Archive for the ‘Awareness’ Category

Happiness At Work?

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Is it too much to ask to have a job and a place to feel at happy during a time when many are just grateful to be employed?

 

NO. Our future depends on it. Simply put, happy workers create productivity, quality and effective organizations which in turn will help us get back on our feet. 

We cannot entirely blame the leaders in Washington or Wall Street or Detroit for the mess we are in. I have a controversial theory that unhappy workers contributed greatly to the collapse of the US economy whether they were in the corner office of a high rise or on the factory floor.  55% of all American workers reported that they hated their jobs in January of 2010. How can we build a great economy while our workers are spending company time surfing monster.com or day dreaming about the weekends?

 

So here is my list of five things you can do to help yourself and the future of our world economy:

 

1.     Do not give up on your dreams and spend some time each week cultivating your interests and planning your best future. 

2.     Be responsible and give your best to whatever you have committed to for work currently. 

3.     If you are currently unemployed, balance the job search with some soul searching around how this may be an opportunity to get to out of your box.   

4.     If you are a boss, create the best atmosphere for your employees you can. Create a healthy work environment and you will be rewarded with loyalty and productivity. 

5.     If a co-worker is down, try to reach out to that person and lift their spirits.  It will help you both. 

 

Laurel Donnellan is the President and Co-Founder of Three Giant Leaps.Laurel has 30 years of experience as a leader, educator and coach: and has degrees from Cornell and Columbia. She is a thought leader in global career development. Her passion is helping people of all ages find their home in the world of work. You can learn more about her and take a free career change assessment at http://www.threegiantleaps.com

 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/LaurelDonnellan

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/laurel-donnellan/14/263/a84

To buy our new book/audio set click here: www.borntodobook.com

Posted in Laurel's Blogs | 2 Comments »

Career Change Coaching

Friday, August 13th, 2010

 

When I decided to make career change coaching my life’s work, I researched many other approaches before deciding to create my own methodology. I attended classes and programs with many experts in the field of personal growth and career development including Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, Barbara Sher, Richard Bolles, Gregg Levoy, Frederick Hudson, Rick Jarrow, Julia Cameron, Mathew Fox and SARK. In this intensive search for a complete 360 degree approach to career and life planning, I ultimately decided to create a new approach that eventually evolved into The Three Giant Leaps Method. This twelve part patented process that helps people examine their past, assess their present and plan their future through the lens of calling. 

In our approach to career change coaching we take a bold stand in the belief that anyone can find a calling, the best way to express passions and purpose, if they are willing to do the work we provide with the assistance of a coach that has been trained in our process. Our coaches use the following foundational guiding principles when working with clients through the twelve stages of the process: 

· Dream Advocacy - We always maintain faith in the possibility that clients can find and practice their soul work, meet (or more fully meet) their highest potential, and make positive changes in their lives. And, when appropriate, we gently push clients to reach further than they thought possible. Throughout the process we listen for soul work possibilities and help our clients keep an ongoing list. 

· Wisdom - We espouse a “lead from behind” approach: we respect clients’ limits, show gentleness towards their vulnerability, and never impose our own values or hopes on them. We believe that TGL work represents a partnership between coaches and clients and we learn from each other throughout the process. 

· Trust - We understand that the TGL model works on creating lasting change and can take time. We are patient with our clients and the process and help our clients to be patient as well. We believe in the power of trusting relationships and our methodology. 

· Partnership - We acknowledge when a client’s issue or block is beyond our expertise and show savvy in assessing client need, conferring with our colleagues and making referrals to other professionals. 

· Safety - We are able to witness, hold the space for, and appropriately respond to a full range of emotions. We listen deeply and openly. We are tolerant and supportive of differing values. 

· Focus - We appropriately use self disclosure, focusing on the need of the client and knowing that self-disclosure should be used instructionally and prudently. 

· Expertise - We judiciously use and balance strategizing, advising, guiding, questioning, challenging, giving honest feedback, and listening. 

· Awareness - We know our own issues, strengths, biases, projections, fears, and sore spots and we seek out coaching from a TGL Master Guide whenever we have a question or concern that we cannot manage ourselves. 

· Grace – We expect and accept that aspects of our process are spiritual and mystical. We develop our attunement to this and honor our clients’ personal experience of grace. 

