by Dr. Heléna Kate | Aug 21, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When most people talk about “success,” they’re often referring to outer things like money, title, and promotions. But in reality, these outer accomplishments almost never bring a lasting sense of happiness or success. They’re fleeting, and the goalposts are constantly shifting.
Instead, real success is a deeper, more satisfying experience of the heart, mind, and spirit, where the individual has committed to continuous, bold and empowering action that helps him/her feel confident, authoritative, and valuable to others in ways that are personally meaningful.
In over 10 years of working with career professionals, I’ve seen that the majority of people who reach out to me are actually not in a state of readiness for the success they desire. They think they are, but they haven’t taken the right actions or developed appropriate mindsets and behaviors that would help them reach – and sustain — the success they dream of. They’re just not there yet.
There are nine core categories of career success readiness that need to be mastered for professionals to achieve the success and fulfillment they long for (and these applies to any industry, field or function, and any level, for both men and women).
These nine categories of career success readiness are:
Understanding yourself deeply
You can’t achieve success on terms that are personally meaningful to you if you don’t know yourself. Each of us has a distinct set of values, interests, histories, standards of integrity, non-negotiables and preferences that make up our own unique picture of success. If you don’t know yourself intimately, the outcomes you’re focused on won’t end up generating the experience of success you want.
Using your natural talents>/b>
I learned this the hard way, as have many of my clients – just because you’re great at a certain skill set doesn’t mean you enjoy using it in your work. The most successful, fulfilled professionals use talents every day in their work that come naturally to them, that emerged early in their lives and they enjoy immensely. You need to identify those natural talents that you use instinctively, with ease and grace. Those are the talents to focus on in your career if you want a lasting experience of success and happiness.
Engaging with people you respect and admire (including mentors and sponsors)
You can’t create lasting success if you operate alone, in a vacuum, with no one in your corner to support you. If you find yourself isolated, with no role models, mentors, or sponsors, it’s a sign that you’re not ready for the success you dream of. You need fabulous people in your support community to help bolster you to the next level.
Setting goals and making decisions that support you
The type of success most people want isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s not a prize that just falls in your lap. Forget the idea of a tipping point where you suddenly wake up “having it all.” Success requires hard work (often tedious and painstaking) and continued commitment. It also takes effective decision-making and S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) goal-setting.
Committing continuously to your growth
A key to helping people grow exponentially is helping them stretch out of their comfort zone and close their “power gaps.” Power gaps are areas where people feel most insecure, vulnerable, and ashamed. When people address, heal or revise those areas, the growth is quick and astounding. What are the areas in your life and work where you feel “less than” and insecure – and what can you do to close those gaps today?
Relating in a healthy way to money, and having a keen understanding of financial and business realities Lasting success will elude you if you’re broken down in how you view, and deal with, money. Many of us have a damaged relationship with money, and are forever chasing or resenting it, instead of attracting, embracing, and appreciating it. Money is a form of energy, and if you’re blocked around it, so will be your experience of success. In addition, if you’re running your own business, you need a solid, emotionally-neutral understanding of the financial and business realities you’re facing. A “Build It and They Will Come” mentality without a solid financial and business grounding is a recipe for disaster.
Balancing and integrating life and work (and dealing effectively with stress)
I know so many people who’ve achieved outer “success,” only to have sacrificed everything in the process. They wake up, often in midlife, to the horrible realization that they’ve given up everything that matters to them, just to rise to the top of the heap in their field. If you aren’t able to integrate or balance successfully your work endeavors with your identity as an individual outside of the work you do, you’ll suffer. And if the stress and strain of your work is making you sick and sad every day, it’s time to rethink your definition of success.
Being of use in the world
Thousands of people hit midlife and suddenly feel an aching disappointment – they realize that what they’ve been clamoring for in their 20s and 30s now feels empty and meaningless. Perhaps it’s seeing the world through older, wiser eyes, or experiencing the mortality of their parents and friends that awakens people to wanting to do something more purposeful in the world. (This was me, and here’s a brief video of my story.) Whatever the cause, midlife professionals often wake up to the desire to build a new legacy that they can be proud of. In the end, you won’t feel successful if your work is meaningless to you.
Marketing yourself in a compelling way
Finally, in today’s times, because of the global competition we all face, if you can’t market yourself and communicate powerfully about your great talents, you won’t succeed in the way you hope. Gone are the days in which you could leave marketing to someone else. You have to know how you’re special and amazing, and how you stand apart from the best of the best in your field, and share that openly and confidently. You need to be your own best advocate, and you can do it without being a braggart. You just have to learn how.
* * * * Reblogged from Forbes.com. For more by Kathy Caprino, visit kathycaprino.com. (more…)
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 29, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
How do those who are deeply passionate about their work balance their lives? I have written a few articles on the topic of balance and could list several ways \”to balance your life\” but that does not seem to answer the deeper part of this question, which is much more complicated than the basics of work/life balance.
