Her Career, Her Life

Starting a new job can be very stressful, but stress is a feature of every job everywhere and it's not always a bad thing. A healthy level of stress can help us be at our best. But in our high pressured, fast-paced world how can we keep our stress levels at a 'healthy' level? In this final episode of Season 1, I talk to Kirsten Goodwin, a career coach who specialises in helping professional women find positive ways of handling stress at work. Pick up a wealth of practical tips as Kirsten talks about her experiences in tackling stress herself and with her clients. Visit www.kirstengoodwin.co.uk to find the Success without Stress short course.

This episode is all about how to be happy at work. This is a topic I was determined to include in this first season of Her Career Her Life, because I feel really strongly about it. I've given it lots of thought throughout my 30+ year career and I'm really looking forward to sharing my ideas with you. I've not always succeeded in being happy at work - sometimes I've been downright miserable. I've also been angry, upset, frustrated, disappointed, bored, scared and probably just about every other emotion there is. But there are a number of practical steps that I'm sure will give you the best shot at happiness - or at least start to move you towards a happier frame of mind.

This episode is about how to build influence in your new job, and this episode goes hand in hand with the previous 2. I'm going to introduce you to a tool I created for myself about a decade ago in my corporate career. I call this tool 'Influence Radar' and I'm going to explain what it is and how it works - and pretty soon it'll become obvious where the 'radar' name comes from. Influence Radar is a simple but powerful tool that you can start using today to structure your approach to building a powerful network of support and influence in your new corporate role.

This is episode 7 and we've already started to address mistake number 3 - failing to build influence. In the last episode I talked about the need to get really clear on your personal brand - what people say about you when you're not in the room. In this episode (and the next one too) I dive into the detail of 'influence'. I explain what I think Influence is (and what it isn't) and also why it's so important. If you didn't already listen to episode 6 on personal branding I'd really encourage you to go back and do this work on thinking about what you want to be known for before you continue with this work on influence. When you're clear on your personal brand and you're ready to build a strong and valuable sphere of influence you're in the right place. In this episode I dive into the detail of influence, and I'll show you how influence starts by building trust and giving value, ahead of receiving anything.

In this episode we move onto mistake number 3, failing to build influence. This is a big mistake and I've made it several times in my career. I think it goes hand in hand with the mistake of 'playing it small' because when we play it small we tend to operate in a small world. We interact with those who'll help us get the job done, and those who we're friends with. We tend to 'keep our head down' and avoid the limelight. I can describe all of this so well because I practiced it to perfection - I used to call it 'flying under the radar' this might sound clever and I guess that was my way of justifying it. For years in my early career I limited my sphere of influence, because that kept me in my comfort zone, but I also wanted the career success that you only see when you move beyond your usual boundaries and get uncomfortable. And therein lies the challenge that many of us face. If we want to be successful we have to get uncomfortable - very uncomfortable - and we have to get used to that feeling - almost learn to embrace it!