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Barbara Berger
Uncategorized

Career Wellness Partners Receives Thumbtack’s Best of 2015 Award

November 23, 2015

The award is given annually to professionals who have received great reviews from Thumbtack customers.

The Thumbtack platform is one of the most successful and fastest growing job-sourcing sites in the country. Thumbtack has grown through a unique bidding system that allows only 5 bids from US-based providers per job posted by clients of the site.

Career Wellness is a big supporter of Thumbtack’s approach and is enjoys a significant portion of business from the platform.

Thanks to my clients for the positive reviews. I’m so excited to share new offerings in the 2016!

by Barbara Berger
Uncategorized

Take Ownership of Your Career Wellness – Just Ask

October 23, 2015

Originally published for Switch and Shift.

Most of us struggle when we need to ask for help, and those issues are compounded when help is needed in the workplace. For introverts, it’s even more difficult.

How do we get past our fears and ask for what we need to have the career we want?

In the second video of our Just Ask series by career wellness strategist, Barbara Berger, she shares a case study that demonstrates how getting more comfortable with feeling vulnerable and embracing the idea of asking questions helps you take ownership of your career.

And, just as importantly, how can an optimistic and human workplace’s response to those questions make all the difference.

 

 

by Barbara Berger
Uncategorized

Workplace Optimism & Career Wellness

October 1, 2015

I had a great opportunity with Switch & Shift for a new blog series that explores our secret superpower (and fear) and the role it plays in individual career wellness and workplace optimism.

Just Ask – Your Guide to Career Wellness

We are thrilled to introduce a new blog series, Just Ask, by career wellness consultant Barbara Berger. In this first episode Barbara covers a topic dear to our hearts – workplace optimism. You’ll hear from Barbara how to begin your journey to career wellness, and how by JUST ASKING you can move past the fear and take the path you choose, instead of one created for you.

 

 

by Barbara Berger
Blog Page

Have Your Career Cake

April 8, 2015

There is something incredibly rewarding about working they way I want to work, not because someone is telling me what to do or how to do it. Something so fantastically different about working my own gig and knowing that the compensation is a result, from start to finish, of my own efforts. Not to mention that I value the money so much more because I’m in a helping/teaching/giving role which is where my gut knows, and past career experiments show, I belong.

There is something so decadent about having the freedom to structure my work day as I choose. It might mean the ability to take a break to eat the last piece of cheesecake for a mid-morning snack (I just did that), or thinking through a presentation while taking the dog for a walk (much better option than the cheesecake.)

But that’s me.

Does it mean I sometimes work at midnight, or during the evening between my boys’ baseball games, and on weekends? Yes, it does. There’s a cost to every decision. However, for me, this way works best.

I love my offices. I have a home office where I work with candles lit, or incense burning, or loud music, or soft music or Howard Stern on XM. I talk to (and answer) myself. At my other office, where I see clients and pay rent and get my dose of human interaction, it’s tiny and cozy and it’s me. (Sans Howard Stern and the out-loud personal dialogue.)

I value freedom, and variety, and days that I get to structure any way I like. Some days I’m seeing clients all day, some days I’m delivering workshops, other days I’m writing resumes, or LinkedIn profiles, or blog posts. I love options.

But that’s me.

What about you? Do you need quiet? Do you need lots of social interaction? Do you need tight deadlines to perform your best? Do you want to walk away from the day at 5:00 and not have to think about it until you punch in again the next morning? Do you need to be outside?

There is no one way, no way more important than another, to work. There is only your best way and you need to know what it is so you can help make a well-informed decision about your career options.

If you know that you need structure and clear-cut, specific guidelines during your time at work, then that is a huge piece of the puzzle for you. And when you know something like that about yourself, and how you work best, you begin to make choices. Better choices. Aligned choices. Choices that lead to career wellness.

How do you find out what your best way is? You experiment.

Pamela Slim talks about “thinking like a scientist” in her book Body of Work:  Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together.

When talking about what makes or breaks an entrepreneurial journey, Slim writes;

What I mean specifically is a willingness to create a working hypothesis, test it, observe with curiosity, ask why, tweak, retest, observe, et cetera, until you are satisfied.

Experimentation is not only a journey for entrepreneurs, I believe it is how we need to view career development as a whole. Anyone’s career. We are all experimenting in our own way, to find our individual best way, to work.

Take some time to reflect on past experiences, pay attention to current situations, and make a list of times when you know you preformed at your best.

It’s not for the weak; this experimentation thing. There are lots of hypotheses that deliver disappointing results. When this happens, add the experience to your list, break down what you learned about yourself, and experiment again. And again.

Keep experimenting until you notice that one of your experiments leads to unexpected peace, surprising happiness and an increased feeling of overall wellbeing.

When that happens, celebrate with cheesecake.

He’d rather walk!

cheesecake photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10506540@N07/5806546039

by Barbara Berger
Uncategorized

Changing Careers In 2015? Do THIS With Your Resume

January 12, 2015

changing-careers-2015-resumeIs 2015 the year of your career shift?  Join me at CAREEREALISM where I share the most important thing you need to do with your resume before you head in a new direction.  In this guest post, I’ll show you how to use your resume to take control of your next move and make sure it’s a step toward Career Wellness.