I had someone say to me once that part of the root meaning of the word \”passion\” is \”to suffer\”. I suspect that those people who are truly passionate about what they do can relate to this definition of passion — to be passionate about something is to be consumed and driven by it. Where in this experience is the concept of balance? Passion might compel you to write at 3am and work for days without showering, with little sleep, and barely eating. This is not balance — and this is not the work-alcoholism of the typical American that might be remedied by the standard concept of balance.
Anyone who has been passionately connected to his or her work knows that the self is not always maintained in the process. The creative element that is a part of visioning and passionate action requires dissolution of the self. This makes it challenging to deeply understand what balance is all about under these circumstances.
However, if we substitute caring for ourselves in place of balance, we get a bit closer to something that might serve those of us who are so intimately connected with our passion. While balance might imply that we spend a certain amount of time doing separate activities, caring for ourselves implies that we are an essential part of our passionate work. If we are not healthy, then our work is not healthy either.
If we are not healthy then our work is not healthy.
Period and no exceptions.
While the metaphysics of this statement are intriguing, answering the following question will help us to apply it to our lives: How might your approach to work change if you looked at it from the perspective of the above statement?
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 22, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
You might be diligently doing your work –finding out everything that you need to know to be happy and successful. You have done your vision board and your vision statement, you have created a one year plan and even a ten year plan but maybe you have yet to ask yourself –how good can I stand to have it?
If you find yourself stopping before the finish line, if you seem to sabotage your success, it might not be because of some deep and troubling issue.
It might be because you have not upgraded your tolerance for joy, ease, or inner peace.
We are just as inclined to hold ourselves back from good stuff as we are to shy away from the bad. We are naturally inclined to keep things the same. The “same,” in our primal brain, is equated with being safe. Every change introduces a level of risk –even if the change is good.
Let me show you what this looks like:
You are starting your business and you just made your first big sale. First you are excited and then pretty soon you are terrified. You think, “I can’t do this. What was I thinking.”
Or, maybe you never have that thought, you just forget something really important.
Maybe this sale will drastically change your income or portends more success. You have wanted both of those for so long but now just as you get them everything starts going haywire.
What can you do about it? You can practice tolerating positive feelings and experiences.
I did say tolerating –one step at a time. With change and the risk that comes with it also comes discomfort. It is the discomfort that you really need to tolerate –the discomfort that comes from having things be REALLY good.
At this point we need to work with those impulses to stay the same.
Mentally, we can work to imagine our new way of being and set intentions. Emotionally, we can begin to label and experience our feelings differently. For example, fear can become excitement. Spiritually, we can learn to step out of our ego self and connect to our higher purpose. The purpose that makes these temporary discomforts seem minuscule in comparison.
If you really want to step into your fulfillment and success, you will need to stop looking at the past or sometimes even the momentary and start working towards creating the future you really want for yourself.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 15, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
We are so quick to judge the events of our life. There are the things that we want to have happen and the things we do not want to have happen. There are the good things and the bad things. Right?
Well…
It all really depends on where you stop the story. If you look at all of the difficult events of your life as the final result of your actions then you are doomed to meaninglessness and failure. If on the other hand, you view your end results when something positive happens, you life and actions are meaningful and productive.
The easy and difficult are inevitable. The good and bad are inevitable. No one has a life full of all good things or of all bad things –we all get a mix.
So what are you going to choose today?
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 12, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
1. Love yourself to safety
Love is truly the most powerful force. We often spend a ton of time trying to figure a situation out or do something to change it. However, if we learn to be loved and bring love to the situation, amazing things happen! Easier said than done — for most of us — but well worth the effort.
2. Never give up!
To get what you want, it actually feels better to keep trying — even after we fail again and again — than it does to just give up. Trying for something even in the face of great challenges keeps us opening up — it keeps us growing. So, worry less about failure and more about what you think is most important.
3. Hide nothing. It will destroy you!
It might not always be on the outside that we see these problems, but, when we hide things, we are doing damage inside ourselves as well. We feel out of integrity. That’s a big price to pay — all for supposedly saving some face.
4. Don\’t expect any guarantees
It can be so easy to go through life looking for someone to ensure us a safe passage. And there just isn’t one. The only things we have left at the end of the day are our intent and our integrity. So it helps when we stop looking for safety, start being who we know we should be, and start acting the way we know we should act.
5. Care more than makes sense
If you want to be fulfilled, a sure-fire way to get there is to “give a damn,” as I would say. In the face of uncertainty, care. In the face of problems, care. When people say you should not care or that it is hopeless, be brave enough to care. It will change your life forever.
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