You’re ready for a raise, but are you ready to ask for one? Find out how you can effectively ask for a raise.

How Is Company Performance
If your company managed to survive and thrive through the recession, then you might qualify for a raise. Know the state of your company’s finances before asking for a raise. Asking for a raise when your company is doing poorly will make you look like a jerk.

Are You Worth It?
When I worked in an office, I had a notebook that listed all of my daily tasks and gave information about my projects’ progress. That way, my superiors always knew what I had accomplished, the time frames, and the contributions I made to the company. I never wanted to leave a moment of doubt when it came time to explain my performance during reviews and raise conversations. It doesn’t hurt to take a look at the market value of your job and compare it to your actual duties. Are you going above and beyond when using your skills? Identify how you match up to others who do your similar job.

Ask When You’re Shining
Ask for a raise when you’re glowing for a recent work accomplishment. You’ll have the confidence and evidence you will need when negotiating a raise. Superiors can’t argue good performance, especially in light of recent positive contributions.

Ask For More
Raises conversations are negotiations. I encourage my clients to ask for 15% more than what the want. Most of the time, they can get that number, but often, they’ll receive a counter offer and will land in their ideal salary increase.

Create A Contingency Plan
If you can’t get a raise, think of other benefits that will make your work more enjoyable. Some people want more flexibility to work outside of the office. Some simply need more supplies or maybe a company car.

Make No Ultimatums
Don’t force your manager to give you a raise. Give him or her no reason to say no based on the evidence of success you’ve provided. Forcing your manager to give you a response with a threat that you’ll leave will make for difficult professional relationships – you might even get fired. Remember, you’re not all about the money, but the quality of life and work you need to perform better.

Identify The Problem
What is really wrong with your job? Is it the environment? Is it a specific colleague or a general office attitude? Is it the product you make or the type of job you have? The key to making your situation better – either taking actions to improve your work situation or quit – is to know what is making you sick. Some people skip this essential step only to return to similar situations at different employers, never quite resolving the problem. Make a list of what is working and not working for you and be brutally honest. Sometimes, knowing what we don’t want can be enough to send us in the direction of what we really want at work.

Find Support
Find a coach like me. Find a friend who can help you through the existential work crisis. If necessary, speak with a counselor, pastor, of therapist. Finding support with someone who has been through and/or helped others in your situation is one of the best ways to move forward, faster. Stay committed to working with this person and be open to communication. The more you express your negative feelings and thoughts, the better. Out with old, negative thoughts and in with new, positive thoughts about the future.

Take Care of Your Body
I know this is a tough one for my American and foreign friends without health insurance, but take the time to care and nourish your body – see a doctor if you have the need. One friend was so exhausted and sick of her work that she passed out on the sidewalk. She woke up in the hospital severely malnourished and dehydrated. I had to call her each week and ask her if she was eating and drinking properly.

Even if you’re feeling depressed and don’t want to take prescription pills, there are natural and holistic ways of seeking medical treatment. Choose to love your body even if you don’t love your work. As they say, “You’ll need your strength”, you’ll need your physical strength and endurance to get through a bad work situation.

Nourish Your Soul
As mentioned earlier, speak and work with a pastor, counselor, or therapist who can help you sort out your negative feelings and thoughts. Sometimes, work isn’t just the only factor that causes stress in our lives – it can be one of the many factors that makes us depressed and sick. Take the time to read spiritually enlightening literature from your belief system. Talk with a member of your congregation or speak with a spiritual guide who can help you understand your life’s purpose from a values based point of view. Feeding our soul and bring back the energy and motivation we’ve lost at work.

Look For A Way Out
If you must quit, now is the time to start planning your exit strategy. That means taking an inventory of the things you need to do and know before you quit and preparing yourself for the job search or next big move. Start asking yourself how you can get out gracefully.

Can you think of other ways to deal when work makes you sick and depressed. Do you have any tips or advice to offer? Share them here!

