Six Questions to Ask Before You Change Your Career

So, if you're feeling stuck and starting to dread going to work every day, a career change would seem to be the answer. You can also get a career change through employment agencies. You can dream of doing something better or more important and probably making more money too. But are things really that much better on the other side of the hill?

You need to ask yourself some crucial questions, answer them truthfully, and only then do a self-evaluation of where you are now and what you can improve with a career change. So, it's time for a change?

These are six key questions you should be asking yourself:

Why do I want to change careers?

Try to be very clear about why you want to leave your present job so that you are able to avoid whatever is the root of your discomfort in a future job. The most common reasons people quote are that they:

• Feel bored and frustrated, from being in the same job too long
• Have lost interest in the work and its importance
• Feel undervalued or not important to the organization
• Believe they are being underpaid for the work they do
• Dislike changes made after reorganization and restructuring
• Are making no progress, lack any future prospects
• Feel as if they are in 'dead men's shoes'
• Don't get on with their colleagues or managers
• Simply need a new challenge or fresh start

Do I really want to change my career?

Is it really your career that you want to change or is it something else associated with your job? Your boss for instance? What would improve your day to day satisfaction with your work? If it isn't your career as such, but something to do with your job then a career change may not be the answer, when what you need is to continue your career, but with some changed conditions. Perhaps you could satisfy your desire for career change by:

• Changing to another job in the same sector but with a different employer
• Moving from the private to the public sector where the career remains but the principles/values may be different
• Negotiating with your employer for a fairer salary package
• Applying career management principles to seek some agreed changes with your present employer

The notion of career change throws up all sorts of ideas about doing something completely different so what does your ideal role look like? Are you able to describe it in terms of the level of responsibility you want; the amount of influence; strategic input; work structure; internal/external contact; reward and recognition; status; pace and pressure that make for a satisfying and challenging role?

What about location, permanent or contract: work/life balance. How do family, school or spouse career issues affect you? What organizational culture suits you best?

When you've defined your ideal role with as many dimensions as possible, you'll always have something to compare new opportunities against. This type of benchmarking helps you avoid the rushed and possibly regrettable later decision being made.

So, you can only decide on your career options when you've thought about:

• Exactly what you want
• What you really enjoy doing
• What you're good at and want to continue doing
• What's important to you
• And how all this affects those close to you

What transferable skills do I have?

You should spend some time to analyse your skills gained through every job, course or leisure activity you have been involved with. These are the transferable skills that are potentially of interest to most employers. With the following list of key skills, try to record examples from your work experience, college or other academic studies and don't forget to include aspects of your social or home life.

• Functional: Analyse your skills which you use to deal with the world around you
• Personal: Analyse the skills that you use to manage yourself
• Technical: Analyse the skills that you use and develop for aspects of your job
• Personal development needs

How do I want to use my existing skills?

You may not need to go for a complete career change where you do something different. Because most ther roles or jobs overlap in their skills requirements, you can almost certainly use the knowledge, skills and capabilities that you already have. Network with other people to find out if there are opportunities in your own line of work: personal contacts, past colleagues, customers or suppliers or members of a professional group you belong to. Nowadays, networking is a skill in itself and one of the most productive ways to find a new job or career.

If you decide to go ahead with a career change, please make sure you go for something that you really are interested in, otherwise the same scenario will set in again and you will be back where you started from. Learn how to adapt your CV for a career change.

Can I change career at my time of life?

Of course you can!

A career change is possible at any time of life if you have the desire and motivation to do it. A midlife career change may be just the right thing for you. Now, if you are over50 and looking for a new job, you may well mistakenly think that everybody is against you or that there are no suitable jobs for older workers like you. I have thrown some light on what older workers, people like you who are over 50, can actually do to help themselves get back to work - even if you took early retirement.

As you get older, new passions are often ignited and could be the basis for a new career. So, if it is time for a change read my latest article to help you decide how you can transform your dreams.

What do I need to change my career?

