Ideas to stop sabotaging ourselves

Happy New Year! For those of us who found jobs, 2010 was a good year.

For others, 2011 will bring more interviewing, resume writing and rewriting, and networking to find employment.

The start of a decade is also a good time for all of us to consider our bad habits, such as putting off exercising, putting off healthier eating, putting off sending in that job application and putting off a myriad of other things we should be doing.

As a regular procrastinator, I didn’t realize how it could affect my health, my sleep and my everyday life.

According to one study, just over the course of a single academic term, procrastinating college students developed compromised immune systems that led to more colds and flu and more gastrointestinal problems, as well as insomnia.

The column below from Psychology Today magazine provides some good suggestions on how to stop sabotaging ourselves and move forward into the new year.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/em/23200 Posted by Suzy Kridner

Ideas for New Year's Resolution

Posted by: Darlene Duncan. CWDP. JSS, CCC
Training Coordinator for
Training Initiatives, Inc.

It’s that time of year where everyone is making New Year’s Resolutions. My last post touched on this topic. Just yesterday a colleague of mine sent me this link to a wonderful article on New Year’s Resolutions. The article is short and to the point. Give it a read and see if you agree that the advice is worth your time. By the way, thanks for the link Jamie.

New Year's Resolution Ideas

Job Hunting Tips for your New Years Resolutions

This is an awesome article to help with your job search in the new year. I especially like #3 "Be pleasantly persistent".


New Year's Job Search

New Year's Resolution

Posted by: Darlene Duncan. CWDP. JSS, CCC
Training Coordinator for
Training Initiatives, Inc.

The New Year is just around the corner. Have you thought about your New Year’s Resolution? We all make them every year and most of the time we don’t follow through on them.

Three reasons we don’t follow through with New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Loss of interest in resolution
2. Lack of confidence in ourselves
3. It’s something beyond our control

Why not make this year different? Choose a resolution that you really want to achieve, make it something you’re capable of achieving and believe in yourself.

If you’re looking for a job it would be great if you could just resolve to have a job that pays you $50,000 annually by the end of January and that because you resolved to have that job it would happen. The problem with that resolution is that it’s not realistic.

However, toward achieving that goal you could make a resolution to send out a specific number of résumés and fill out a specific number of applications every day. You could resolve to acquire at least one new skill to increase your employability. You could make a resolution to sharpen your interviewing skills and polish your résumé.

Since I’m a writer I could make a resolution to have a novel on the New York Times Best Seller list, however, that’s would be rather unrealistic. Not because my book isn’t good enough to be a bestseller but because of the way the publishing industry works. A book accepted for publication today, doesn’t usually end up in a bookstore for a year or two.

Instead, my resolution is going to be that I will complete the rough draft I’m working on by the end of May. By the end of May I will have a manuscript ready to go to an editor for polishing.

Since I am making this resolution such a public one I will have many friends holding me accountable for following through with this New Year’s Resolution. Make your friends and family aware of your resolution and ask them for their support and assistance. We all need encouragement now and then.

Make this year different. Make a New Year’s Resolution that you’ll actually achieve. Remember, it needs to be something you’re really interested in doing, something you’re capable of doing and create yourself a support system for its completion by telling friends and relatives about it.

Celebrate Me Home

By: Lori Stone, APR
Director of Business Operations & Communications
Center for Business Excellence

This holiday season can be difficult for many of us. Whether economic situations have kept us apart from family and friends or the spirit of the season has been especially hard to come by, it can lead to feelings of loneliness and despair. In times like these,

I make an effort to remind myself that home truly is where the heart is. New people we encounter through job search, work, volunteering, etc., can also prove to be family of sorts. That’s why I really like this non-traditional holiday song. It’s truly “evergreen” throughout the whole year. Have a good one, folks!

Where Will the Jobs Be In 2011?

While the unemployment rate will remain high, some professions will have more openings than others. The jobs require higher education, skills and proper training. A college degree is always an advantage.
To see which fields will continue to grow, read the column below:
Posted by Suzy Kridner


Forecasters see an upswing in hiring for skilled and qualified workers in 2011...and beyond.
By Tony Moton
Looking ahead to 2011, you may be wondering: Does the job market have brighter days in its forecast?
While not all the news is good news (the unemployment rate is expected to remain high), there are employment experts who believe things are looking up in certain industries.
Usually, these fields with growing job openings require higher education, career-focused skills, and proper training.
"It would definitely put someone at an advantage to have a college degree," says Andre Koncz, employment information manager for the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). "The chances of getting a job for graduates are positive for 2011," Koncz adds.
"An education is still very important, more so than ever," says Laurence Shatkin, author of 2011 Career Plan: The Best Moves Now for a Solid Future.
"The skill from [a] bachelor's degree is learning how to learn," Shatkin adds. "You need to keep on learning new products, new processes, and new business conditions in your industry."
Employment experts Koncz and Shatkin share their analyses of top industries projected to experience job growth in 2011 and the years following.

