Career development is not only about finding a new job, but it also covers your advancement in the current organization, and both need networking!
How many jobs have you applied online on the company’s website and or job-search sites? What is your success rate?! How many times you’ve skipped your company’s annual gathering? Boring isn’t it!
Truth is landing a new job through the normal way isn’t working theses day and getting the promotion you looking for through your annual performance outcomes will take you longer time than you think.
What is networking?
In your day to day activities, when you need something you ask a friend, family member, and or coworker. You seek information from your circle of connection. The same way goes if someone needs an accountant, the employer most likely starts asking his circle of connection for a referral. A circle of connection is the simple definition of a network. Networking is building and expanding your circle of connections for your success.
Networking is not only a career subject, I cover the same in my life coaching sessions with my clients who are looking to expand, enhance and grow their connections and relations with people in success and a healthy manner.
What is professional networking?
Professional networking means building and growing your professional circle of connections. Building a mutual-beneficial connection with people in your industry. This happens through your organization and out of this using your current friends, events, conferences, online networking websites as LinkedIn
Why networking is important for success?
Studies show that many candidates find their next career move through people they know and almost 75% of jobs are not published online. Today Word-of-mouth is crucial to find your next job move or get your next promotion and celebrate success. Could you guess the answer now?!
Career development is an important subject in my career coaching program, that covers how to build scale your career and one of the tools is networking to reach their goals and success.
Build your self brand through networking
Get informed by a potential job opportunity
Get supported by a referral from your network
Networking advances you to the interview you aim for
Be on top of market trend and skills set you may need to enhance
Success in your career development measured by reaching your goals and networking is your strongest tool to assure this!
To set, track and achieve your daily goals, download our Goals and notes tracker Modelawer app which helps you create goals, sup-goals, set reminders, track performance and create notes on the go.
Why networking is important in the workplace?
Your current work is an opportunity for success, growth, and career development. Networking is not only for your out of the office activities because you need to build your relationships at your workplace to be known and discover-able. Building your brand in your workplace, showing up your skills, extending help, support to others will be a great support in your next internal career move.
Start today, stop looking at your smartphone next time you are buying your cup coffee. start with a simple hello, make the best out of the next event or training you will attend, offer help in your company, and get creative it is simply; getting to know people activity. Get motivated by the success you aim for!
Overthinking is one of the common issues my clients come up with during their life and career coaching sessions, things as “I can’t stop thinking of what happened in last week meeting”or “that conflict controls my mind, it’s like my brain won’t switch-off”.
The more you face challenges, responsibilities, goals, the more your mind got stretched with all types of positive and negative thoughts. Overthinking becomes a habit by time and it is a destructive habit, it leads you to stress and anxiety.
What is overthinking?
When you think of something too much and for too long, this is the definition of destructive overthinking and it sounds familiar to you, isn’t it?!
Why overthinking is a habit and a destructive one?
When you practice something for long (ideally 21 consecutive days), you got attached to and won’t be easy to let go. This is what habit is.
Overthinking leads to anxiety and stress, reduce your energy, feeling of being overwhelmed, and limits your options for a way forward and solution. Overthinking turns to be a bad habit that holds you from unleashing your potential. that’s what makes it a destructive habit.
My clients frequently ask “how can I stop overthinking?” my answer to them is; “what is the cause of your overthinking?”
What is the cause of overthinking?
Overthinking comes from two forms; stuck in the past or worry about the future. WAIT it sound OK but it is not.
Overthinking is different than problem solving, the last involved in finding a solution, and the first involved in dwelling on the issue.
Overthinking is different than self reflection where you introspect self to learn about yourself, gaining clarity, and a new perspective. It is healthier
To change any destructive habit such as overthink, the first thing you need to know is to reach an internal decision that overthinks does more harm to you than what you think! here is 5 steps to stop overthinking:
1-Hunt the moment of overthinking
Overthinking is a destructive habit that you don’t recognize it when you are doing it. it became part of your DNA. The first step is to hunt this moment when you start to replay an event or an issue over and over again. Notice your thinking pattern in this moment and its reflection on your emotional state.
