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From fake it till you make it to stay in your lane, SXSW festival goers reveal the worst career advice they’ve ever been given and why it stuck with them.
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E-Commerce
When you have work life balance and fulfillment, youre set up not only for success, but also for happiness. The big questions though, are about how you can find the best approach to work and life based on where you are in your journey, based on whats unique about you, and based on what you find most important. The work-life mix is critically important. In fact, a survey of 26,000 people in five countries by Randstad found that for 85%, work-life balance was the most important element that people were looking for in both current and future jobsa critical feature for their satisfaction. Importantly, this is the first time in the surveys 22-year history that work-life balance was a higher priority than pay (79%). But work-life balance is hard to achieve for many. According to the American Psychological Association, 33% of workers report they dont have adequate flexibility to balance their personal and work lives. In addition, three out of five workers are struggling with burnout, according to a survey by AFLAC. Millennials report the highest levels of burnout, and the stress for all generations is primarily based on heavy workloads and long hours at work. The bottom line is that creating a plan to gain fulfillment from work and life is a very (very, very) good idea. But unfortunately, there are no quick fixes or standard solutions for perfect work or life. Instead, everyones approaches will be different and will evolve over time. Personalizing your own strategies for success and happiness is possible with these key considerations. KNOW YOUR EXPECTATIONS One of the first ways to personalize your plans for work and life is to get real about your expectations. Achieving true work-life balance is a myth. Instead, youll have ups and downs and ebbs and flows through stages and seasons of life. If you have young children and a full-time job, youll be especially busy. If youre building your career and caring for elders, youll be facing tons of demands. And if youre an empty nester, youll face new challenges as well. If you believe you should be perfectly balanced all the time, youll set yourself up to fail. Instead, realize there will be busy (or exhausting) times and there will be easier times. Focus on managing and adjusting your choices, your time, and your boundaries throughout lifes stages, knowing regular adaptation is constructive and effective. As youre setting your expectations, also think big about not only work and family, but also your volunteer and community efforts, time with friends, and time for yourself. When youre happy at work, youll tend to feel happier at home. But the opposite is also true. When youre happier outside of work, youll perceive greater happiness within work, according to research published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. Personalize your work-life plan by setting realistic expectations for the demands youll face and thinking broadly about all the elements of work and life that will contribute to your experience. KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS Another way to personalize your plan for work and life is to play to your strengths. When youre doing work that you enjoy, youll be much happier. Of course, there will always be elements of a job you dont love, and most people must work to pay the bills and cant just quit if they dont feel fully blissful every day. But no matter what you do, youll benefit when you lean into your strengths. Identify what youre especially and uniquely good at. You can even consider activities you loved to do as a child since these can be windows into your natural gifts. Perhaps you work in customer service and youre especially good at empathizing with people and talking them down when theyre upset. Or perhaps you work in accounting, and you have a unique gift for seeing details and identifying discrepancies. No matter what you do, bring your best and remind yourself about what you do really well, and how your work matters to your customers and coworkers. Personalize your work-life plan by taking inventory of your strengths, finding work that taps into them, and validating your own value no matter what you do. KNOW YOUR SOURCES OF FULFILLMENT Too often were in a hurry so we go through the motions of our days or our weeks. But pay attention to what brings you joy and how you most enjoy spending your time. Its a little-known fact that when you spend time on things that you enjoy, youll actually perceive you have more time because youre energized by the activity. Manage your commitments based on what pays you back most. Perhaps you dont enjoy the work of a school committee as much as you enjoy volunteering in a classroom and having contact with your child and their classmates (think: kids not committees). Or perhaps you love spending time in the hands-on work of a community garden, rather than on the board of your local museum. Despite long hours, you may relish the opportunity to participate on the new innovation team at work. Also consider adding or subtracting activities based on your season of life. If youre building your career, joining the advisory council for the local charity is a great way to network. But when youre running carpool with three children and supporting all their activities, its a great time to decline additional invitations for extra project work at your job. Know your limits and boundaries and dont be afraid to manage to them. Personalize your work-life plan by determining what feels most rewarding for you and making choices for how you spend your time based on the right mix. Often, work-life gurus recommend saying no as often as you can. A better approach is to be intentional, saying yes to things that are rewarding or rejuvenating and saying no (when you can) to the activities that are less energizing. KNOW YOUR PEOPLE Another key to a great experience of work and life is to surround yourself with people you can rely on. Choose to spend time with those who encourage you, support you, and help you. Invest in the friends whom you trust and who need your help as well. Be ruthless with your time while youre gentle with people, turning them down tactfully or being understanding when they are requesting your time. But choose to invest less in the relationships that are minimally rewarding or that sap you. Giving back and focusing on others is correlated with happiness, but youll want to be intentional about avoiding people (as much as you can) who may be negative or who fail to reciprocate in terms of their time and investment in you. Personalize your work-life plan by making connections and prioritizing time with people who are most important to you. CULTIVATE GRATITUDE And finally, no matter what stage of life youre in, one of the best ways to increase your fulfillment is to emphasize ratitude. Gratitude works because it focuses you on what you have, rather than what youre lacking. The relationship between gratitude and happiness is well-established by various studies. Emphasize gratitude and think consciously about what you appreciate. Beyond things, focus on experiences, capabilities, family, and friends. Robert Braults advice is helpful: “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. Gratitude fosters positive experiences even as you face significant demands, and linguistic determinism helps, too. Essentially, how you talk to yourself affects how you think and feel about them. When you consider that you get to pick up the kids from school, it can feel more positive than if you have to pick them up. Or if you invest time in something, it can feel more rewarding than if you spend time in the same pursuit. Personalize your work-life plan by being grateful and by managing your language, thoughts, and feelings about all the challenges you face. Ultimately, the best work-life fulfillment comes from your own mix of how you spend your time and how you perceive the value of both your contributions and rewards. And over time, youll adjust and adapt as demands shift, life evolves, and as you grow and develop.
Category:
E-Commerce
Despite the now widespread use of AI in workplaces, workers aren’t actually becoming more productive, according to a new survey led by Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp Labs. The report finds that while employees are using modern AI tools more than ever, they’re using them to create subpar work. The new report calls the phenomenon “workslop, which it defines as “AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.” In other words, it’s thoughtless, sloppy work that someone will eventually have to clean up. The problem is widespread up and down the corporate ladder. Per the report, 40% of employees out of 1,150 surveyed said they’ve received workslop in the past month, and that about 15.4% of the work they receive overall meets the criteria for workslop. Most commonly, workslop is shared between peers (40% of the time), but it doesn’t stop there: 18% of the time, workslop gets sent to managers. And it also happens in reverse: 16% of the time, managers (or even more senior leaders) send workslop out to their teams. The report says that two industries have been impacted the most: professional services and technology. But across all industries, the phenomenon is more than a minor annoyance. Theres an emotional cost to receiving workslop. More than half of respondents (53%) said they feel annoyed, 38% confused, and 22% are downright offended when they receive workslop. Receiving low-effort work from employees may also change the way coworkers view said employees. “Approximately half of the people we surveyed viewed colleagues who sent workslop as less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output,” the report said. Likewise, 42% of those surveyed said workers who generate subpar AI-generated work are less trustworthy; 37% even view them as less intelligent. In fact, 34% of respondents said that when they receive workslop they notify other teammates or their manager. Nearly a third (32%) said they are less likely to want to work with the workslop producer again. While AI might make it easier to speed through work, using it carelessly may erode trust among coworkers just as fast.
Category:
E-Commerce
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