Job Spa

12 Weeks to Refresh, Refocus, and Recommit to Your Career

Milo Sindell, Thuy Sindell

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781440514883
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Does your boss ignore you?
Is your career going nowhere?
Are you just going through the motions? If so, you need a trip to the Job Spa. Inside, authors Milo Sindell and Thuy Sindell detail an easy-to-master program that shows you how to reengage with your work and approach your career with new levels of energy and enthusiasm. Doing so will enable you to:

• Make a 100 percent commitment to get the most from your job
• Leverage your strengths to achieve their professional goals
• Conquer workplace culture
• Gain the respect of your boss and colleagues
• Build valuable relationships in the workplace

Job Spa: Twelve Weeks to Refresh, Refocus, and Recommit to Your Career is all you need to get excited, get noticed, and get ahead-once and for all.

a must-read user instruction
WELCOME TO YOUR JOB SPA

Me, me I want more!

—Mike Muir, lead vocals, Suicidal Tendencies

Why spend way too much of your life doing something you don’t enjoy? What if the assorted activities you performed between the hours of 8 A.M. and 5 P.M. Monday through Friday became something you actually enjoyed and found fulfillment in doing? Fantasy? We think not. Your job has the potential to be a conduit for your contribution to the world, a venue of discovery, and a pathway to your broader career objectives.

In your hands is your on-the-job refresh and tune-up kit: a twelve-week guide to help you commit to your success. We are not asking you to commit to your job. Instead we are asking you to commit to your success. There is a difference between the two. Balance what you give to your job with what you take in return. Whether you have been in your job for one, five, or ten years, today is the day you begin to get more from what you do.

The next twelve weeks will be a time of reflection and declaration. You will identify what is important to you, what you want from your job beyond a paycheck, what you want to contribute, and a direction for your future. This is your chance to get professionally refreshed and invigorated. Job Spa provides you with a plan and the five professional skills required to reinvigorate yourself and to achieve your vision of success.

Take a Cold Plunge

Before we get started, it’s important to provide context for why you need to own your career. Over the past forty years, the implied social agreement between employers and employees has changed. Under the old contract employers acted as parental figures and provided employees with a lifetime of structure and support in exchange for hard work and loyalty. Remember those good old days?

Today, employment is “at will.” This means you and your services can be terminated at any time. Between the early 1970s and 2000, more than 30 million people were laid off (Louis Uchitelle, The Disposable American, New York: Knopf, 2006).

The good news about these changes is that you probably would not want to work for the same company or have the same job over your entire career. The bad news is that the level of employee trust and commitment has eroded. Companies have sent a message, and not surprisingly, employees have responded. According to 2004 Gallup research, more than 70 percent of employees are not engaged with their jobs. “Not engaged” can range from going through the motions at work to completely checking out and looking for a new job.

When employees aren’t engaged with their job, companies suffer as a result of high turnover and lost productivity. But before you laugh, declare that it serves them right, and go back to the midmorning Web search for odd news of the day, consider the following: Being unhappy or unsatisfied with your job impacts you, too. Unhappy employees are more stressed, find less satisfaction in their job, have fewer friendships at work, and earn less money over the course of their careers. It is in your interest to get engaged and find satisfaction in what you do.

Pause for a moment and think about the last time that you enjoyed what you did at your job. Time went by quickly. You were focused. Maybe you were challenged, and you pushed to think through a solution? You might have even had fun in the process.

Explode the Workplace Myths

Despite the reality of layoffs, employment at will, and corporate survival of the fittest, employees want to cling to old expectations and ideals, which have become workplace myths. Here are the big three myths.

MYTH 1 My boss/manager is my mommy or daddy and will take care of me.
Nope! Your boss/manager is not there to take care of you. If you are lucky, you will have a boss/manager who will provide guidance, support, and maybe has a sense of humor. It’s up to you to seek out opportunities, develop your skills, and build your resume.

MYTH 2 My hard work will always be recognized and rewarded.
Sorry! Think again. Do you actually think the CEO will suddenly recognize your years of silent toiling and finally give you the recognition you deserve? In fact, it’s up to you to identify and communicate your achievements.

MYTH 3 Company loyalty equals job security.
Denial! You know the stats. You read the headlines. Despite the reality, you want to believe that your loyalty will override the company’s need to make the bottom line look good. The truth is that you need to own your career even if it means changing teams.

It’s time to pop the bubble and live in reality. You own your career. You are responsible for setting your own professional goals, developing the right skills, and building your resume. Over the course of your career and in any job, you have two responsibilities:

1. To your company; to do what you were hired to do

2. To yourself; to develop your skills, to create opportunities, and to manage your career

Regardless of whether your company has made clear its expectations of you, you must also take charge and be clear about your expectations of your employer. Beyond a juicy salary and health-insurance benefits, what do you want in exchange for contributing your skills, abilities, and expertise?

What about learning opportunities so you can develop more skills and be more marketable? What about career advancement? What about a positive work environment? You won’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want. When your expectations are clearly defined, you will be able to provide the maximum value to your company, and they will be able to meet your needs.

This is what your Job Spa is for:

1. To make sure you are giving 100 percent to your job

2. To make sure you are taking 100 percent from your job

Using This Book

Job Spa is not your cheerleader telling you to put a smile on your face and hunker down to find the gold coin in a pile of manure. If you hate your job and you have neither the hope nor the desire to make it better, save yourself some time and misery: Consider quitting. But if you want more from your job and are ready to invest in yourself, then you have the right book.

The objective of Job Spa is to help make your current job more fulfilling and help you take charge of your career. Life is too short. You spend way too much time at work not to be clear on what you want to give and take from your job. Start your Job Spa experience by making a commitment to your success. Over the next twelve weeks, you will build upon your commitment and exercise critical professional skills that will help you succeed throughout your career.

The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of the five Job Spa skills. Why take the time to read the remainder of the chapter? Like stretching your muscles before your favorite nature hike, it’s important to understand a little bit about the five Job Spa skills and why they are important before you start your Job Spa. Each chapter will provide you with weekly detailed information about how to apply the Job Spa skills. During the next twelve weeks at work, you will:

Read only one Job Spa chapter per week (Do-able even in the most time-constrained life!).

Receive guidance on how and when to apply your Job Spa skills on the job as part of your job (Easy!).

Plan your activities consistently and build ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• A MUST-READ USER INSTRUCTION: Welcome to Your Job Spa
• WEEK ONE: Choose Your Success
• WEEK TWO: Set a New Course
• WEEK THREE: Create a Plan
• WEEK FOUR: Share Your Plan
• WEEK FIVE: Launch
• WEEK SIX: Get Traction
• WEEK SEVEN: Gain Momentum
• WEEK EIGHT: Check Your Coordinates
• WEEK NINE: Adjust Your Trajectory
• WEEK TEN: Thrive in Reality
• WEEK ELEVEN: Declare Victory
• WEEK TWELVE: Look Ahead
• CONCLUSION: Your Career-Long 100 Percent Commitment