2-Eliminate the thinking of what may go wrong
Overthinking is a destructive habit that is driven by fear or self-blaming. when you focus on negativity and what may go wrong dwelling your problems won’t help you and freeze your brain. start to change the pattern by focusing on the level of control you got on the issue, options you have, obstacles that in your way. If you have no control over the issue, set a coping strategy for acceptance.
3-Put things in the actual size
Overthinking tends to make things more bigger, negative, and scary than it is. Things like “what I will do in my next performance meeting, my boss won’t make it easy on me”, “ how would I find a job in such a tough market situation?”, “ Everyone is losing his job, what will happen to me?”, “How would I sort out my family issues?”, “how I will secure my kids’ education?”.
You simply make the potential failure as an irrefutable failure. Instead, remind yourself you been there before, you been to different challenges in life and you have found the solution, remind yourself that how this issue will matter after five years.
To set, track and achieve your daily goals, download our Goals and notes tracker Modelawer app which helps you create goals, sup-goals, set reminders, track performance and create notes on the go.
4-Eliminate the tendency of perfection
Did I get your attention? We aim for the perfect life for our family, perfect partner, perfect presentation for our clients. Perfections sound beautiful and what we aim for, but the truth is; it is not realistic, impractical, and in most cases not even needed! set a realistic goals and options for your issues that your can reach or achieve instead of being locked up in perfection. this is will stop your destructive overthinking habits.
Stop seeking perfection, start seeking progress
5-Do your best, stop predicting the future
I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH! The biggest self limit belief that stops you from progressing and increase the destructive habit of overthinking. And when you worry about securing the future, you are wasting your energy in something you won’t ever secure.
Remind yourself that what you need instead is to do your best, define your skills, strength, and resources you need in any particular issue. Self reflection is a must in this stage to introspect yourself to gain a self awareness over your emotions, values, and beliefs
Start today with those steps to stop that destructive habit of overthinking that limits your from archives the success in life and work that you wish for.
If you are based on Dubai or any other emirates in UAE, feel free to contactor Email me coach@modelawer.comfor a one-to-one 30 min free coaching session. If your life out of UAE, not a problem we shall do the same over video calling option.
Balance in life is simple yet complicated for everyone. You feel stretched from many directions such as work, family, financial liabilities, personal goals, and more. Which makes you feel overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted and lose hope. If you feel so, you need to relook in your life and dive deep into finding your balance in life.
Living with a balance in life means you are living in harmony and going with the life ups and downs. It comes in emotional and physical forms. Balance in life can be in the form of finding time to achieve what you want, finding time to spend with family or finding time for your hobby. It is the balance in all aspects of life.
The following 5 ways will make you reach a balance in life and reduce stress. Every step will be followed by a question that I ask my clients in such situations during life coaching or career coaching sessions to bring insights to you.
1- Life assessment as it is now
Before you take any step toward finding the balance in life you will need to assess your current situation. The first step is to take a self-assessment for your life. List down your life aspects such as family, work, health, etc. on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 is not satisfied at all and 10 is absolutely satisfied) rate your level of satisfaction in every aspect of your life. That will give you a clear overview of how your life stands now and reflects areas where you least satisfied.
Which areas in life are you overwhelmed with right now?
2- Eliminate, Eliminate, Eliminate
It is self-explanatory, simply let go and eliminate are the non-important aspects in your life. Those that take lots of space in your mind and affect your emotions which at the end affect your balance in life negatively. Take some time with yourself and practice self-reflection to define things in your life which is not important and eliminate them wither to get rid of them or delegate someone to do it for you.
What is really important in your life right now?
To set, track and achieve your daily goals, download our Goals and notes tracker Modelawer app which helps you create goals, sup-goals, set reminders, track performance and create notes on the go.
