Happy Chinese New Year.

The years cycle through twelve zodiac houses, each having its own animal symbol and 2012, according to Chinese reckoning, is a “dragon” year. That means this is a year to make bold movement, take decisive action and embrace a spirit of power. Not only that, in Chinese lore, one of ive elements, namely wood, fire, earth metal or water inform the year. The element informing this dragon year is water. Water is a natural shape shifter’s element. Water takes the shape of whatever it is in. Water can flow like a river, become cold, hard ice, or drift into the air as steam. It can be turbulent or calm; it can heal and it can kill. Water is also a symbol for spirit. Altogether, there is great promise in 2012. May we all be ready to ride the “big wave”, the back of the water dragon, to the beaches of success.

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The United States of America in the vision so lucidly described by Dr. Martin Luther King is not totally manifested yet and I question its ever coming into existence 100%, but it is a wonderful thing to see how much of it is now reality.

It inspires faith to keep believing that the things I envision; the things in my intention are hacking out space in reality as I focus each day on the good I want to see happen in my life. That includes a marvelous “act three” in my career. Its unarticulated body undeniably exists and is dancing within the womb of my soul. It keeps me up nights.  I am now creating its hands and feet and eyes and voice.

Now is not the time to stop dreaming. Dreaming may not be the appropriate word for the important work of building a reality. It approaches more closely the meaning of the word, “intention”, as used to describe what we do when we focus attention and resources on an end we want to see accomplished or something we desire come into being.

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Well, are you not already slightly sad about how hard old habits are to shake? How easy it is to fall into the old habits that wore a gully in the synaptic mind paths last year? You mean you have not unashamedly at this early date caved in to the strong woo of sleeping through the rest of the year with eyes open yet?

Then, you’re up for the road, maybe. If so, let us to the maps. Many people make resolutions this time of year, but we are going to do something a wee bit different. We are going to aim our intention. Hi ho! To the open road we go!

The merriest of discoveries to you in this the season of epiphanies.

What?

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The candle of the year burns down toward the midwinter mark (Solstice of winter–December 22 this year), but before it is at last snuffed out– some final observations. Non-employment, the winter of a career cycle (it may be early winter,midwinter, or winter’s end for you), is the time for examining the seed collected from the past harvest, so, it is now appropriate to pause in the job search for a seasonal reassessment:

Has the vision of the new career changed some way over the year?

Is the vision moving toward a new direction or a new target?

Have targets been discarded? Why?

Things happen during a year. All the best job search books emphasize the virtue of “focus”, but over a year focus becomes harder to keep. Life happens during a year. Personal growth, though often ignored in a long  search for work, continues like a plant continues to grow in the darkness striving toward the hope in a pin of light. Then, an illness; a life event; a happening positive or negative of significance snatches the spotlight from the time-attention greedy job search. Personal growth becomes primary and the job search secondary.

How to keep focus while “snow blind” –when old, familiar career markers disappear– becomes the question in a longer-than-one-year search. Keeping focus in a longer search gets harder for the same reasons keeping your arm upraised gets harder. It’s a human thing. It becomes a strain to sustain interest on one subject over time especially a concentration upon something as stressful as a job search. Knowing the reason for the longer time frame does not help. When I was in grad school, I threw out idea after idea searching for something I could stomach researching for a year.

The imminent danger becomes boredom. I have a hunch that this is what really happens to people whose search for work is unsuccessful for a year. Not, “I give up”, but, “I’m bored; I’m tired of it; I want to take my life off hold;life is passing by and I resent it; it’s time out of my life spent doing this I will never get back”. It is not a sudden “I quit”, but a slow, fading away like footprints in the snow on a windy night or muscles quivering to get out of a position they can no longer hold.

Dream winter dreams; plan, research and visualize this holiday. I will be.

Have the happiest of holidays and I will see you in the new year,

Victoree

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Gotta let you know, my heart is at home during the holidays and networking events, which do not center around my family, pale in my list of interests. However, I become aware while drinking my cup of hot chocolate and feeling cuddly after hanging the garland of old Christmas cards that ’tis the season to be searching–for relationships that may lead to a new career or new clients. Allow me to pass on a few ideas that seem to pop up in the advice I have been hearing and reading about surviving the networking fa-la-la-la-la.