BUSINESS SERVICES
Accounting is one job that's projected to make strong gains. According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), accountants will see a 22 percent jump in new hires between 2008 and 2018. Other business services expected to make substantial increases in job totals include human resources managers (12,900 new jobs) and personal financial advisors (62,800).
Expert Analysis:
"For the last six or seven years, when we ask our employer members which majors they plan to hire, accounting has always been number one," says Koncz. "Those graduates have always had luck when it comes to finding positions."
Average Salaries:
Accountant: $67,430
Human Resources Manager: $105,510
Personal Financial Advisor: $94,180

NURSING AND MEDICAL ASSISTING
The BLS reports some 581,500 registered nurses (RNs) will be added to the labor force during the 10-year period from 2008-2018. Medical assistants, too, will find their value increase as a rise in medical services will necessitate more administrative and clinical duties.
Expert Analysis:
"Nursing is a huge field and the opportunities are going to get better," Shatkin says. "There is a fair amount of turnover because the baby boomers are getting too old to do the work and nurses are now doing some of the work done by doctors."
Average Salaries:
Registered Nurses: $66,530
Medical Assistants: $29,450

HEALTH CARE AND HUMAN SERVICES
The BLS projects the health care industry, in response to a spike in the elderly population, will create 3.2 million new jobs between 2008 and 2018. Nearly 105,600 dental assistants will be hired over the decade, joining medical and health services managers (45,400 new jobs) and medical and health information technicians (35,100 new jobs) as fields with tremendous growth in health care.
Expert Analysis:
People skills are definitely required in this field. "With health care jobs, you have to be in the same room with the patient and have your hands on the patient," Shatkin says.
Average Salaries:
Dental Assistants: $34,000
Medical Records and Health Information Technicians: $33,880
Medical and Health Services Managers: $90,970

LEGAL
Paralegals, also known as legal assistants, will find more job openings in 2011 and well into the future. In fact, jobs for paralegals will expand by 28 percent, adding more than 74,000 jobs during the 10-year span between 2008 and 2018, the BLS reports.
Expert Analysis:
"We live in a litigious society," Shatkin says. "People are always filing lawsuits; contracts have to be reviewed; and laws have to be complied with. More is getting done by paralegals as people try to offload some of the expense of lawyers."
Average Salary:
Paralegals: $50,080

TECHNOLOGY
An ever-increasing reliance on computers and online services will spur growth in information technology and network administration jobs, according to Shatkin. Based on studies conducted by the BLS, job prospects for computer network administrators and their counterparts will be excellent heading into 2011 and the years thereafter.
Expert Analysis:
"It's a huge area of growth because every time you buy something from a store online, you're going into a database," Shatkin says. "Computer networks and network database administration require [workers with] high levels of skill."
Average Salaries:
Computer Network Administrators: $70,930
Computer Programmers: $74,690
Computer Support Specialists: $47,360
Average annual salaries as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May 2009.
From Yahoo, Inc.

NOTHING TO LOSE AND EVERYTHING TO GAIN

Hello all, my name is Darlene Duncan. Currently I’m the Training Coordinator for Training Initiatives, Inc., however, I’ve done many other things in my short life. The one I want to briefly touch on today is the lawn service I owned. After more than a decade mowing lawns I decided it was time to do something else and I wanted to sell my lawn business. I set a deadline and worked on mentally picturing that it would sell by then. Did it work? You better believe it. The day of the deadline was the exact day the sale took place.
I was reminded of this recently when I read an article on becoming successful just by thinking about it. In his article, Will Craig, related the story of Liu Chi Kung, a world-class pianist in the late 1950’s. He was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution in China. The article goes on to tell how after seven years without a piano he immediately returned to his concert tour. His fans said he played better than ever and wondered how this was possible, Kung said, “I rehearsed every piece I had ever played, note by note, in my mind.”
I know some of you are shaking your head in disbelief and you’re thinking that it’s all a bunch of nonsense. You don’t believe that thinking about being successful will make you successful. Maybe you’re right but maybe you’re wrong. But let me ask you this, what have you got to lose by thinking of yourself as a capable, successful individual and having a positive outlook on your future? The answer to that question is easy, nothing to lose and everything to gain.
So believe in yourself and picture the future you want.