· Mastery – We strive to become masterful as speakers, coaches, guides and teachers. 

· Authenticity – We balance our allegiance to the Three Giant Leaps methodology with our own inner knowing and experience. 

As you may suspect, this is not a simple career change coaching process. It takes people with special skills and a unique life story to execute so many layers and help people through career/life transitions. You can learn more about this extraordinary group of people at http://www.threegiantleaps.com/about-us/coaching-team/  

Laurel Donnellan 

://www.threegiantleaps.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/LaurelDonnellan

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/laurel-donnellan/14/263/a84  

To buy our new book/audio set click here: www.borntodobook.com

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What Career Is Right For me?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

What career is right for me? is the hard question that we help people answer.

The process for getting to the best answer for each person involves a personalized and comprehensive three part journey we call The Three Giant Leaps Methodology. All of our programs and products follow this process which is explained below:

 Leap One – Be Connected

In this part of the program, you will become more aware of how your past effects your current and future career satisfaction. This new found awareness will enable you to discover your true potential.

Principles

Courage - Learn to step out of your comfort zone

Faith - Find your own sense of meaning

Awareness - Understand how your past affects your future

Truth - Challenge inaccurate beliefs that are holding you back

Leap Two – Be Yourself

Leap Two will lead you to a deeper understanding of your current state including your attitudes and behaviors concerning health, relationships, money and work. 

Principles

Balance - Understand the importance of emotional, physical and intellectual health.

Love - Learn to maintain strong and healthy relationships

Abundance - Define what’s important to you and create security

Authenticity - Discover your natural talents and abilities

Leap Three- Be Your Best

This part of the process helps you develop clarity plans for your future career and considers all aspects of your life and career.

Principles                                        

Creativity - Play with new ideas for your future

Integrity - Take responsibility for your choices in life and at work.

Vision - See a clear future and move towards it

Commitment - Create a step by step business plan for your new career

The results of the journey include a concrete inventory of your passions, purpose and options for remarkable work in the future. In addition you will have a detailed commitment plan for having  work you love a reality. In as little as eight weeks, you can work through this process with one of our qualified coaches and answer the question “What career is right for me?” and be on your way to making it a reality.

Laurel Donnellan, President, Three Giant Leaps

 

Laurel has 30 years of experience as a leader, educator and coach: and has degrees from Cornell and Columbia. She is a thought leader in global career development. Her passion is helping people of all ages find their home in the world of work. You can learn more about her and take a free career change assessment at http://www.threegiantleaps.com 

 

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Are You On The Right Career Track?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

My work often introduces me to people who are miserable in their job and my great privilege is to help them forge a new path. I also have had the opportunity to meet and interview many people who love what they do as part of my research and find that although there are many unique elements to their stories, they also have many things in common.

The list below is a summary of those things people who have enjoyed sustainable career satisfaction, have reported. In assessing whether or not you are on the path to career fulfillment, see how many of this list of ten things you can check off:

  1. When you are at work, you often lose track of time instead of watching the clock.
  2. You enjoy reading your trade publications or other information about your field.
  3. You can imagine a positive future in your career.
  4. You have colleagues at your job or in the same field who you respect and admire.
  5. Either you are doing your dream work currently or the work you are doing now is a necessary step in creating dream work.
  6. Your love ones including the young people in your life know what you do and have a sense you love it.
  7. You don’t cringe when people ask you what you do. You enjoy talking about your work.
  8. You know what you love to do.
  9. You are willing to take risks to do what you love.
  10. You have a sense that no matter how long you are on this career track you have more to learn and master and that prospect is exciting to you.

Ideally, you can identify with most of the list but most people will find that there are very few things they resonate with.  If that is the case for you, you may be ready for a change in course.  The good news is that the sooner you work on creating a new path the more likely it is you will have more career satisfaction the future, here are a few suggestions for next steps:

  1. Seek out people who love their work and learn from their experience in how they found “thing”
  2. Begin researching projects, jobs and educational opportunities that will expose you up to new fields.
  3. Watch movies or read books about people who found and followed a calling such as the documentary Sketches of Frank Ghery

Laurel Donnellan, President, Three Giant Leaps

Posted in Laurel's Blogs | 1 Comment »

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