There are no secrets to winning a new job, but if you don't follow an ACTION PLAN that WORKS, you may find it much harder to get the job you want. As a Career Coach and Job Search Expert I have developed a career counselling plan that thousands of men and women just like you have used and it has been proven to work.

• You need to know what job you actually want
• You need to know how to find jobs, including the hidden and unadvertised jobs
• You need to know what skills are most in demand
• You need a first class CV or resume
• You need customized cover letters
• You need to practice your job winning interview answers
• You need to be determined

Taken from thenationonlineng.net  Written by Olu Oyeniran

12 Things Good Bosses Believe

What makes a boss great? It's a question I've been researching for a while now. In June 2009, I offered some analysis in HBR (Harvard Business Review) on the subject, and more recently I've been hard at work on a book called Good Boss, Bad Boss.

In both cases, my approach has been to be as evidence-based as possible. That is, I avoid giving any advice that isn't rooted in real proof of efficacy; I want to pass along the techniques and behaviors that are grounded in sound research. It seems to me that, by adopting the habits of good bosses and shunning the sins of bad bosses, anyone can do a better job overseeing the work of others.

At the same time, I've come to conclude that all the technique and behavior coaching in the world won't make a boss great if that boss doesn't also have a certain mindset. My readings of peer-reviewed studies, plus my more idiosyncratic experience studying and consulting to managers in many settings, have led me to identify some key beliefs that are held by the best bosses - and rejected, or more often simply never even thought about, by the worst bosses. Here they are, presented as a neat dozen:

1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success - and that of my people - depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe -  and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong - and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership - and my organization - is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk - and not realizing it.

What do you say? Does that about cover it? If not, tell me what I missed. Or if you're not quite sure what I mean in these brief statements, stay tuned. Over the coming weeks, I'll be digging into each one of them in more depth, touching on the research evidence and illustrating with examples.

If you're like most people I meet, you've had your share of bad bosses - and probably at least one good one. What were the attitudes the good one held? And what great, workplace-transforming beliefs could your worst boss never quite embrace?

Taken from HBR.com  Written by Robert Sutton

Motivation Techniques that are the Keys to Achieving Major Success

The motivation techniques I am going to reveal in this blog are some of my top secret tips for success.

Are you wondering why one person seems to have all the motivation in the world and you have, little to none? As you start to read this article you will find yourself becoming open to some new ideas. You will see yourself getting ready to super charge your life and career!

Motivating people is one of my natural gifts in life. I love to do it and people gravitate to me for that reason. Ready to get motivated...let's rock this place!

Motivation Techniques to Raise Your Energy Level

Before you start your day, always do something that brings your energy level up. For some people this can be inspiring music. For me I always have what I call my motivational music on when I am driving to any type of presentation. I listen to songs that pump me up. Songs that say things like you are a winner, and go for the gold and you can do anything. By the time I get out of the car I know I am a winner and I for sure can do anything.

It is a known fact that music produces serotonin in your brain, which is the feel good endorphin. If music isn't your thing then listen to motivational tapes. If you get some great ones they can be extremely motivating.

Motivation Technique for Finding Your Career Purpose

One of the first things I do when I motivate other people is get inspired first. This is easy if I am inspiring you on a subject that gets me fired up.

I want to point out that is one of the main components. If you love what you're doing and you love what you're talking about your motivation around that will naturally soar. As opposed to, trying something only because you see other people succeeding at it.

If you feel connected and excited about it, you will be able to get other people to feel the same way. It doesn't matter if you don't know anyone who ever succeeded at your passion - it's your passion and if you're into it, you will succeed!

Motivation Techniques for Boosting Your Business

One of my secrets to motivation skills is choosing the product, service, career or life that generates excitement for you. If you are already in a career or have a business and you have lost your excitement, one way to get it back is by making a list of all the reasons you chose this career to begin with. You want to re-energize yourself by remembering what stood out in the first place about your product or service.

Once you're there and can remember what really gets you jazzed the motivation comes naturally. It will be in your voice, people will sense it in your body language and energy. When I am motivated that energy and enthusiasm spreads like wild fire; it's electric!