Leslie Juvin and her Mother

My mom, Marissa, is one of the most humble people I know. Maybe it’s because she lived in third world poverty in the Philippines until her 20s. Maybe it was because she raised four children with a disconnected husband. Maybe it’s because she came to the United States as an immigrant and learned how to read and write English by reading the King James Bible.

The good news is, you don’t have to go through what my mother has gone through to be a grounded, humble person. You don’t have to have “Remember” tattooed to your wrist, like me, to help you remember your roots and purpose in life. Here are a few tips to staying grounded.

Remember Your Purpose
Sometimes, we get caught up in our successes or problems that we forget our purpose. Forgetting our purpose sounds like a ridiculous and simple thing to do, but trust me, it happens every day and faster than we can say, “Timbuktu”. When I coach my clients who get caught up in crazy situations, I always have to remind them of the purpose they stated in the beginning of our coaching relationship.

Sometimes, my clients refer back to their spiritual roots – their family and religious traditions – that guide them as they understand the purpose and value of their lives. Others get back to basics, living their lives as simply as possible to start again.
Remember How You’ve Felt
There was a time when you felt down and out. Maybe there was a time when you felt as if you were on top of the world. You’ve made mistakes and you’ve had successes. Remember what that feels like. When we experience someone around us who is going through a difficult phase in their lives, we can reach out to them with compassion. Compassion comes from remembering the feelings we’ve experienced in empathizing with the others’ situation. In doing so, we can recognize through instinct how to act and navigate our relationships.

Remember The Sacrifices You And Others Have Made
Chances are, someone has taken a risk for you. Maybe it was that boss that trusted their gut when hiring you. Perhaps, it’s your mom or dad who saved up what could have been their much needed vacation money for your college education. Maybe it’s that teacher who helped you navigate through tough times. Maybe it’s your colleague who did favors for you so you could duck out of work early. Big or small, someone has made sacrifices for your happiness and success. We all make sacrifices for the greater good and it doesn’t even matter if the other person knows what you’ve done in sacrifice. Remember those who have shown you love and compassion and return the favor to someone else.

Remember The Phases of Your Life
You weren’t always successful. You weren’t always as healthy and wealthy as you are now. Perhaps, you’re not where you want to be right now. To stay grounded, it’s important to remember that we have gone through many phases and were many different people in the past. I remember when I first moved out. I had a few hundred dollars to my name, a beat up old Honda with about 200,000 miles on it, and a piece of paper that said I was accepted to the University of North Florida. Even though that was ages ago, I can remember that this phase was my launching point. It was the place in my life that I would have to make something from nothing. In remembering such phases, we’re humbled. We may not have all of life’s answers at our fingertips, but in remembering how we’ve grasped for them, we can connect to others experiencing such phases.

Honor Growth
Every single day, we’re changing. We’re either changing for the better or changing for the worse. Either way, each person on this planet is here for something – whether we know it or now – and we’re growing. Honor the growth and spiritual evolution each person is making and respect that. We don’t have to agree or even be friends, but we can honor the challenging experience of being a human being.

How do you keep grounded? I’d love to know what you do.

How do you make tough work decisions? Do you sleep on them? Do you need a few days? Are you the spur of a moment kind of person? Do you consult your spouse or mentor? Do you seek advice first?

Give your tips here and help others make decisions more effectively.

1) You Don’t Have To Have All The Answers

Whether you’re a manager, a leader, or a team member – you don’t always have to have the right answer. Don’t put the pressure on yourself to be the “most right” and impose your ideas or last word on others. It’s OK to share your ideas, but they must come with an asterisk that they are not instructions or orders. Creatives and designers are especially susceptible to control freaks. It’s as if their free will has been taken away and all their creative energy has been zapped because of controlling management. Don’t let this happen to you. If you can get your employees or colleagues to think for themselves and creatively, you’re going in the right direction.

2) Don’t Dictate Decisions

If you work on a collaborative team, you’ll need to allow ample time and space for others to make decisions that affect their work. Respect boundaries and expect your colleagues to take responsibility for their own work. If you need to make fast decisions, be sure you’ve followed the appropriate channels or at least have the team in the know of why you’ve made it. So many managers assume that since they’re in a position of authority, their decisions can go unquestioned in agreement.

