Why Career Advice from Family Can be Risky

They’re family.  They’re the ones that know you best. They’re the ones that will give you the cold hard truth and love on your wounds later.  We’ve all gone through situations and called home only to leave the conversation feeling annoyed, angry, or even confused by the advice.  I have a great honest adult relationship with my parents and I think everyone should have someone they go to for the realest truths.  So yes continue to ask your family their opinion but take it with a grain of salt and here’s why:

5 Ways to Advance Your Professional Self Over the Holidays!

The holidays are my favorite time of the year.  In my family it's a mix of spending hours upon hours listening to old R&B Christmas songs, watching football, and devouring the best banana pudding the tri-state area has seen. Although this is great and I love it, by Friday, I'm ready for a little alone time to get back to myself, especially if I've been feeling a lull in my career.  Here are 5 things you can do to pull yourself out of the job lull this holiday:  

Burnout:5 Steps to Reeling in the Chaos & Avoiding Burnout

I stared at my laptop for hours; let's be honest, days! I kept writing then deleting, writing then deleting, over and over. Finally my husband closed my laptop and handed me Pinterest.  He knows it’s my Fall night preferred relaxation tool. It’s something about all the recipes, décor ideas, and career posts that suck me in. After letting my brain wander, I realized; I just need a break.  Have you ever felt too drained to think?  Still irrationally dissecting a project at work?  Too drained to wash clothes when you get home?  Yea that's me right now.  The holiday break couldn’t have come at a better time. Feeling like Rhonda Rousey after a Holly Holm monster neck face kick thing. (PS.  I love Rowdy Rousey, but I was not ready!)  

We get so ambitious, focused, yet almost foolish at times.  We sometimes forget that life is a marathon and think we need to get everything right now.  That if we don’t have whatever fantasy by some fantastical time, then we’re off track.  So, we work that 14 hour day, erase work/life balance, volunteer for more projects, and still think we aren’t doing enough.  In turn, we barely sleep, find humor at the bottom of a large glass of grown up juice, or troll through the multitude of engagements, baby showers, and extravagant trips our Facebook friends just seem to have the mysterious time and money for.  So we increase our projects in hopes to be noticed and climb the ladder.  Except we just pile more and more on until we have a small chaotic cloud  we can't seem to get quite under control.  We’ve convinced ourselves this is normal; it’s what we have to do to get anywhere. But success is not measured by how fast you get there, but by how long you can sustain it.  I always fall victim to ‘doing too much’.  I know at 5:31 PM I need to leave my work at work, but I end up thinking about program logistics on my commute home anyway. 

Millennial: To be or Not to Be, that is the question

      

Is it?  Or am I Gen X?  Or am I a generational outsider?  Merriam Webster defines a millennial as ‘a person born in the 1980s or the 1990’s’.  I was born in ’87 (and proud), yes I remember watching FraggleRock and singing to Zoom Zoom from Zenon: Girl from the 21^st Century; don’t play, you remember too!  Over the years I began to embrace the ‘millennial’ tag, but something started to stand out to me, how we were viewed by older generations. 

A few days ago I read an article, addressing the lack of self-identification with millennials.  Pew Research Center, wrote the article 'Most Millennials Resist the Millennial Label' addressing how generations truly view themselves.  Despite millennials being the largest and most influential generation ON EARTH, only 41% of millennials identify with the label; while older millennials identify with Gen X.  The survey found that Millennials are uncharacteristically more willing to pin negative stereotypes upon their selves.  What?  Ok, we’ll keep reading.  The article goes on to say that 59% of millennials think 'we’re self-absorbed'. What?  Ok that’s when I stop the presses.  The younger generation must be the ones answering these surveys!  Your saying, the generation that is pushing harder than any other for equality, free healthcare, free/reduced education, is ‘self-absorbed’.  The generation that pushed for equal marriage, the generation that said no more war, the most educated generation; said we’re ‘self-absorbed?  Hmmm.  I start to feel conflicted because I view our generation as ‘innovative’, ‘empathetic’, and ‘relentless’.  In this moment I’ve never felt more proud to call myself a ‘millennial’.  Then the career coach in me questioned, ‘if we see ourselves so negatively, no wonder other generations do as well’.