A participant at my workshop said one of the wisest things that I can't stop thinking about... "The peril of a "should" value can't be overstated."

When I've done values exercises in the past, it's usually involved picking values from a list, which for me, is the surest way to end up with a big ole list of "should" values. 

But when you're making choices in line with "should" values, you're creating a recipe for disaster. You're taking action based off of external definitions of success that will never allow you to feel fulfilled in the ways that are meaningful to you. 

As we reach almost three and a half years since the publication of Right For YOU, I want to take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the incredible journey this book has taken. It’s been an honor to see how it has impacted readers and garnered recognition in the literary world. Here’s a look back at some of the most memorable feedback and accolades Right For YOU has received so far.

It’s OK to have a boring job.

(Am I even allowed to say that?)

I don’t think anyone ever tells us that it’s OK to have a boring job. It definitely doesn’t work for everyone. And it definitely does work for some people.

I only just recently noticed how revolutionary this message seems to be. I’ve been sharing it more and more often, the most recent time was at a workshop I co-hosted a few weeks ago. Participants kept coming up to me afterward saying how grateful they were to hear someone say that it was OK to have a boring job.

So now I’m on a mission to tell people that it’s OK to have a boring job if it works for them.

I often get asked what makes me so passionate about what I do and I always give an unexpected answer.

I do my work so that people get to feel alive in their lives.

Not their careers. Their lives. 

And yes, I'm a career coach, but I find that being unhappy in your career is one of the biggest barriers to feeling alive and engaged in your LIFE. So I help you move through the career challenges.

I have a strong viewpoint that when you are undecided about what to do with your career, your life is on hold.

I have seen people waffle for 10+ years on all kinds of career questions.

Should I quit?
Would I actually enjoy going back to school?
Have I stayed at this company for too long?
Do I want to be on this career path?

And it's crushing, exhausting, and energy-draining to be undecided.

The good news is there's immense freedom in being decided.

“Our fears make us forget how many safe steps you can and should take before you even think of leaving behind what you have.”

As someone whose entire focus is helping people know whether it’s time to move on from a company where they’ve invested a significant amount of time, I love this quote from the book Refuse to Choose.

As evidenced by the Great Resignation, many people are choosing to leave their jobs this year. Sometimes that is absolutely the right next step for someone, but based on my work with clients, people often quit because they have no idea what they want. And when that’s not clear, quitting can seem like the only choice you have.

If you think I shouldn’t be speaking up about the injustice I see in the world, I want to be very clear that I am not the right fit for you.

​​We aren’t a match, it’s not a good fit, and I’m definitely not right for you. That’s everything I advocate for in my business, you know how I feel about something not being right for you, so I honor your exit from my space if we’re not right for each other.

I have intentionally chosen to use my business platform to speak up for injustice when I see it for the past 8 years and will continue to do so.

I’m so grateful to Book Nerdection for reviewing my book (and awarding it the Must Read seal!) and for highlighting what I hoped for when I published the book.

I recently came across Jeanne Safer’s concept of the “Affirmative No”.

She defines it as "the refusal to pursue a course of action that, on serious reflection, you discover is not right for you." and it immediately resonated with me and the work that I do.

A promotion is often a cause for celebration - more money, a better title, more responsibilities, etc - but when is it not?

For several of my clients, a promotion actually feels like a trap.

In a coaching call this week, a client let the words slip that she was going to create a silly spreadsheet as part of her job search and I had to jump in and interrupt. I invited her to drop the word ‘silly’ to describe her spreadsheet as she was in the company of someone who LOVES a good spreadsheet.

Honestly, I get overly excited about a framework... and I’m assuming you do too. It's just so darn satisfying to see a beautiful framework with structure and process and a plan and... *swoon*.

​I've been doing my work for years now and although I've created a lot of frameworks in my day (I was once called a framework creating machine and I loved it), I didn’t have a big unifying framework for all the work that I do until recently.

