Chicago based master coach, Jody Michael, has some amazing job search strategies for those of you whose new year’s resolution was to find yourself another job! Her strategies extend beyond relevance to job seeking and also apply to sales conversations and getting yourself a promotion or a raise in your existing environment. In fact, I’d go so far as to say her strategies are universal and can be applied to getting what you want, regardless of what that is. These are basic strategies of influence. You can download the article at the Library of Professional Coaching, but here are a few of her key tips that are my favorites from her top ten:
1. Make small appointments with yourself: schedule smaller periods of time—60 to 90 minutes each—during both the week and weekend. This will decrease your feeling of overwhelm and help avoid burnout.
2. Maintain positivity: If you start to engage in negative self-talk or focus on the economic state of the country, you will derail yourself energetically and behaviorally. Keep your focus on what you want rather than what’s wrong.
3. Use the Internet relationally to leverage your personal and professional relationships strategically.
7. Know exactly what you want: focus your energy on the right processes and questions and find the answer much more quickly.
9. Remember—it’s a numbers game. Manage your expectations and use many methods simultaneously to speed up your results and decrease the time it takes.
(and my favorite one:)
10. Just do it — It’s almost inevitable that feelings of avoidance, fatigue, negativity and procrastination will set in and seduce you to miss an appointment that you schedule with yourself. Don’t allow excuses or thoughts like, “I don’t feel like it” or “I’ll do it tomorrow” to sabotage your progress. Do it anyway.