Tell yourself that everyone wants what I'm selling or offering. The reason is who wouldn't want to feel this great. If I'm energized it must be good. People know what your offering is real; you are not trying to sell them a lie. They can sense this.

Taken from qualified-lifecoach.com    

How to Pursue Your Entrepreneurial Dream at Night

It's not a question of either or, but rather a question of when and how you take that entrepreneurial leap. How can you pursue your entrepreneurial dream in between working your day job and living your life? It's a daunting task to say the least...

Are your mornings frantically spent getting kids to become coherent, out of their pajamas, fed, cognizant of where their everythings are, and eventually in a form of transportation en route to school, play date, or other activity? Then it's off to work in your corporate job or continue in your mom role, supporting the family via childcare, diaper changes, pickups, cleanups, grocery shopping, cooking, and if you are lucky, squeezing in an occasional business call as the child and home environment allows. When suppertime arrives, the chaos begins again, lasting through bedtime.

So when is an entrepreneurial mom with a big idea to embark on her trail-blazing journey? For better or worse, the answer if in these two little words: at night.

The Secret to Building a Mom Empire from 8 pm to 11 pm

Whether you relish every moment of your busy days spent supporting your family, or long for more time to devote to your big idea, this is the reality for most entrepreneurial moms: they build their businesses at night and usually continue to run their businesses at hours when the rest of the business world is winding down.

In fact, according to a recent survey, an overwhelming 87% of our members told us that the bulk of their business is actually run between the hours of 8pm and 11pm, with many others listing even longer hours stretching into later times of the night. Yes, just as our non-entrepreneurial mom counterparts are winding down for the night over a good book and hot tea, many of us are just gearing up and settling in for what constitutes our workday - at night.

If you ask most successful entrepreneurial moms how they started out, none of them will tell you that one day (when they were doing just about nothing), their big idea came to them into which they were able to invest all of their time. It's a lovely daydream to imagine hours of uninterrupted creativity, execution, and planning time for your budding business, but we know the real deal: other stuff comes first.

5 Secrets to Building a Business on a Condensed (Nighttime) Schedule

1. Be a web technologies whiz. As a night-time entrepreneurial mom it's important to utilize fully the many powerful internet-based technologies to collaborate with partners and conduct sales calls. Services such as Skype and GoToMeeting offer chat, video calls, and conference voice calls perfectly suited for virtual collaboration.
2. Plan regular nights out of the house to work. If you can secure childcare for the kids after bedtime, try booking 1-2 nights out to work per week. Amass a short list of 3-4 late coffee shops near you where you can work alone, or meet with team members and partners. Great night-time meeting venues are ones with wine, sandwich, and dessert options to satisfy any taste at any hour.
3. Have a nighttime work plan of attack. In the bustle of daytime, have a dry erase board in the kitchen, a notebook in your purse, or use voice memos on your iPhone to create your agenda for your precious few work hours at night. List the people to whom you need to connect and evenly balance the agenda items with short and sweet to-do's, as well as 1-2 bigger issues to tackle. Build in a plan for feeling good and accomplished by the end of your condensed work session.
4. Choose and create your business model wisely. Choose a business and create a business model that is achievable on your nighttime schedule. If you're deciding between a few multi-level business options for example, choose one that doesn't require daytime sales calls.
5. Be realistic, keep perspective, and protect your health. While it's plausible to build a successful business "on the side" at night, keep in mind your overall life goals that include family intimacy, physical wellness, and social engagements. It's easy to get swept up in a tidal wave of passion for your business at those late hours, sacrificing essential sleep. Keep a schedule and don't let yourself skip that evening yoga in favor of more work hours, and maintain that girls' night out that always recharges you.

With careful organization, planning, self discipline, and adherence to boundaries, you can parcel out just the right amount of time, mental energy, and physical investment in your big idea to steadily build something amazing. Before you know it, with smart growth you just might need to make the decision to move your night job to the daytime.

Taken from momeomagazine.com  Written by Christie Schultz

How to Give a Webinar (and Not Look Like an Idiot)

Someone taps you on the shoulder and says, "We scheduled a webinar to show off the important technology the company has developed. And since you know it better than anyone else, we decided that you are the one who should be in front of the camera." Lucky you...