3- Avoid multi-tasking
Imagine your life as a backpack, now start to fill it with work, spouse, kids, friends, toxic people, people who you care about, loans, lifestyle needs, hobbies, and more. How would you feel? How heavy the backpack is becoming? That happens when you can’t say NO
Balance in life is about regulating it, setting boundaries and avoiding the illusion of multi-tasking which you are getting fooled with. Time is the only unchanged factor in life, work on organizing it after eliminating what is not important you will find a space to make your life backpack less heave and slowly gain the balance in life.
If you have all the time you need in life, what will be the first thing you do?
4- Recharge your self-battery
Balance in life won’t be achieved if you’re constantly stretched out and stressed that will makes you overwhelmed and burnout. Take time to recharge yourself through a quiet relaxing time with yourself, family, friends, practice meditation, have a good sleep, exercise and anything else that makes you feel good.
What makes you happy and fulfilled?
5- Define your priorities
It may sound simple and over spoken but one major aspect of finding balance in life is defining your priorities through setting your life and work goals, making them SMART goals and achieve them. When you define your priorities in life inaccurate way you will take care of what is important for you and won’t suffer or run out of resources. Warren Buffett has a great strategy you can use which is called 5/25 strategy for setting your goals for success.
If you have all the resources, how do you picture yourself in the next three years?
Finally, finding balance in life is a way that makes you find harmony in life within your heart and mind. Follow those tactics and let me know how it works for you. you can email me on coach@modelawer.com also you can book a free appointment
Everyone wants a balance in life that works effectively, whether that means harmonious relationships, a happy family life, a successful career, or the achievement of an important mission. People with successful lives take certain actions consistently.
Let’s face it, life can sometimes feel like a roller-coaster that takes you all way up and down so fast without even realizing or being in control. Life can be as a backpack full of liabilities, unachieved goals, troubles and tough times that makes you stressed and may feel that you are not grounded,
A balance in life means you are in control of the important aspect in your life, prevent yourself from being stretched from all directions and on the edge all the time. Finding balance in your life also means that you are in control of your heart and mind.
These seven tactics shall bring more satisfaction to your life and enable you to find balance in life.
1- Define the Rules
Rules are made to be broken! People use this seeking freedom however, on the contrary, to find balance in life you need to define your own rules and your life blueprint. Following your rules creates harmony in your life and relations. Be clear with people around you, lets them understand your rules and boundaries. Rules are not fixed for a lifetime, things change around you, hence you should be able to reevaluate your rules and change them the best the suits you. It is a dynamic process.
2- Turn Refusals into opportunities
We cannot please everyone nor organize our lives based on what others want. However, we can achieve our maximum potential. Refusals and failures are learning opportunities.
understand that you will face resistance when you attempt to do good things. Allow that to strengthen your resources to become more mindful.
To set, track and achieve your daily goals, download our Goals and notes tracker Modelawer app which helps you create goals, sup-goals, set reminders, track performance and create notes on the go.
3- Define your strength to unleash the power within
Focus on your strength, areas where you shine, skills where you excel and empower this. Avoid comparing your weakness to other’s strengths that put your down. The more your focus on failure, weakness the more you dive in blame and victim mood which increases your stress and anxiety. Balance in life is about understanding both your weaknesses and strength. Then empowering your gifts and talent.
4- Define your values and beliefs
Finding balance in life comes from within not the external factors, hence spend time to define your values and beliefs.
Values: the ethics and standards that stand important for you in life and define what is right and wrong for you.
Beliefs: the acceptance that something is true and exists
Values and beliefs differ from one to another, hence, to find balance in life, you should define yours to understand how you perceive the world.
