This Is Not The Career I Ordered™ Blog
Savvy Professional Career Wisdom by Caroline Dowd-Higgins
This is Not the Career I Ordered is read by thousands of careerists around the globe. With savvy tools, inspiration, and resources, this timeless book empowers you to enjoy your career, and love your life!
Stop Waiting to be 100% Ready – Just Do it!
As a career development and executive coach, I work with many individuals who are focused on making changes to their lives and careers to better align their values and strengths. But for some, their best plans often get stalled in analysis paralysis, which results in stagnation and a hard stop to forward momentum. Perfection is […]
Demystify Executive Presence and Project How You Want Others to Perceive You
Executive presence used to harken images of expensively attired corporate employees who walked the walkand talked the talk to inspire confidence and yield influence for success in lavish offices and board rooms. After the COVID pandemic, the world has destigmatized remote work and the hybrid work model will be the new norm for much of […]
Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose in Your Career
I follow the work of Adam Grant, an Organizational Psychologist at Wharton and I’m an avid fan of his podcast WorkLife. Many thanks to Adam Grant who shared a great HBR piece by Ethan Bernstein, Hayley Blunden, Andrew Brodsky, Wonbin Sohn, and Ben Waber about the Implications of Working Without an Office. Like many, I’ve […]
15+ Statistics You Need To Know About Home Office Ergonomics
This guest piece was originally posted on FlexiSpot and authored by Jason McCann who writes for Forbes.com and advises that the secret to getting home office ergonomics right is to have a list of what you want and need. In June 2020, Stanford University Economist Nicholas Bloom said that 42% of working people in the US worked from home […]
There is No Mind Reading in The Career World
Gone are the days when working hard was enough to earn recognition or a promotion in the career world. Take control of your career trajectory and design your unique path. In addition to mapping out your career future, be sure to tap the wisdom of those who can empower you to achieve your goals. Keeping […]
Career Letter to The Class of 2021
Dear Class of 2021: As you head into the post pandemic world you have an opportunity to design your own career destiny and I encourage you to tap the power you have within you. You earned your credentials with a tremendous amount of time, effort, and more than likely a big financial investment that may […]
Slay Perfectionism with “Good Enough to Go” Mindset for Career Momentum
As a career development and executive coach, I work with many individuals who are focused on making changes to their careers to better align with professional values and strengths. But for some, their best plans often get stalled in analysis paralysis, which results in stagnation and a hard stop to all forward momentum. Brave, Not […]
Single Tasking Can Enhance Your Life and Career
Multitasking used to be a sought-after professional competency thought to be a valuable skill for the world-of-work. Research tells us that singletasking is actually more effective and can result in higher productivity and time efficiency. I can envision the woman working at home reading this blog while eating her lunch, checking her email, listening to […]
Being Busy is Nothing to Brag About
I conducted a social experiment and asked the question, “How are you?” to several individuals of different ages, career fields, geographies, and perspectives. The people I queried all responded with some variation of how busy they were. Their responses were stress-filled and frustrated and their self-reported state of busy was clearly causing them angst. Busy-ness […]
Rest Is More Than Sleep: What You Need to Renew Your Energy
I am a firm believer in the power of sleep and do my best to get 8 hours every night to maintain my health and wellness. I thought I was honoring my need to rest but my mind was blown when I read a piece about Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith in Maria Shriver’s: The Sunday Paper […]
5 Tips for Increasing Your Confidence at Work
Many thanks to Patricia Thomas, an online writer for this guest contribution. She’s a new writer and contributor at contentcampfire.com. She writes about career development for women. Confidence and job success often go hand in hand. Unfortunately, many women don’t feel confident at work. If your on-the-job confidence could use a boost, it makes sense to […]
The Cause of Career Burnout That May Surprise You
I recently spoke to Paula Davis, CEO of the The Stress and Resilience Institute, about her book, Beating Burnout at Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being & Resilience on my Your Working Life podcast. Paula shared her candid experience about burning out during the last year of her law practice. At the time, she thought […]
Travel During the Time of COVID
Oh, for the day when we can hop on a plane and go see our long-distance family, or our friends without a worry…when we can book that cruise…or finally make the trip back to Italy we’ve been dreaming about for the past several years. For many of my clients, colleagues and friends, cabin fever has […]
A Hybrid Solution for Where We’ll Work
It’s been 367+ days since I have worked onsite at my organization. I’m sure there is an inch of dust on my desk and my calendar still reads March 2020. A classic extravert, I thought I would struggle working from home missing the daily interactions in-person. To my surprise, I have acclimated to my home […]