Many people would rather visit the dentist or pay taxes than speak publicly. They might even prefer to pay the dentist's taxes than stand up in front of a crowd. Perhaps this fear of public embarrassment is why so many business professionals are nervous about hosting a webinar. However, a webinar probably is a good idea, at least for your business, because these online presentations are a unique opportunity to engage clients on a one-to-one basis, regardless of audience size. Using the right materials and presentation techniques, you can interact with each individual participant, instead of addressing a large, faceless group of strangers. How can you get past the gut-wrenching fear that you'll make a fool of yourself? Use our tips to stop worrying and approach your webinar assignment with confidence.

Prepare Properly Before the Webinar

One way to get focused is to eliminate distractions. Make sure that you have taken care of all the details ahead of time, so you can put your attention on giving the presentation during the webinar. And, to some degree, that means, "Gosh, I hope people show up."

So get the schedule in order, so that you attract the most people. Plan to host your webinar at least twice, to accommodate different time zones. Avoid Mondays and Fridays, as these are peak meeting days; webinar attendance is therefore often lower. The best times are 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, which is when your guests are at their desks before or after lunch. Send a reminder of the webinar one week ahead of time, and a second reminder the day before the event.

Your initial planning stage should start about four weeks before the webinar; this is not the sort of homework assignments you want to begin the night before the term paper is due. That will only increase your nervousness. In the early planning stages, your primary attention should be on developing a compelling topic, identifying presenters and target audience, and - for marketers, not necessarily you-the-presenter - the promotional outreach campaign.

Develop Your Content

Developing interesting, engaging and educational content is probably the most important key to your webinar's success. If your material is boring or doesn't  bring relevant value, you'll lose your guests - and their sales. Invite an industry expert, customer or partner to present a case study or conduct an interview during your webinar. This will stimulate more interest and drive participation. A well-known subject matter expert can double or even triple your attendance.

Here are some recent examples of webinars that were truly "home runs" because of their compelling, timely content:

• A marketing consulting group offered a webinar that provided tips for maximizing holiday sales at a time when the holiday period was key to many retailers' survival. Over 90% of the registrants attended; more typical attendance is half that.
• A program in January on how to qualify and nurture leads to enhance sales team success wildly exceeded attandance expectations. It provided practical how-to information and useful new ideas and featured a noted author.

The key mistake to avoid is being blatantly self-promotional. With the prevalence of DVRs, no one has to sit through a commerical anymore - so don't turn your webinar into one.

Prepare questions to ask during the webinar registration process. Doing so can give you great insight into your audience, assuming that you ask questions that help you tailor your presentation to your audience's needs and to learn the participants' education or qualification level. You don't want to waste time on an introductory session on "heat and light come from the sun" when 90% of those attending are physicists. In addition, prepare a post-event survey for use as people exit the webinar. Ask them follow-up questions to further qualify them as sales prospects, to learn about their satisfaction with what you covered, and to find out if they laughed at your jokes.

Finally, prepare a Q & A session to encourage your guests' participation. There is some risk associated with a Q & A session, of course. You might hear a question you can't answer. Worse yet, a questioner might act more like a heckler. The solution, again, is advance preparation.

• Jot down ahead of time the questions you anticipate, along with appropriate responses. Keep these notes handy so that you can refer to them during the actual webinar if need be. 
• Focus on those questions you hope you don't hear. It's like buying flood or earthquake insurance - it's prudent to buy it, though you hope you never have to use it.
• Respond to critical questions as positively as credibly possible. Then move on - don't dwell on the negative. And, remember, if all else fails, you can always block a really abusive questioner.

Practice makes the difference. Webinars aren't difficult, but they are different from running a meeting or a conference call. A webinar is an event. Attendees have higher expectations than participants in less formal "ad hoc" types of meetings involving small groups.