5- Avoid assuming
This is one of the most difficult tactics, due to you and all of us never stop assuming what the others think or perceive things. This happens in a meeting, discussion with your spouse, family, friends, etc. we even jump into the others’ heads to assume what they will say next and quickly we jump to answers while we did not even listen to what they say. You should stop assuming right now, instead, start to actively listen and ask questions that will enable you to manage things effectively and reach the balance in life you are looking for.
Finally, finding balance in life is a way that makes you find harmony in life within your heart and mind. Follow those tactics and let me know how it works for you. you can email me on coach@modelawer.com also you can book a free appointment
Do you feel that you run out of time? Do you feel you are procrastinating? If so, you are not alone. However, sinking in that feeling leads to anxiety and stress. Don’t you feel so? If you are reading this now, I am guessing that you have different ways to manage your time, you have created different To Do Lists which, I would say the majority failed to be achieved. creating a priority matrix is a must to avoid stress and reach your goals.
Before I go further, I do tell my clients during coaching sessions that willingness and commitment to change is the magic key for any solution, hence I want you to have the willingness and commitment!
Having a heavy weighted and endless To Do List, create the burden feeling that lead to anxiety and end up feeling stressed and tend to leave it behind or in-another word, procrastinating, the easy fix is to set your priority matrix to chop your to-dos!
At Modelawer coaching programs we offer different tools for our clients, one of them is the chopping is a tool to help them and will help you in problem solving and deal with obstacles to ensure creating and effective To Do List after defining what is important for your and set the priority matrix table.
What is priority matrix?
A priority matrix is a strong time management tool, priority matrix helps you concentrate on what is important without forgetting what is critical. Priority matrix has four sections developed by Stephen covey. He divided the priority matrix into two dimensions: urgency and important, impact and critical.
The formula is simple: set your set your goals, define your priority matrix, chop what is not important, not critical, be committed and your get what you want!
What is To-do chopping?
To Do List simply it is a mechanism to achieve your goal. Grocery, wedding, birthday party, meeting, a project in the pipeline, lose weight, setting up your own business and lot more, at end of the day it is a goal, any goal should be a SMART goalotherwise the possibility of not reaching it is high. To do list is one of the mechanisms that help you to stay on track, however, when the To Do List seem to never end, it becomes a must to get clarity into where and how you should be spending your time which only happens when you create your priority matrix. The issue is not the goal or its To Do List, the issue is what around that!
The starting point will be the chopping tool, where you chop down your To Do List, and will tell you how?
How does it work?
Step 1: Write down the goal ultimate result or result you want to achieve.
I have covered in the previous post how to set to a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely), that will help you and achieving your goal, however in this tool, you write down the ultimate result you looking for and discover your priority matrix.
Example: Get the project done by the end of the month!
Step 2: Write down what’s on your plate right now in the To Do List.
Take your time in this step where is the important in the process of defining your priority matrix, write down everything you have and currently busy with, write do everything that may or may not affect your goal. This step is very essential
Example: I must fly to Saudi Arabia next week, I have a meeting in Abu Dhabi tomorrow, invited for launch in Dubai, two other projects in the pipeline, family commitment and so on and so forth.
Step 3: write down the distractions.
priority matrix ultimate goal is to let go what is not important and not critical, distractions is the most time consuming and real-time wasters. List down all distractions that affect your To Do List directly and indirectly.
Example: Engaged in lots of meetings during the day.
Step 4: priority matrix table
Draw a box and divide it into 4 categories as follow:
Critical and Important
Important and Not Critical
Critical and Not Important
Not Important and Not critical
Step 5: Classify and write-down each point listed in Step 2 and 3 into one of the four categories
Congratulation! you’ve created your priority matrix
Now lets understand your priority matrix
Critical and Important Must to do and need your attention in your To Do List where it shall affect directly on your target. This category is highly linked with time, usually involve a tight deadline, important meeting, urgent family matter, etc. Tip: You should consider this category while you plan your goals milestone and To-do list, time will be an important factor here.
