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janhoistad@drjanhoistad.com

Three Ways to Advance Your Career

    High performing professionals seek a variety of resources to accelerate their growth and advancement in the workplace. Oftentimes these resources also benefit the personal life, mental health and other aspects of a professional’s life and career. This is important as people rise in responsibility as it gets lonelier at the top. While developing your career and business path, the phrase “It takes a village…” is applicable here. In my work, I think of it as surrounding yourself with a team—and I encourage all my clients to identify their “chosen team” at every step throughout their life and career or business development. These resources are sometimes provided by your organization or company. And some you need to contract them on your own. Sometimes they are short-term or episodic relationships, and some can be very long term relationships spanning over many years. It’s possible to have all three at the same time if the feedback or learning is not in conflict, and if time allows. Since there is a lot of overlap between three main resources, 1) mentoring, 2) training and 3) coaching, let’s break out the core differences you should consider when working with these resources. 1) Mentoring Mentoring can be a short or long-term relationship. A typical mentor is typically someone further along in your field. An example of short-term mentorship is often in the on-boarding process within a company. A new professional or someone new to a role may be partnered with someone who can “show them [...]

5 Habits of Dual-Career Couples Balancing Work and Family

    As a couple, you expect to be not only romantic partners, but also to partner in the business of creating a home, managing work-lives and possibly raising a family together. Stressors and uncertainties brought on by the coronavirus pandemic—the necessity to be-at-home for an even longer extended time—may be exposing the signs and symptoms of your relationship strengths, as well as your weak spots. Let's break this down... Self-Care and Addressing Your Relationship Needs The Benefits of Working it Out Together Five Essential Habits of of Committed Couples While the data is not in on impacts of this pandemic on couples, families and the society at large, we do know that when couples do not partner well it exacerbates feelings of disconnection. It leads to loneliness, living like "roommates" and many times, it leads to divorce. The accompanying fears and decisions the coronavirus situation calls for—the short and long-term impacts—can be overwhelming. Especially if you don't know how to stay connected and communicate well through the stress. It will increase any fissure between you. Big Picture Relationship Coaching keeps dual-career couples working successfully together, even during difficult times. It's done by supporting one another's individual needs and strengthening your ability to make decisions and arrive at mutually satisfying solutions together. Addressing Your Relationship Needs Is Part of Self-Care The phase we're entering now, with it's mixed messages about what to do and how to respond—is undoubtedly magnifying your couple connection. It may even be increasing the [...]

11 Ways to Cope with Transitions & Change You Don’t Choose

  A Perspective on These Times Life is not going back to "the ways it was." It's never going to be the same. It's a hard truth and as much as you may wish to return to the former, more comfortable ways, everything is shifting. And the shifting continues. Today, the demand is to be flexible and resilient as you navigate through these shifts--toward what will eventually become our "new normal." Because these shifts are both internal and external, because these shifts are massive, global, and happening at such great speed, it's important that you ground and care for yourself. You have things you want to accomplish, experiences you want to experience, and contributions you want to make in this lifetime. So there's "bigger work" to do--to steady yourself, to connect you to yourself and others, to help you stay open to possibilities often unexpected. And unexpected options and change can feel terribly disruptive. Right now you and others you know may be resisting, balking, or fighting the change--trying to push through and control the "final" outcomes, Often behaving impulsively. Others may respond by "giving up" on their dreams. Often retreating in a way that is depression, addiction, or other escapism. What's important to know is that "You Can Do This Work" is demanded of all of us. That's right. We're all still in this together. It wasn't just the pandemic we were all in together, Going through these shifts requires all of us. Coaching support can help you through [...]