Avoid Murphy's Law

Take a couple of test runs of your presentation, especially if you've never run one before. Yes, practice in front of a mirror. You will feel stupid. Do it anyway. Because the rehearsal will make you so familiar with the material that, should you freeze up in the middle of your presentation, you can just keep going on automatic until your brain re-engages.

It also means that you can develop poise as well as technical knowledge. You'll realize that when you're nervous, you, say, fiddle with your hair. This will teach you to tie your hair back, so that you can't drive the participants crazy. You want then to put their attention on your brilliant technical presentation, not staring at you pulling on your bangs and wondering if they're going to come off.

This gives you the opportunity to fine tune your material and catch any potential problems with the webcasting solution you're using. We're not saying that technology breaks at the worst possible moment, but, you don't want people to watch you twist volume knobs and adjust screen displays. Learn how the software works - when nobody is watching. You don't want your audience to hear you say, "Hmm, what happens when I push this button," and watch it all go black. Do your homework, too, concerning the use of third-party technologies. For example, find out if your webinar solution requires attendees to download the provider's software. Imagine the plight of the webinar organizer who either forgets to check or doesn't think it's important, only to discover that she just spent $20K on a webinar that a fourth of the registrants couldn't attend because their company firewalls prevented software downloads.

Day of the Webinar: Save Your Sanity

You might be nervous, but at the very least you can be prepared. Use this checklist:

• Wear clothing with a neutral or soft color or with a soft pattern, as pastel colors are easiest for the viewer to see. Also, bright colors can "ghost" and make it appear that your shirt is following you when you move around. Avoid red - it typically "bleeds," which can result in a fuzzy look around the edges. Avoid white - it makes if difficult for the camera operator to get good color contrast. This is similar to what happens when you try to take photos in the snow or on the beach.
• A shirt or a tie with thin vertical stripes will give off a distracting wavy pattern with even the slightest movement.
• During your presentation, you should talk to the camera. Avoid looking around or at anyone else who might be watching.
• During the Q & A, talk to the person who is posing the questions, not to the camera.
• During the webinar, plant yourself in one place as if you were nailed down. Try not to move excessively, shift your weight, or shuffle your feet. If you are seated at a desk, do not tap your pen on the desktop. And if you're standing, don't play with the loose change in your pocket.

Make sure you're in a quiet place and use the telephone handset. Handsets normally have good quality microphones, so background noises are kept to a minimum. Using the "hands free" option or conference phones can result in low-volume voices that sound compressed, pick up the background noise in the room or produce an echo from the room. In other words, you might sound like you're talking from inside a bucket. It's hard enough to capture everyone's attention when they'd rather be playing with their BlackBerries; don't make it easy for their attention to stray because they can't hear you. Or because you sound like a dork.

And don't forget to turn off your own IM, cell phone, PDAs, email, and other possible distractions. This may be the hardest task for you, we realize.

Join the webinar early. Verify that all links and presentations are working. Never assume that you're too smart, too important or too busy to be trained ahead of time on the webinar platform. The most flustered webinar moderators are those who wouldn't take the time for a pre-event sound check and then discovered that their audiences couldn't hear them. Display a "welcome" slide that says your meeting will start shortly. At the beginning of your meeting, provide a quick review of housekeeping items, such as how to use the chat feature or how-and-when you'll address questions and answers. Ask speakers to identify themselves. Finally, relax and have fun! This will keep the viewer focused on your presentation.

After the Webinar: Were You an Idiot?

Do plan on issuing a post-webinar survey to participants to solicit feedback. They are usually brutally honest. But the reality is that you won't have to wait until after the webinar for the answer to that question. People are not shy. Even during the event itself participants will critique your webinar via chat. They will let you know, for example, if you are talking down to them versus enlightening them. Another real-time metric: audience members will start dropping off if you are being an idiot.

Record your seminar. Post the webinar on your website for future viewing and then evaluate results of this on-demand viewing. A popular webinar is usually a well-done webinar. Build a reference library of past webinars for your customers and prospects to view when they have time. Webinar content and Q & A's can also be useful for training employees.

Send follow-up emails to all registrants. Send participants a summary of the Q & A session, additional information, a link to the archived webinar or just a simple email message thanking them for participating.

