ANNOUNCING AN EXTRAORDINARY VIRTUAL BOOK BLOG

May 14 – May 18, 2012 featuring 5 outstanding, insightful authors with varied areas of expertise in the wonderful world of personal growth and development.  We hope you’ll enjoy hearing from our other colleagues. Thank you for your interest!)

 Deborah Knox, Author, Put Your Spirit to Work: Making a Living Being Yourself, www.lifeworktransitions.com

 Gail McMeekin, Author, 12 Secrets of Highly Successful Women, 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women Journal, www.creativesuccess.com

 Helen Rivas Rose, Author, Brave: A Memoir of Overcoming Shyness, http://www.shynessbook.com/

 Roberta Taylor, Author, The Couple’s Retirement Puzzle: 10 Must-Have Conversations for Transitioning to the Second Half of Life. www.Robertataylor.com

 Amy Wood, Author, Life Your Way: Refresh Your Approach to Success and Breathe Easier in a Fast-Paced World, www.amywoodpsyd.com

 SELF CONFIDENCE – WHAT’S YOUR KEY? Guest Blog

By Deborah Knox, Life Work Transitions

 A group of us meeting the other day were reporting in on the recent results of our career planning activity.  We meet monthly as a follow-up to a Career Planning Program offered here in Tucson AZ.  The participants are all involved in mid-life transitions.  The key concept we acknowledged needing to be present to make a successful transition is “Self Confidence.” So next question, where does it come from especially when having recently lost a job.

 The one woman who has become re-employed spoke of the power and value of engaging in a formal learning process to increase her confidence. Because she could do that, she knew there were probably many other things she could do. The fact that it increased her employment options also helped her feel more hopeful and confident she would successfully make this transition.

 Another person talked about the value of self acceptance and when asked how she arrived at that, she responded “giving myself permission to continue to explore.”  Understand that career search and change, especially at mid-life, is not something that happens over night.

 The third response to the question resulted in the response “managing to do what I say I’ll do every day.”  Personal accountability is something that others value and makes you feel good about yourself.  When you make a commitment – do it!

 So, in summary – the key to maintaining or developing self confidence begins with these tips:

1. Discover something you love learning and experience mastering new information
2. Provide structure to your exploration and maximize the benefits of the exploration phase of career search – a legitimate and necessary phase for those who have done the same work for a long period of time.
3. Be accountable – do what you say you’ll do and your confidence will increase on a daily basis, especially when you are involved in an extended job search campaign.

I welcome your suggestions. What works for you? I invite you to explore my website www.lifeworktransitions and discover other career counseling tools that might be helpful to you.  Deborah Knox has over 30 years experience providing insight and clarity to individuals seeking meaningful lifework. She is the author of Put Your Spirit to Work: Making a Living Being Yourself.

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Self confidence a key to successful career transitions, life work transitions

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Developing self confidence through demonstrated learning, self acceptance and practicing personal accountability.

Self Confident and career transitions, lifeworktransitions.com