Important Not Critical This category is most likely in your To Do List will be things that fulfill you, give you a sense of achievement, and joy. It may include family and friends gathering, a book to read, gym time, research, preparing for a meeting, etc. Don’t ignore them where they are still important to you and not achieving them will lead to stress! Tip: there is a possibility to delegate those tasks and issues, don’t fear delegations it relives you to focus on what is important
Critical, Not Important Things in the To Do List that are urgent and time factor are essential but not importantly done by you, such as urgent meeting but not important to be attended by you or critical reports by not a must to be done by you from scratch. Tip: Delegate, Delegate, and delegate! And create a dialogue with stakeholders make them understand that it is OK not to be done by you directly.They are low-value interruptions and usually something that can easily be done by someone else especially if we take the time to train them.
Not Important and Not critical Congratulation! You identify what is not directly important or critical to you. Most likely these are the distractions and time wasters which hold you back from achieving your goals. Such as endless social media scroll down, Junk-Emails, meaningless phone-calls or meetings. Tip: It is time to let go!
Finally, SMART goals, chopping To-Do list and priority matrix table are tools that helps you achieve what you want but it won’t guarantee that! You should hold your self-committed and accountable for your life goals. I would be happy to be your accountability partner, books a free session for life coaching in Dubai, career coaching in Dubai and executive coaching in Dubai and let’s start a great journey today!
You have reached your office in the morning, had your coffee and started with daily activity and to-do list, suddenly and email pop-up, reminder, notification on your phone maybe it is a tweet. Another Email pop-up, WhatsApp message, phone rings and again and again. Things keep showing up that push your proprieties down. That makes you feel what to do? Everything is important and you should get the job done!
Your inner self-talk starts the dialog; why don’t you respond right now on that Email it seems important? Why don’t you answer that call? Come-on reply to the WhatsApp it won’t take a moment! You should attend that meeting no one will solve the issue except you! And that report needs to be done today as well!
You are getting stressed, energy level going down and anxiety going up. Self-talk starts again to ping in your mind; time is not enough, I won’t be able to finish all this, OK why don’t I ask one of my team to finish the report? No, he won’t be able to do it, mmmm ok why don’t I ask my team leader to attend that meeting? No, only me who can solve this issue. mmmm ok let’s not respond on this Email now? No, if I respond that will make the sender satisfied and that will have a good impact on me!
It’s 10 pm and you still at the office, totally exhausted and? you know the answer; Nothing happened, you leave the office feeling? You know the answer; totally burn-out with zero energy and satisfaction.
All that goes in your mind now is Time management, but imagine Time as a cup, what happened when you keep pouring water in that cup till it is full but you keep pouring?
It is not the 8 hours which you need to manage, it is what you do in those 8 hours!
So, what should I do? Delegate, delegate, and delegate!
WHAT IS DELEGATION?
To delegate is to assign any authority to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities. However, the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated work.
In my coaching sessions that cover career coaching or executive coaching, the client usually says; I do delegate, of-course I delegate! My question will be; what do you delegate?
There is a difference between Assign responsibilities and Delegation
Assigning responsibility to the team is a work-as-usual concept it is a task that he/she will be doing as part of their job description, on the other hand, Delegation is assigning your power to act and decide to someone else under your responsibility.
WHY DO MANAGERS AND EXECUTIVES FAIL TO DELEGATE?
Many of us know the benefits and aims of delegation. But in reality, managers and executives become discontented when they hear this word, as it seems to them that in the delegation, they will lose their authority and their power. They naturally will go into the self-defense mode with the excuse of; it will take more time to explain and train the person, I am the only one who can do this, I don’t trust my team capability to do this! And so on. The inner perfectionist keeps pushing you to “But I can’t delegate this!” trap but all these fears are a myth. Hence top reasons for failure are;
They think delegation is just passing off work to someone else, so they don’t do it and ends up wasting their time as well as the company’s time
They think they can do it better, which is a sign that you need to build more trust in your team
They’re nervous about letting go, they feel they are in power when they tend to do everything themselves.
