Personal Branding Archives

Be Kind To Yourself

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some ideas on Twitter around how to Be Kind to Yourself. One of the things that has led me to reflect on is how sometimes we need to change our routines to help us be kind to ourselves. It’s a really good idea to establish routines. However, sometimes a routine can become a rut. If you are feeling unfulfilled, tired, and maybe even a little bit overwhelmed, you probably need to find a way to break your everyday routine.

Here are nine ways to get out of a rut. If you already do one of them, try to figure out a way that you can make it different in some way.

Take a New Path to Work

This might seem silly, especially if you were driving or walking the same way to work every single day. However, something as simple as making a new path to work can totally change your life. Look back on your life and think about the random things that you have done that you put you in just the right place at the right time. What if you happen to meet someone new just because you took a different path than normal?

Try Cooking a Totally New Meal

Even something as simple as your everyday meals can become routine. Most people tend to eat the same things day after day, month after month, switching between eight to ten basic meals. If you look at how you eat, you’ll probably discover the same thing. This is a good way to explore different cultures and learn new things. You might even want to take a cooking class – more on that below.

Sign Up for a Class

To really break up your normal schedule, sign up for a class in something that you think you’re interested in. For example, if you love reading about medieval times, perhaps you should study medieval times in school. Thankfully, today you don’t have to sign up for every single class to go back to school. Instead, you can find a class online that will work just as well.

Walk Instead of Ride

If you normally ride to work but it’s within walking distance, you might want to try walking. When you walk places, you’re more likely to meet other people who are walking places. Plus, you get a lot of exercise, sun and time to think.

Take the Stairs

if you work in an office building or go places and you normally take the elevator, try taking the stairs. See how different that makes you feel. It may seem strange, but the smallest change in your day can make the biggest difference. Maybe by taking the stairs, you’ll lose five pounds this year; who knows?

Introduce Yourself

Often, it’s easy to get tied up in our own lives. We get so busy with our family and the friends that we already know that we forget that there’s a lot of people out there that might be the best friend we ever had in our lives and we just haven’t met them yet. Start introducing yourself to at least one new person every day. It doesn’t matter if they’re a stranger on the street in a store or at work; put out your hand and introduce yourself.

Try a New Colour

Another way that you can change up your day and break your everyday routine is to try new fashions or new decorations. It’s surprising what a new coat of paint on your office wall or your living room wall can do for your mood and your outlook.

Find Top 10 Things to Do in Your Area

A fun way to get out of your normal routine is to do something new right in the area that you live. Many of us live in places that other people pay good money to visit on vacation. Find out the different things that vacationers do in your town and follow what they do.

Listen to Books

The truth is, the more you read, the smarter you’re going to become. But it can be difficult to find time to read. Thankfully you can listen to digital books too. You can get a subscription to Audible and listen to as many books as you want. The more you listen to books, the smarter you’re going to become and the more likely you will be to discover your passion.

Discovering your passion requires that you are willing to break out of your comfort zone and change your routine from what it is now. You might want to start with a few of the small tasks mentioned in this article. You will surprise yourself at where you’re going to end up when you start changing your everyday routine.

Handling Failure and Rejection Effectively

There are times in all our lives when we might perceive ourselves to have failed at something or for example when we are jobhunting we might experience rejection. Failure or rejection can be challenging to deal with because it can dent our self-confidence and make us think less of ourselves.

Therefore it is clear that in order to become more resilient and better able to handle things we need to to build self-confidence and learn how to deal with failure. No one is successful 100 percent of the time. Everyone can’t always win. Once you get past your early school life we learn fast that awards aren’t for everyone, every time – at least outwardly.

Let’s look at some solid ways to deal with failure and handle rejection that can help to build your self-confidence.

It’s Usually Not Personal – It’s hard to realise, but most of the time when we fail or get rejected at something it’s not personal. Even if it’s the failure of a relationship, there are many factors that aren’t personal that come into play. Try to look at the situation from a distance to remove the personal factors from it.

Learn from the Situation – When you fail at something, allow yourself a little bit of time to go over the failure so that you can learn from it. Write down what you personally could do differently if the situation were to arise again. Be honest with yourself about this so that you can learn.

Don’t Obsess over Failure – While you do want to learn from the situation, you don’t want to take forever obsessing about it and going over it repeatedly. Instead, give yourself a time limit to think about it, get it down in writing, and move on from it.

You Don’t Need Others’ Approval to Be Successful – One reason that failure is often problematic to us as humans is that we don’t want to look bad in front of other people. But the truth is, no one must approve of you for you to be successful. Every single person fails, including even the most judgmental of people.

