Apparently my television watching taste puts me in the advertising target group, " People who take a lot of pills or should." Ads with floating butterflies tell me that one colorful capsule will put me to sleep, or another will make me happy in some way or other. All of them come with a litany of negative side effects which would border on the ridiculous, if they weren’t so real.
For once, I’d like to see an ad that touts some delightful consequence not indicated on the label or related to the issue for which its being taken in the first place. Imagine this…
”Taking Xtraprolisectracia may lead to heightened tolerance for crying babies on airplanes, increased ability to calculate the tip on the restaurant check (in your head) and a generally positive outlook on life. Significant weight loss may also occur in the body parts of your choice.”
I got to thinking about where positive side effects exist in the work I do. Take resume writing. I've seen again and again that my clients emerge from what can be a boring or stressful process with benefits far beyond a great resume, benefits like increased self-confidence and stronger motivation.
So today, let’s look at what that's all about, the Move Into Change way.
If you’re currently job seeking and have opted for a resume writing app/service to create your resume, you may have missed out on foundational confidence building techniques.
Job seekers like you are often so anxious to get going on the job search that they miss essential activities that build them up for the process ahead.
Here are some good ones:
1. Articulating your strengths. Thinking deeply about your strengths as an employee, leader, team member, or manager not only gives you dynamic language for the professional summary on your resume, it reminds you of the specific strengths that make you really good at the things you’ve done professionally and as a volunteer.
Try this: look for things you do effortlessly, the things you take for granted. You may assume others do these things easily too, but they actually don't.
2. Identifying your complimentary strengths. You may not realize, yet, that you have core strengths that compliment the type of work you do but have nothing to do with the actual work itself. These are them.
Try this: pinpoint characteristics that particularly suit you for the work you’re doing. You may surprise yourself with how much this boosts you up.
3. Listing your personal strengths. What’s unique about each of us often shows up here. If you validate what’s different about you, you begin to appreciate what sets you apart from others. Not only is this list useful for finding descriptors that make your resume stand out, it also gives you language for interviews in which you exude confidence in your special traits.
Try this: think about qualities that can be a negative for you as well as a positive. They are often a treasure, a source of powerful self-knowledge.
SELF CONFIDENCE Brain Facts
Neurobiologists and positive psychologists note that when we pay attention to our skills and strengths and value them, we feel pride. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter (one of those lovely chemical messengers in our brains) gets released and floods our system. We feel good. We feel expansive. We feel motivated to take action. When you take the time to acknowledge and value your skills and strengths while preparing your resume, you fuel action which leads to more pride and to continued action. Eventually you develop perseverance, a quality all of us need, especially when the job search gets stalled, or we don't hear back from interviewers, etc.
Motivation leads to action -> continued action = perseverance.
The Easy and The Hard.
All resume writing must involve taking a look at specific job related skills and accomplishments. In general, my clients find creating the skills list simplest, and identifying accomplishments, the most difficult.
4. Name your skills. Listing the technical and concrete abilities you do well because you’ve been doing them awhile throughout your career or just at one specific job can be the easiest part of gathering data for your resume. Though you may not want to highlight all of your skills in your current resume, the act of listing them reconnects you to your abilities including your ability to learn – a huge self-confidence booster!
5. While on the job we don't often take the time to savor our successes. And if we do, we tend think we’ll remember the specifics of them. We don’t. Not without recording them somewhere, or not without someone helping to jog our memories with their genuine interest and curiosity.
Accomplishments are crucial when creating a state of the art resume. So, if you haven’t been keeping track of how you've made (or make) a difference to your employers, clients, and colleagues, it’s time to ask yourself what you actually did (or do) that mattered to you and to them. Articulate each one with active language and specifics (like numbers, awards, promotions, etc.).
Whether you are on the job now, are active in a job search, or just contemplating one, a thoughtful and thorough resume conversation with yourself or with a coach can prove to be a self-strengthening confidence booster. The process, if done well, leaves you with a well-crafted resume that, not only positions you to get interviews, but represents your deep understanding of your value.
Side effects!