Considering Career Coaching? 3 Ways Career Coaching Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

Depending on the environment or field you work in, the concept of having a coach, engaging in coaching, career coaching, even executive coaching or leadership coaching, may be considered as familiar as breathing air. For some of you, it may be a new concept you're hearing more about and considering. You're curious. You wonder if it might be helpful to you. Addressing this question in a global way, every few years Erickson International pairs with The International Coaching Federation to study the question of coaching effectiveness and gathers data on what clients say they have achieved through the coaching relationship and how it's changed their lives. This article is going to explore 3 ways Career Coaching can help you achieve your goals in business. A Look at How Coaching Helped Others How the Perception of Career Coaching Has Changed How Coaching is Really a Partnership in Your Success Aligning Coaching with Your Goals Before we get started, it's important to understand there are two different types of coaching. Skills Based Coaching: Most everyone is exposed to fitness coaching, health or nutrition coaching, or weight-loss coaching. Nowadays there are experts in every field ready to share their expertise to help you achieve those goals. Getting help with your resume, elevator speech, confidence, presence, or networking skills may fall into this category. These types of coaching are more specifically focused on developing a skill or outcome (lose weight, develop a good presentation deck, speak more confidently in front of a group, and [...]

Coaching Helps to Evaluate the Next Stage of Your Career

  These past few years have catapulted some personal and professional lives forward. Yours may have been one of them. Especially if you were in the right industry at the right time. Or if you were lean, mean, and agile. Maybe you took the time to explore or add on a new skill that's paying off now, post-pandemic. You may even have have been one of the fortunates if your position was indispensable to the company. You'd have been a lucky one—staying on securely in the midst of other's cutbacks. Working from home (WFH) may have been seamless for you and your employer or your business. It was comfortable for many. Unless they shared a small space with mates and kids schooling on zoom. Pets roaming in and out. Yet many professionals and families settled in and are now weighing the consequences of employers reinstating back to the office or hybrid schedules. This shuffle is disrupting what may have become comfortable. Or you may be part of The Great Resignation 2021 an example of which is a record 4.4 million Americans who quit their jobs in September 2021. The trend continued through 2022 with another record 4.2 million voluntarily resigned in November 2022—millions more than anything ever seen before. With a backdrop of market slump and recession talk going on all that year.  This chart of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics highlights a continuing trend.   With fewer workers across many industries, the trend toward negotiating a high wage and [...]

Discontented in Your Work or Life? Coaching Helps You Slow Down So You Go Further, Faster.

  People seldom seek change when things are going well. Seeking to grow during these times is then a choice versus a push from outside. Because the force of nature is all about growth, if we are not doing so, circumstances will arise to create discontent or provide circumstances that force a change–desired or not. So the internal or external circumstances leading to the desire for work-life change are less important than how you approach it. You might as well embrace it. Where Are You Going to Focus Your Attention? Instead of exiting a job dramatically, seeking a promotion with lots of over-zealous activity, or starting a new venture flailing about trying everything that the media says you should do, I advise what I call Standing Still. Standing Still is taking a breath, taking the discontent as an opportunity to become more self-aware so you assess fully, listen to what the discontent is telling you, and then, from that centered place, open yourself to new possibilities that are right for you. If you scramble and make a change in a state of anxiety or desperation, the chances of your new life or work being truly satisfying are slim. If you make a desperate move it’s like treading water or losing ground. Instead, thoughtfully create steps that actually lead where you want to go. If you do nothing, you’ll be right where you are now. Simply put - Slowing down can actually help you go further, faster.  KEEP Reading for Four [...]

7 Ways to Focus and Use Career Coaching When Unhappy and Looking for a New Job or Career

If you are dissatisfied with your career or looking for career advice, you are not alone. A study by the nonprofit, Mental Health America (MHA) surveyed 17,000 workers across 19 industries. The overwhelming results show that 71% of employees are unhappy and actively looking for a new job or career. You may be job searching also, but questioning how to manage your emotions, behavior, as well as productivity while still on the job. Gallup's 2019 survey uncovered 85% of people disengaged on the job. Forbes says more than half are unhappy. With the 2020 pandemic and still coming out the other side of this major life disruption, everyone is wondering if the meaning, and the way, of working has changed forever. With many women's employment trajectory hitting the skids, so many out of work, not knowing if you'll stay working from home (WFH) or be returning back to the office anytime soon, the future outcomes are yet to be seen with full clarity. Let's Break This Down Career Development With Integrated Career Coaching Choice Points in Career Development Seven Ways to Stay Focused, Engaged, and Develop Your Skills Your Career Development Deserves Career Coaching That Integrates Your Whole Life So how can you approach your own career discontent at this or any time? After these tumultuous past few years, and as we are deep into 4th Quarter and anticipating the coming year, you need and want to be ahead of the game. It's actually a wonderful time to reach [...]