Change Your Perspective – Sometimes it can help to look at failure from someone else’s perspective. If it was a contest, think about the winner and how they feel. If you can focus on that positive aspect of your loss, it can be a lot more worth it.

The truth is, everyone is going to experience failure or rejection at times if they’re truly trying to succeed in life, whether it’s work or personal in nature. If you aren’t challenging yourself in any way, life will be kind of boring.

If you can view failure as an opportunity to learn and proof that you push yourself, you can turn failure into success because of what you learn from it. For this reason, paying attention to how you care for yourself is important too and I will look at self-care in another article.

Don’t Assume Anything!

As part of my job search for a new role as a Learning and Development Manager I am very focused on ensuring that I maintain my visibility online across various platforms.

I have also been working to ensure that my Online CVs are both right up-to-date and promoted. This last weekend I was talking to a friend who works in recruitment. They commented to me that it would be really good if, in addition to having domains that use my own name, I could have a domain that reflects the role that I do.

When we were discussing it we thought that it was highly unlikely that there would be a domain name available that exactly matched the type or role that I do.

Later in the weekend I was working on the computer and I suddenly thought to myself — why not check what domain names are available and who has the domain name that I would really like.

You can I am sure imagine my surprise when I checked on my preferred domain name provider and quickly discovered that www.learninganddevelopmentmanager.co.uk was available! I nearly fell off my chair! Within a few hours I had a new domain waiting to be populated with content.

In less than 24 hours and with some quick work and updating I had a keyword optimised CV online at Learning and Development Manager

The moral of the story — never assume anything until you have checked!

Don’t Keep Comparing Ourselves with Others

It’s all too easy to slip into the habit of comparing ourselves with others. When we are going for Job Interviews or just in life generally we have a tendency to do that don’t we?

If that is something that you find yourself routinely doing then perhaps it is time to stop! You are different from everyone else. Celebrate that. You offer a unique perspective and set of experiences in life. We should all be thanking you. If you are constantly comparing yourself, it means you aren’t happy with who you are. Why is that?

Comparing Ourselves with Others

Many people are brought up to conform to society we are almost taught that comparing ourselves to others is the right thing to do. They are told that if you don’t fit within society’s norms, you will be looked upon disapprovingly. However, most people aren’t “normal” in the truest sense of the word. All of us have quirks and idiosyncrasies. It’s these differences that make us who we are and allow us to find solutions to problems. It also keeps us from getting bored. Imagine if everyone were truly the same. There would be nothing new to discover about one another.

There are some reasons to conform. For instance, you need to follow the rules and laws of your country and community. Otherwise, you will suffer consequences for not doing so. Also, you want to treat others with respect so that they will hopefully return that respect. However, if you try to act in ways in which others believe you should, you aren’t going to live your life to the fullest.

That’s why we should get out of the habit of comparing ourselves with others. When you do this, you are likely setting unrealistic expectations and these will lead you to be disappointed. Comparing yourself to others will result in you resenting those people. They have their reasons for being the way they are, and it has nothing to do with you.

There are qualities you admire in others. There is nothing wrong with trying to adopt some of those admirable qualities for yourself. However, it shouldn’t get to the point where we are constantly comparing ourselves with others and find we are trying to redefine who you are to be like those people you admire. You aren’t them, and you never will be.

Why We Should Stop Comparing Ourselves with Others

If you spend most of your time trying to be like someone else, you are in for a rough ride. If you stick to who you are and find others willing to accept you for that, you are going to be more satisfied for most of that time you live. Others will be happier with the real you as well. You won’t be a pretender. People see right through that kind of behaviour. Just think about others who are not true to themselves. How long does it take you to see through that disguise?

Personal Skills Mindmapping Exercise

Before you do this mindmapping exercise please watch the Personal Skills Mind Map video below to get started…

The idea is to focus on all of your skills and talents and then dwell on all of the benefits and advantages that these skills bring you in life, business, etc.

This can be a great technique if you need a confidence boost or to raise your energy/spirits.

Set a 15-20 minute timer so you can do this quickly with as much focus as possible.

You will spend the whole time concentrating on your personal skills, natural talents, etc.

For each skill you uncover, you are going to acknowledge all of the advantages and benefits of having these skills.

This brainstorming session will help you mind dwell on your strengths and create a boost of confidence for your day!

Do this for yourself when you need a “pick me up”.

You might also want to try this with colleagues, friends or family as well. It can be a great collaborative exercise!