Lose the image of “I-know-it All”, however, you should understand that your team success is your success. The credit will still come back to you but as a leader not as a doer
They’re worried delegating will take longer than just doing the work, which is true the first time you start to delegate a task but over time it will decrease and free yourself for what is more important.
Delegation does not mean delegate it and forget it or micromanaging, either. Delegation is a high-level leadership skill that can be learned and enhanced by the time.
Leadership expert James McGregor Burns introduced the concept of transformational leadership in his 1978 book, “Leadership”
He defined transformational leadership as a process where “leaders and their followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation.”
Would you think this can have happened without delegation?
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO DELEGATE?
As a leader or manager, you need to learn and accept delegation for the following reasons.
You can’t and shouldn’t do everything yourself.
Your primary job is to make sure that others are doing what they have been assigned to accomplish.
Delegation allow yourself time to plan, effectively manage and monitor permeance
You are not dumping on people by delegating, you are assigning responsibility for outcomes along with the authority to do what is needed to produce the desired results.
Delegation is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of a strong leader.
Delegation empowers your team, builds trust, develop new skills and gain knowledge.
Delegation reflects a high level of respect for your team and tends to have a high level of commitment in return from your team to the organization and yourself!
WHAT TASKS TO DELEGATED?
Efficiency is a key factor of success in any process, despite delegation is an extremely important skill for a leader but not everything shall be delegated.
The following represents the ideal tasks to be delegated:
Tiny and Tedious: Little things and mindless tasks that do not add to you any value but consume your time. Such as scheduling meetings, booking flight or copy-paste repetitive information. You definitely agree with me that those could be and must be delegated, don’t you?
Easy-Peasy: Tasks that could easily be explained to someone else to complete, if it does not require expertise that only you can provide, then delegate it.
Not your core: tasks that require skills you don’t have and shall take you lots of time to accomplish it. It’s better to delegate those tasks and save your time.
Tip:
New managers or leaders usually emotionally attached to their old role; they perform tasks that no longer part of their job. If you recently to a higher role, just hand over any task or project in the pipeline to your successor.
How to Delegate Tasks Effectively?
HERE ARE A FEW TIPS TO HELP YOU DELEGATE EFFECTIVELY.
Communicate Don’t delegate overnight, communicate with the team, make them understand why you delegate, transfer your vision and make them feel you are empowering them. Choose the right candidate for the job You know each of your team members’ skills and capabilities. Chose the right person for the right task, this matching is essential to succeed in your delegation process. For Example, don’t delegate a tedious task to a super highly active person. Transfer knowledge You are the guru of what you do, don’t expect your team will be just “plug-and-play” the assigned task. Provider the information, know-how, milestones, deadline, etc.
Provide training Make sure the person tasked with the job got the skills and tools to succeed and that happen through proper training. Explain, take them through the process, do it yourself then let them do it. Delegate authority not only responsibility: Empower the person with the authority that accompanied the responsibly. That empowers him/her while performing the task. If he needs to go back to your with ever step for a decision, it will end up that he is doing your work and both of you will lose your time.
Monitor results and provide Feed-forward Nothing worse than blame mode that the manager uses when things go wrong, your delegation does not mean you are hands-off. You are the leader. Instead, monitor performance and give feed-forward. Feedforward is a concept originated by Marshall Goldsmith_ leadership coach_ which focuses on the future, not the past, one how to change and enhance. Be grateful to your team, provide appreciation, motivate them and thank them.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Do not expect instant perfection. Do not expect every delegation to work out flawlessly. But do not give up. Effective delegation will increase trust and commitment with your Team,
Delegation sounds easy—and others who can do it well make it look easy—but passing the baton effectively requires a lot of trust, communication, and coordination. Still, if you learn how to delegate—and you do it well—everyone on your team wins.