We get so focused on crafting a resume that supports how we think we should present ourselves to get the next job, that our real selves get lost in the getting-it-right-on-paper part. Before we know it, we have a document that doesn’t even come close to what makes us feel good about going to work. This can be disastrous for career changers.

Read the full article here http://www.careerealism.com/changing-careers-2015-resume/

by Barbara Berger
Blog Page, Mid Life Professionals, Uncategorized, Women in Transition

Enough with 5 Tips, 3 Tricks, 10 Ways….Gimme Just One Thing!

November 13, 2014

You want one thing? You already have it.  Question is…are you using it?

I was having coffee with a friend a few weeks ago.  This friend happens to be a millennial.  She also happens to be a gifted writer who, instead of flexing her award-winning literary muscles, is flexing her biceps and triceps doing backbreaking work in the fields of her organic farm in Eastern PA.  She’s also getting an intense workout in the business world as she is building her “Lady-Run, Earth-Friendly Vegetable Farm” brand as well as her strategic partnerships in Philadelphia.  She works harder than anyone I know.  She still writes when she has time, and you can read her story in her own words at her Farmer Liz blog.

We were talking about how it can appear that people who have successfully changed careers or started a business had something in their corner that made it easier for them to get a leg up; a spouse to cover expenses for a year, a key contact at a dream company, a mentor who seems to appear and take the person under their wing.   Farmer Liz said, “But everyone has one thing.   My one thing is that my relationship with my parents is great and I can be a transient there when I need to be.”  This allows her to be mobile between Philly, and her farm and her part time gig as she grows her full-time business.  She went on to talk about a few of her friends and their respective ‘one things.’   She was right; they all had something.  And they used it. 

Sometimes the thing is easy to see – the trust fund, the free ride to college, the friend who knows a friend, etc.  Sometimes, sheer determination, courage, desire or intuition are not as tangible and, therefore, more difficult to recognize as a competitive advantage.   And, believe it or not, sometimes we see it, but we don’t use it.

So, in the world of formulated how-to posts, the obligatory bullet point for career shifters, industry jumpers, new grads, business starters or dream builders is:

  • Identify your one thing and leverage it.

There are people who don’t understand why you wouldn’t use something (ethically, of course) if it helps your career along.  But, in another corner, are folks who are wired to turn a blind eye to a helping hand or to exercising an advantage; believing it will devalue any achievement.  They don’t even need their peers to resent them for it; they are more than happy to discredit their own progress.  It sounds like this:  “It’s only working out well because…, People will think I only succeeded because…, It won’t really count because…”  So, as Farmer Liz would say:

Give freely, and accept graciously and with gratitude. If you really want it, you’ll swallow your ego and go for it.

Stop feeling guilty about your one thing and stop apologizing for it.  Your peers had something in their corner, too, and maybe they didn’t use it or never took a helping hand when it was offered; and maybe they are all still stuck.  Success doesn’t only count when you work tooth and nail to earn it.  It counts just the same when you acknowledge and leverage your one thing and work hard too.  Because, to launch in a new direction, there will always be plenty of hard work.  Just ask my farmer friend.

Go ahead and feel free to walk uphill, in the snow, for 20 miles, with no shoes, carrying a 100 lb. backpack every day for 10 years until you make it to your destination. Or water, care for and cultivate the one thing that just may make the trip a bit easier.  And then use it.

by Barbara Berger
Blog Page, Mid Life Professionals, Uncategorized, Women in Transition

Faking It, Loving the One You’re With, and Other Temporary Fixes

October 27, 2014

You know you’ve done it. Somewhere along the line we’ve all done it.  You faked it.  You just wanted to get it over with – the day, the meeting, the week – so you delivered an Oscar-worthy performance and, surprised by how easily others can be fooled, you did what you needed to do and then got on with the rest of your world.

And then you did it again. And again.  Until one day you admit that deep down you know you should be getting more out of this than a paycheck…which you desperately need.  But don’t you deserve to enjoy it a little?

Yes, you deserve to enjoy what you do for a living.  And, your employer deserves an engaged employee.  So what happens when you know that you aren’t happy where you’re planted but, for whatever reason, you aren’t ready to make a move?

First, ask yourself this revealing question that I ask all of my career coaching clients:

Are you being  a (designer, teacher, sales manager), or are  you a (designer, teacher, sales manager)?

If you ARE what you’re doing from 9-5 you probably answered with certainty and a feeling of, “Duhh, how could I possibly be anything else?  It’s what I am.”

Clients who answer like this typically seek tactical guidance to get them back on course. We may work on their resume, focus on job search strategy or pump some new energy into their LinkedIn profile to get them to the next step of what they already know they are.  The feeling of faking it often dissipates as they begin to make some strategic adjustments.

If you are BEING your title from 9- 5, you probably answered with a sigh of frustration and something like “I’m BEING a _____, it’s not what I am.”    (a.k.a.  “I’m pretending.  I’m faking it.”)