One of the biggest reasons that people often hover around a job search, wondering if they really need to make a change, is missing a sense of contribution in their role.

Here’s what it has sounded like to a few of my clients:

“What is important for me to do in this world before I go, and what are the strengths that I want to contribute toward that important thing?”

“I feel quite sad that I’m not realizing the potential I have. I’m wasting precious time on this earth with wasted energy that I could be contributing.”

“Now my pressure centers around the question of what am I doing with my life? What do I want to spend my time doing? This constant questioning of life’s big questions and feeling inadequate has me feeling overwhelmed and frozen.”

A lot of my work is (1) helping people make decisions they know they’ll be happy with and (2) helping people do what’s right for them in their careers. This can sound overly simplistic because there’s often much more at play than just what they get to decide.

The question we also need to ask is, who doesn’t get to be themselves at work? Who doesn’t get to make decisions that honor their values and preferences? Who has to abide by what society deems “professional” which is usually the values of white and Western employees?

One of my LEAST FAVORITE yet incredible persistent pressure that exists around our jobs is “I should have it figured out by now”. It’s outrageously sneaky because it seems so simple yet can cover all kinds of different pressures: comparing yourself to others, needing to have achieved something big, using an external definition of success, etc. The mean voice doesn’t even have to use any creativity, it just pushes this one button and knows that it’ll completely take you out. You’ll be in an existential crisis and downward spiral in no time!

One of the most common indicators that you’re struggling with your career is a lack of excitement about job prospects. You’re endlessly scrolling through LinkedIn or Indeed and feeling nothing about anything you see. The worst-case scenario is that you talk yourself out of applying to anything and the best-case scenario is that you’re applying for jobs you know you don’t want. Grim either way.

Several months ago I came across an article called The Riddle of the Well-Paying Pointless Job. It's such a smart look at workplace satisfaction and also supports my belief that it's ok to have a boring job if it works for you.

They start by talking about the incentives theory from 1976 - pay people more and motivation should naturally follow.

But! The problem they identify is that jobs are becoming more and more pointless:

"However, this incentive theory is being applied to spaces where the work is tedious, mind-numbing, and at best, manageable. Graeber calls these jobs “a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”

So much of my work is helping relieve the pressure we place on ourselves and our jobs, and one idea that instills all kinds of pressure is “a calling”. I automatically feel daunted, overwhelmed, defeated, confused and a host of other emotions if I think too much about what it means to find a calling.

Over the weekend I finished the book, Playing Big, by Tara Mohr (a wonderful recommendation from a past client) and learned a completely different way to think about a calling.

“A calling, as we’ll define it in this chapter, is a longing to address a particular need or problem in the world. Callings are about making a contribution for the good, about in some way bringing more light and love into the world. They are a path through which we can respond to the lack and brokenness we see before us.”

I’m on a mission to end the job search that is draining, soulless, expectations-driven, and painful.

I remember the first time a client asked if I tell people who are thinking of working with me that I make the job search fun. It was such a revelation to her that it could be something other than drudgery. It’s not that I make the process artificially fun by candy-coating the existing process, but I help people fundamentally change the nature of the search and the interview experience.

Here’s how I would describe the current nature of the job search and interview process.

Many of my clients aren’t having the impact they want to in their work and it causes them a lot of stress and anxiety. Part of the challenge is that they don’t know how to define impact for themselves so they’re using external definitions of success that feel out of alignment with what they truly want.

What ends up making a difference is identifying their values and creating the definition of impact that works for them. That’s where they experience freedom, self-expression, and authenticity.

The same can be said for the impact we can create with our money. I was really taken by the idea in “The Soul of Money” by Lynne Twist that when we align the acquisition and allocation of our financial resources with our most deeply held values, we experience a lot more satisfaction, meaning, and fulfillment. Just like impact at work, when it’s not clearly defined we’re distracted by shiny things, we overanalyze, we get stuck in analysis paralysis and we’re underwhelmed with our impact.