Taken from www.cio.com  Written by Denise Persson.

33 Rules to Boost Productivity - Part Three

Here's the 3rd installment of 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity. These are bit sillier and less politically correct than the first two parts - I had to stretch to come up with more ideas - but many are still valid in certain situations. Just be sure to take them with a grain of salt. I assume no liability for anyone who actually tries to apply these.

1. Halliburton. Cut corners to save time and money when the outcome is mainly for show anyway. If it looks good, it is good. It's easier to manufacture excuses than results.
2. Nuke. XML. Split your RSS feed into two lists: those that help boost your productivity vs. those that taketh away. Force yourself to unsubscribe from all the feeds in the second list. You won't miss them. Just be sure this blog makes the first list.
3. Evil eye. Practice your best evil eye in a mirror, and use it liberally on anyone who enters your space to interrupt you.
4. Vulcan logic. Ask for a part-time assistant by explaining to your boss that you're being paid $25/hour to so $10/hour tasks, which is costing your employer a lot of money.
5. Voodoo. Display voodoo replicas of your boss and co-workers on your desk, labeled with their names. Whenever you overhear someone complaining of health problems (headache, upset stomach, runny nose, etc.), stick a pin into the corresponding part of their doll. Then call them over to your workspace for some unrelated reason.
6. Scooby snacks. Grab a bowl of your favorite snacks, such as grapes, tamari almonds, or Trader Joe's oriental rice crackers. Eat one piece for each microbial piece of work you complete. One bite per sentence. One bite per line of code. One bite per email. Ranks, Raggy!
7. Iraqi freedom. When you're bleeding time and money on a project that's spiraling out of control, when morale is in the toilet, and when you can't even get yourself to believe your own lies anymore, that's the best time to go on vacation.
8. WoW.die.die.die. Give online gaming a rest, and reinvest that energy into your real life, which is probably suffocating beneath a pile of dead, smelly orcs.
9. Politician. Throw money at your problems until they succumb. Either this will work, or you'll put your successor in such a crippled position that they can't do any better.
10. Upgrade. Modernize your tools - a faster computer, a better PDA, a hotter girlfriend.
11. Coach. Hire a person coach to keep yourself motivated, focused and accountable. After several months of pep talks, you'll be qualified to start your own coaching practice.
12. Proactive. Just do it, and deal with the consequences later. It's easier to request forgiveness than permission.
13. Polyphasic. Six naps a day keep your laziness at bay. You can catch up on your sleep when you're dead.
14. Captain Kirk. If you boldly and brazenly act like you know what you're doing, people will assume it's true. Use this strategy to get promoted to the point where you can delegate all your work to those who really know what they're doing. Orion slave girls are standing by.
15. Hyundai. Lower your standards, and just get it done anyway you can.
16. Saturn. Dictate the terms you want as totally non-negotiable, and make them sound as generous as you can. But at the first sign of resistance, cave in immediately and agree to re-negotiate everything.
17. Blockade. Slide a heavy piece of furniture in front of your office door. When drop-in visitors complain they can't get in, tell them you're refactoring your office for greater productivity.
18. Eye for an eye. Punish those who add tasks to your plate by filling their plates with even more.
19. Bait. Put candy dishes on everyone's desk but your own.
20. Quagmire. Fill out and mail a generous assortment of business reply cards in your boss' name, checking the "bill me later" boxes. A few dozen magazine subscriptions and some Franklin Mint collections ought to slow him down a bit. A new Civil War chess piece every month means he'll be playing chess in under 3 years.
21. End run. Suggest to your boss' boss that your boss is overworked and needs more help. If you implement the previous tip, this will likely be true.
22. Fasting. Digest information, not food.
23. Toddler. Throw a tantrum until someone finally solves the problem for you.
24. Armageddon. Use overwhelming force to totally dominate your problem. Treat your molehill like a mountain. Use a bazooka to kill a cockroach. Send a real human being to serve in Congress.
25. Model. Find people who are already getting the results you want, interview them, and model their attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. Then you'll have someone to blame when things go wrong.
26. The Secret. Use the Law of Attraction to manifest the done-ness of your project.
27. Illuminati. Form a secret society to ensure that things go your way. Eventually take over the planet to guarantee you'll never have to work again.
28. PMS. Accept the fact that you can still get your work done even when you're pissed at everything.
29. Anakin. Would your problems be easier to solve if you turned evil? The dark side beckons...
30. Spammer. Sign up for a free email account, and subscribe to every e-zine, e-newsletter, and mailing list you can find. The shadier the better. Once you've completed all the double opt-in processes, set that account to forward to your boss' email.
31. Steve Jobs. On the rare occasions you actually do manage to get something done, talk it up like a madman. Say "This is huge!" to everyone you meet. People will assume you're 10x a productive as you are.
32. Guru. Instead of doing your actual work, spend most of your time reading productivity blogs. Within a few months, you'll have acquired enough knowledge to start your own. Eventually you'll realize that 50% of the web consists of productivity tips written by chronic procrastinators. The other 50% is porn.
33. Uber-Guru. Stick with the first 50%.