Clients who answer this way usually want to find work that is aligned with what they know about themselves, or a way to bring more of themselves into their current situation. Many times they aren’t even sure where they belong.  It’s a different level of faking and they are drained and uninspired for most of their work day.  Even though they may be good at their job, there is no communion between who they are and what they do.

First of all, it’s important to note that probably at some point in your life you’ll find yourself being  something in order to cover the bills. It may be during your early career as you are paying your dues or during a financial or family situation that takes priority.   When that’s the case, you have to try even harder to are it  in other areas of your life to make sure you aren’t depleted.  So, if you know that you’re being it  (faking it) from 9 –5, begin to notice when you are it  outside of your day job. Who says you have to define yourself by your 9 -5 title anyway?  Oh, that’s right…the world.  Don’t listen.

I’m not saying that passion can’t equal a paycheck.   It certainly can.  But it doesn’t always.  And, rarely at every stage of life are you getting paid for doing what feels perfectly right.

Sometimes there is a little faking involved as you put in your time, try things on and discard titles that don’t fit. But you don’t want to be placed on a performance improvement plan, and you don’t want to look like a slacker,  and you don’t want your reputation to be affected just because you’re putting the puzzle together.  You also don’t want to feel this level of detachment from your work forever.

Try these mind tricks to help sustain you and keep you as engaged as possible:

  • Start telling yourself (and others if you want) your story in a new way: “I’m an organic gardener and I work as an accountant from 9 to 5.”   I’m a musician but I work as an office manager during the week.”
  • Begin to subtly infuse value into what you’re being  by seeing how it contributes to your ability to are  outside of a paycheck. (The money you make being it  affords you the resources you need to are it  in your private life.)
  • Love the one you’re with. Seek other areas in your organization that might sound interesting. The more you experiment, the more you learn. Sitting still is like dying a slow death.
  • Find ways to try to bring some of your are  into the daily being.
  • If you have ideas of what you really want to get paid to do, start taking meaningful action steps to determine what it will take to make that a reality. Doing is the bridge from BEING to AREing.

I really don’t believe that we were born to fake it through life. Even at work.  If you find yourself in that pattern, it’s a signal for you to pay attention and make some adjustments.   Play some mind tricks to create a subtle shift in perspective and to help you get unstuck.  And then, when you feel a pull that can’t be ignored, start building a little bridge….you may find what you are on the other side.

Image:  Pi from Leiden, Holland via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lab_coats.jpg
by Barbara Berger
Women in Transition

Coaching Women in Career Transition

October 7, 2014

5 Biggest Lessons From Year One

In the spring of 2013, I initiated my own mid-career transition when I resigned from the most amazing company ever, MyHR Partner, to become certified as a Career Coach and start my own career consulting practice, Career Wellness Partners.  I expected the first year to be a year of learning about running my own business – and it certainly was. But, there was one thing for which I wasn’t prepared at all:

I wasn’t prepared for how much I would learn from my clients.

I work with women in all kinds of transition; women who are recently divorced and re-entering the workforce before they planned, mid-career women who are suddenly unemployed and determined to make their second act one that matters, and women whose career dreams took a back seat while caring for ailing parents. I work with women who have experienced such loss they don’t even know where to begin to build their lives (let alone their careers) to some state of “normalcy.”  And, I work with women who are trying to find a way to infuse meaning and joy into their current work situation.

My background as a Hiring Manger provided me with the skills to assist clients with the mechanics of the job search; resume writing, interview prep, LinkedIn profiles, applicant tracking systems (ATS), etc. Through education and training, along with plenty of pro-bono work prior to launch, I discovered my own coaching style.  That’s when the learning really began.

Here are the top five lessons from my first year as a Career Coach for women in transition:

1. Work heals – Work pays the bills.  It also can be a place of refuge, rebuilding and recovery.  It can be experimental or monumental.  It can be a primary or parallel endeavor.  Work can help free us from debilitating introspection, spiraling depression and loss of connection.  Work sucks sometimes.  And sometimes, it saves.

2. “Way leads on to way” – My favorite line from Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken is “Yet knowing how way leads on to way…”  My favorite because it speaks to endless possibilities resulting from one small step.  And I’ve learned that getting beyond lesson #3,  so that women feel worthy to take that first step, is the most important part.

3. Fear & Lack of Confidence Cause Paralysis – These are big saboteurs for most women and we feed them by the negative way we talk to ourselves and frame our circumstances.  They keep us stuck.  Watching women learn and practice strategies to combat those obstacles leads to lesson #4.

4. Strength. Resilience. Persistence. Spirit. – Wow.  Remarkable.  Awe-inspiring.  Humbling. I am blessed to witness such personal transformation and rebirth.

5. The Power of Women Helping Women – Transitions expose our vulnerable spots.  I work with men too.  But something genuinely magical happens when women work together in the spirit of owning, and then honoring, their talents and desires.

By combining my insatiable curiosity of career discovery, industry-specific skills, and an innate drive to help and inspire others, I have found my “work worth doing.” I send heartfelt gratitude to the inspiring women who have trusted me to help them find theirs.

by Barbara Berger
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