Relationship Reset: Let’s Clarify the Relationship You Desire

DIFFERENT STYLES IMPACT YOUR RELATIONSHIP SUCCESS This video introduces 4 different styles of communicating and relating to one another that Dr. Jan has identified in every couple. When mixed together, they can create confusion and conflict. Consciously clarifying the style of relating your desire, and actively learning the skills to reach it, can help keep couples stay connected for a lifetime. Clarify Your Destination and Confidently Work Together to Get There You may be single, newly engaged, and planning your wedding, raising school-age children, or even facing the empty nest and “what shall we do now?” stage. It doesn’t matter where you are right now. What matters is—identifying your destination—where you want to grow with your relationship. Knowing your options and how you want to work together is key.   I’ve been coaching couples for many years, helping them develop strong, vibrant relationships and fulfilling work and family lives. What I know is this: Once you become informed about four (4) unique styles of relating I’ve identified, you’ll have an opportunity to decide just what kind of relationship you want to create. Then, learning the tools and skills of partnering will benefit you for a lifetime. I hope you’ll pay special attention to the benefits of the Big Picture Partnering approach and its benefits. This is what I coach, and am passionate about because it's where I see couples create the relationship they desire and achieve their dreams together. Use the free resources to help assess your own relationship style. [...]

Relationship Reset: Improve Agreements by Closing the Loop

TO CLARIFY AGREEMENTS + BUILD TRUST BETWEEN YOU Couples often wonder why they run into difficulty with follow-through in their relationship. One of them thinks they have discussed everything and made a "final" agreement, only to learn later that either -- ➡ there's been no follow-through ➡ nothing has been done ➡ their mate didn't realize it was an agreement, or "forgot" ➡ or, the topic comes up again for more discussion! All of this leads to frustration for one or both partners. Closing the Loop on Agreements Promised can Strengthen Relationships and the Trust Between Partners Years ago, I outlined a 4-Step process to help couples and partners avoid such misunderstandings and arrive at mutually satisfying win/win decisions and follow through. The final step (often missing) is what I call CLOSING THE LOOP! 🎥 Watch and Listen to the video NOW above, if you haven't already. You'll also find the video, among a series of others, on my YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOazhuxLmJk.  Make sure you unmute and turn up the volume. When you're ready, visit our FREE Resources page for more information, publications, tools you and your partner can use to help you avoid common communication confusion many other couples have experienced at one time or another. 👉https://loom.ly/9zR5jA0 👈

Are You a Target for Negativity in a Toxic Work Environment?

Are you in a company or corporation and feel like you have a bulls-eye pinned to your forehead? Are you in a position of attracting undue negative attention from your boss and coworkers? Do you wonder “How did this happen? It’s never happened to me before. Why ME? Why now?” If this sounds like something you’re experiencing, even though it may not make logical sense let me describe what may be going on and give you 10 Tips to “Ground” Your Lightning Rod Aspects. But first, let me explain the basic dynamics that are going on in such a dysfunctional system. The Analogy of a Dysfunctional Family In dysfunctional families, there is a concept called the IP or Identified Patient. This is the one family member who is like a “sponge” for the family negativity—secrets, things unspoken, co-dependency, addictions, lies, and so on—all the dysfunction. That “elephant-in-the-room” stuff that nobody talks about in dysfunctional systems. Thus it stays dysfunctional and people act "as if" it's normal—or even defend it. Like a Sponge: The Identified Patient often soaks up all the negativity and feelings in a family. It's confusing and sometimes they feel they really are bad, wrong, or embody the characteristics assigned to them. So subconsciously they take on the dysfunction and acts it out until they become conscious of the dynamic and hopefully get support and coaching to change their participation in the system. Which can be an uphill battle. Becoming a Scapegoat: The IP becomes identified as The [...]

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