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!
Everboarding is the Key to Talent Retention
The Association of Talent Development (ATD) reports that the amount of information new hires learn in the first few days and weeks can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, many organizations consider onboarding a one-and-done process with tutorial videos and copious digital resources to comb through on your own. It’s a victory if you can find the bathroom […]
Experiment with New Things to Design Your Best Life and Career
I speak to countless people who feel stuck or helpless in the wrong career, the wrong organization, or an unhappy life. The concept of design thinking will empower you with practical and creative strategies to reboot what’s not working so you can assert more control over your future. Design Thinking, a concept birthed in the tech […]
Are You a Career Perfectionist? Part I
In my coaching practice as well as in my travels for speaking engagements, I regularly meet women who are terrified of change. They’re afraid to change careers, jobs, or even pursue a promotion for fear of making the wrong move or not measuring up. Many women are standing in the way of their own success, […]
Join Me and The Career Disruptors in San Francisco on February 10th
It’s time to break the rules or create new ones to forge innovative careers in the new normal of this job economy. The Indiana University Alumni Association is doing just that by featuring a power panel of rock star alumni to discuss disruptive innovation, the art of failure, and being entrepreneurial – whether you are […]
How To Recharge, Reignite, or Reinvent Your Career
According to The Conference Board Job Satisfaction survey less than half of US workers are satisfied with their jobs. Now is a great time to ramp up your career reinvention efforts and reflect upon what would gratify you in a career. If this is not the career you ordered, it’s time to jumpstart your professional reinvention […]
How Personal Brand Impacts Your Career: Guest Post Maegan Watson
In my continued quest to empower women with great resources, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Maegan Watson, a personal branding expert who has helped me greatly. Maegan is a wife, sister, yogi, personal branding guru and the founder of My Dear Watson. She has nearly a decade of experience supporting professionals by building […]
Handling Personal Issues On the Job: 4 Tips To Help
In a perfect world, we’d be able to do our jobs without personal issues ever causing a ripple. Our work life would stay neatly in the work compartment, our personal life would stay perfectly in the personal compartment, and each area would behave itself and not cross the other’s boundaries… Of course that’s not the […]
Year End Gratitude: 3 Simple Ideas for Life and Career
To be in a place of gratitude is so good for your heart and soul. In between the eggnog, fruitcake and renditions of Auld Lang Syne, I encourage you to carve out time to appreciate and express gratitude for the people, events, and experiences that have made a difference in your life over the past […]
Give Yourself Two Minutes – Meditate Your Way to Calm
I’ll admit it…I’m a Type A personality—some might even say Type AA. I move at top speed, doing the work I love—coaching, writing, hosting, managing – however, while this boundless energy has been a blessing in my multi-tasking life, it has, at times, been the source of undue stress as well. As a career coach, […]
7 Ways to Improve Your Mood at Work
Jude Bijou, MA, MFT, is a respected psychotherapist, professional educator, and workshop leader who appeared on my show: Your Working Life this season. Her award-winning book is Attitude Reconstruction: A Blueprint for Building a Better Life. I love Jude’s tips about improving your mood at work since we all can relate to needing an attitude adjustment every […]
New on The Job? 5 Strategies to Make a Great First Impression
Changing jobs can be a welcome and exciting transition, but it can be a stressful time as well. A year ago, I had the opportunity to step into a newly created position – becoming Director of Professional Enrichment for the Indiana University Alumni Association – experiencing, once again, what it’s like to be “the new […]
7 Tips To You Put Your Best Speech Forward in Your Career
Over the years, a number of my coaching clients have expressed a desire to improve their public speaking abilities – especially if they’re being called upon to make presentations at work. For many, speaking in front of a live audience is a daunting proposition. Some clients have admitted to feeling like “a deer in the […]
In Praise of the Walking Meeting
I always appreciate a well-run meeting, and, these days, many of the meetings I attend are not only well run, but well-walked too. I’ve recently become a devotee of walking meetings, and I join an ever-growing contingent dedicated to getting up and out of the office to meet on-the-move. Feet First, a website that promotes […]
Got The Sunday Night Career Blues?
The way we feel about our job at any given time can vary depending on a wide array of factors: how a particular project is going; technical issues; how well staff is performing; etc. However, when you have a chronic case of the Sunday Night Blues – dreading the return to work each Monday – […]
