoughts on the subject and hopefully I’ll be posting more often now that I’m back.