Taken from Stevepavlina.com  Written by Steve Pavlina.

The Real Killer of Motivation

Routine is a murderer.

Years ago, before starting the Motivation123 website, I had pockets full of plans and ideas. My mind was in a constant state of activity. As for my reality, nothing ever changed. Nothing in my life went in the directions I had hoped for. It got to the point that I began to doubt whether or not a better life was even possible. Could I change?

Then, while paging through a magazine at the doctor's office, I came across a question, just a short team of words that gripped my attention. It was simple - as mot powerful truths are - but it made an immediate impact. And from that day I possessed a key to progress that has served me ever since. Before we get to that answer, however, we need to pin down the problem.

The Killer

In a word, it's routine.

It's the pattern of living that, like molten lava, slowly crawls into adulthood, covering and consuming our hopes, dreams and ambitions. It's doing the same thing every day because that's what you've always done. It's a vicious circle of repeating actions and events that leads to nowhere.

The reason nothing was changed in my life was because I was stuck in a routine. Every day I followed the same basic outline of living: wake, work, sleep, repeat.

I had new ideas, to be sure, but my actions were old. Then I was hit with the truth while waiting - for what seemed like weeks - in my doctor's waiting room.

The Question I Took with Me

The sad reality is that most people never realize what is happening until it's too late. This is the skill and cunning of habit and routine. It wraps its arms around the minutes and hours of your life, distracting and luring you into autopilot, into a dazed mode of living. All the while, the little time you have to construct your ideal experiences is being sucked away, stolen.

Routine is a murderer. It kills hope and the chance for change. It blinds us to the truth and with a scalpel cuts away our goals and ideas. Routine puts a hand in the face of growth and improvement, leaving room for nothing but the same.

You need a way out of the routine. And for me, the way out came in the form of a question:

'If you continue to follow the same patterns, what are the chances you'll ever experience the things you want to do and ever become the person you hope to be?'

I read the sentence again. What would my chances be? Things hadn't worked out do far, so why would doing the same thing result in anything different?

My Realization

I had my answer. My chances were none.

I would never do the things I had always thought about, never grow into the character I hoped for. If I followed the same routines, the same patterns, I could expect pretty much what I had been getting. For some, this is the perfect scenario. But for me, I wanted more. I knew how much life ad to offer and I wanted to dive in head first. I wanted to experience it all and live a life worth living again.

I looked around the office, looked at the people next to me. None of us would reach that place without a change in pattern. We were all trapped in a circle of habit.

This brings us face to face with a truth that most men and women would rather avoid.

It's relieving to let our goals live in 'someday.' We don't have to worry about never attaining them. Instead, we can put them off and fool ourselves.

'It will happen someday.' No it won't.

The truth is, if you don't change your routine now, you will never reach those goals. You will never wake up to a life that matches the one in your mind. Never.

Don't hide from this. Accept it. Embrace it. Use it to smash through the chains of routine and drive you into a new way of life, into a new pattern of progress.

Taken from Motivation123.com