3. Allow Conversation to Flow

Allow conversation between your colleagues and teams flow naturally. You don’t have to force conversation when things get quiet or dull. Allow silence to motivate others in the room to speak their ideas and to collaborate on complicated issues. If you command the dialogue – or, even worse, take over the conversation – the meeting will be wasted and will instead just be ‘listen to me hour’.

If you’ve got a control freak in your office, begin by being an example of self control by putting trust in others. If you are a control freak, begin first by controlling your own behaviors and how they affect others. The more we are aware of our behaviors, the easier it is to change them.

Pink writes that Netflix had a traditional vacation policy, but it was too tricky to manage. Employees countered that they spent nights and weekends working and they didn’t track the number of extra hours they worked. Why should they track the number of hours they vacation? Netflix listened to its employees and banished the traditional fixed vacation plan and now allows employees to take vacation/personal days whenever they need them as long as their work gets done.

“We should focus on what people get done, not how many hours or days worked. Just as we don’t have a nine to five day policy, we don’t need a vacation policy.”

So the company scrapped its formal plan. Today, Netflix’s roughly 600 salaried employees can vacation any time they desire for as long as they want – provided that their managers know where they are and that their work is covered.

Netflix isn’t a company run by fools. Employees who perform below expectations are canned and those who perform are offered extra benefits.

Article Source: Telegraph.co.uk

I love Ikea. When I moved to France and got settled in our home, we took a big truck rental, drove to Grenoble, and bought an entire home’s worth of furniture and home accessories all in one stop for less than 3,000 euros (of course, I spent weeks of research and space planning, but that’s another story). Ikea approached Illeana Douglas to do the comedy covering her fictional debate between continuing her career in acting or going forward in the home furnishing store.

Check out the plot line for yourself. Do you think that Ikea’s marketing tactic is working to reach American audiences? I lived in San Diego and it was huge there (FYI: you can find lots of good deals on San Diego’s craigslist for practically brand new Ikea goods).

Agency: Fischer Portugal, Lisbon
Creative Director: Diogo Mello
Art Director: Marco Martins
Copywriter: Rafael Pitanguy

Image Source
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Photo Source

What is there to be said about our expectations and why do we let them get us down so much? When we create expectations – either negative or positive, we often set ourselves up for disappointment. Expectations, simply defined, implies a strong belief that something is going to happen. By nature, we want security and we want to know that everything will be alright in our future – we want to believe that everything will be OK and if not, we expect that others will let us down or that we’ll never live the life we really want.

When our expectations are negative, there is a high possibility of narrowing our perspective, keeping us from seeing the world from an objective, present perspective. Narrowing our perspective can keep us from taking advantage of the opportunities and conquering the challenges that we face in the present moment. If our expectations are positive, we tend to build them up into fantasies and then turn them around on ourselves, criticizing our lack of performance or weaknesses if we don’t manage to achieve our expectations.

I know what you’re probably thinking by now, “Leslie, isn’t your job to help people to achieve their goals?” You betcha. The difference between working towards goals and setting expectations is that goals are a vision for the future – a way of being, feeling, and creating. Expecting specific results and performance typically narrows individual perspective in the sense that we “know what we’re looking for” but can’t seem to find it. The vast majority of my clients achieve their goals in ways they had never originally expected or imagined. If they expected to achieve their goals in one particular way, they’d never get there. Which is why they hired me in the first place – their old way of getting what they want wasn’t working for them.

When you see yourself getting disappointed, just remember this: abandon your expectations of how it will all turn out and focus your energies on just responding each circumstance with your goal in mind. Give yourself the freedom to see opportunities and respond in ways that are genuine to you and your values. It’s impossible to know for sure how the future will work out in our favor. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply said, there will be circumstances that you can expect to happen and others that you cannot. It’s super tough to let go of our expectations, but when we do we feel lighter and less constricted to live, act, and think.

Have you ever let expectations get you down? What was the result? How were you able to let go of your expectations?