Welcome to the Weekly Reads, where I highlight articles that I found on the web and that are focused on career advice, lifestyle, beauty or anything I think would round up as useful for the young, modern, working woman. So get yourself comfortable, pour a cup of coffee and enjoy this week’s reads!
This week’s post is coming to you freshly from Barcelona. I am off work for about 10 days and enjoying some time back home, in the north of Spain, as well as a quick city holiday with my mom in Barcelona – which so far is going great and I am enjoying to the max! There is just something about the laid back spanish day to day lifestyle that I always miss so much – like the countless quick coffee breaks that you can take at any street corner cafe.
Believe in yourself and think big. I really liked this article on habits that are holding you back at work because even though it mentions things that are common sense, we often overlook them for some reason or just ignore them and choose to go with the flow – or at least I know I sometimes do. They are all attitude related, which is why I think it is harder to keep ourselves accountable for, but they play a huge role in being successful and happy with who we are and what we do.
Avoid absorbing other people’s stress. Are you one of the poeple that easily absorbs the mood of the environment that you are in? I know I tend to quickly adapt to whatever environment I am in and soak in everything, and am now wondering if I am also getting in the least good things. If so, it would be sensible to learn how to handle that and not let it affect your personal mood. Take care of yourself, anchor to positive emotions and learn how to avoid secondhand stress as shared by HBR.
Don’t work harder, work smarter. This is something very top of mind for me. I mostly take it from the career advancement perspective, as I am realizing that no once cares how hard you are working and how many hours you are putting in – no one is going to give you a badge and a pat on the shoulder for working until 11 pm every single day. It is up to you to manage your time and the affort you are putting in; at the end of the day what matters is getting the results and learning how to achieve them in a shorter amount of time is the way to go. The one note that I would add though is that especially early in your career when you have to prove yourself, you do have to put time into it – know your limits and still try to be smart about it – and show interest and committment.
Cultivate your Emotional Intelligence. You have probably heard of Daniel Goleman or even read his book on Emotional Intelligence. EI has become very big in psychology as well as in the business world and leadership related talks. According to Goleman and Boyatzis, there are four EI areas (self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management) with a total of 12 elements that you should be able to indentify and work on for achieving what they call leadership excellence.
