Knowing yourself

I can clearly remember the first time I realized I was standing in my own way. I was 25 at the time, and holidaying with a good friend from university. Coming up to the final stretch of her (long and grueling) medical training, she was planning to take a year out back-packing, to see the […]

As a career coach, I help people at all stages of their working lives… From school students planning their first steps, to executives negotiating career transition. Very different groups, with very different experiences – and yet time and again, I see similar beliefs. Beliefs about what careers look like, how they work – and what’s […]

Jobs can be bad for a variety of reasons…  Pointless tasks, a culture that doesn’t fit you, office politics – toxic colleagues or bullying bosses… They all affect our lives way beyond the workplace, and can erode our confidence, happiness and health over time. Clearly, I’d encourage anyone in this situation to start looking at […]

If you’re familiar with the idea of peer pressure, it’s thanks to psychologists from the 1950’s. In the wake of WWII, researchers wanted to understand what had driven so many to follow the Nazis… and proved that we’re social animals, hard-wired to fit in. One researcher, Solomon Asch, led a series of these peer pressure […]

There are many different ways to choose a career direction. Some are pretty predictable, others a bit bizarre… and then there’s the downright bad. I’ve seen lots of less-than-ideal ways to choose careers, with a handful of repeat offenders. These are my top 6 pitfalls, if you’re choosing or changing career…   Career Pitfall #1: It’s […]