Be visible during the holidays

Schedule holiday parties wisely, but  never cross them off the list simply because someone there might ask that dreaded employment status question. It seems that the closer the party-goers are in blood relationship the more unfeeling and embarrassing the questions will be. In a darkly humorous way, it is a good place to introduce or perfect the elevator speech and the “introduction” (how you introduce yourself to potential contacts).

Holiday events are often crowded, noisy places encouraging excess in eating and drinking. For the introverted souls like yours truly, I have found that taking a few visits to the restroom or outside in the dark, winter air provides a “cool down” spot when needed. I also have found that taking the smallest amount of food possible and limiting alcoholic drinks works to keep the head clear. Few negative experiences beat being barraged with stories by an inebriated social bully who insists on talking with a mouthful of crackers with ranch dip.

I keep uppermost in mind that holiday season networking events are parties in name only. Beneath the glam and glitter they are a species of business meeting. Basic rules for business meetings apply. The company holiday celebration (if applicable or if an invited guest) is in spirit a social event–a party–but it is also a prime opportunity to network when done correctly and good networking behavior applies.

Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.

Among the things in the purse I take to a holiday party at a corporation or a holiday networking event there will be a couple of working pens, a pad,  and networking/business cards.

Listen

Through careful, active listening and taking notes during bathroom breaks, much valuable information can be gained and many valuable relationships can be made.

The haul at the end of a holiday networking party could pay off big-time in the spring.

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Until we meet again, may your wait time be fruitful

Victoree

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It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Yuletide is here. The sight of Macy’s Santa at the end of their annual Thanksgiving parade is like sounding off the national  starter gun for the race to December 24th. Of course, you know what that means–holiday anxiety.  What do you say at the various parties when asked, “what do you do?” Being the object of pitying looks at a family holiday gathering: good grief!

Gift shopping while unemployed at holiday time feels like being in a blazing white spotlight. Does everybody in this whole department know? Do I have to talk out loud to the credit card carrier who denied the card while standing at the head of the line with thirty people listening but averting their eyes and the nicely dressed sales associate looking over the top of her glasses? What a hole in the heart opens up as the woman wearing the Movado watch purchases the gorgeous Renaissance ornaments that would have gone home in my Big Brown Bag last year. Being unemployed at holiday time adds a special sour note to the music, dilutes the drinks with salt water and makes the mince pie tasteless. Choices. These are a few of my “survival tactics” for the holiday gift and decorating dilemma:

According to circumstances, downscale the gifts, home decorating and parties

Learn ways to celebrate the holidays without the usual associated spending spree. Find free and low-cost events to attend in the neighborhood

Use artistic talent to create hand crafted and home baked decorations and gifts for special people. Thrifty ideas abound on line.

Rethink the meaning of the season. Decide what is truly significant about the seasonal celebrations

Relax. Calm down. Practice kindness to your own soul. Not being able to spend any money does not spell personal failure

Last of all, holiday time is a great time for network expansion–seed from networking events might spring up as leads, interviews and new business next season. I make it a point to sow generously….BANG! And…they’re off!

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Victoree is making roast chicken and drinking sparkling grape drink this week…you celebrate with your loved ones around a joyous table overloaded with blessings. This week is a good week to pay attention to the relationships that sustain us even in our search for work.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Victoree

poppies are for remembrance

Welcome home, soldier.

Having served the nation to the point of the ultimate sacrifice, they who have survived far away battlefields have come home in various conditions physical and emotional to a less than welcoming USA. Job hunting: another kind of battlefield in another kind of war.

On November 11, nearly 100 years ago the agreement that put a pause to WWIwas signed. That day was celebrated as “Armistice Day“. It was renamed “Veterans Day” to honor the fallen of both the Korean police action and WWII. Here is the poem most closely associated with that event. I found it and other interesting information in the Wikipedia article on the subject.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

John McCrae

Image via Wikipedia

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

They who were once  heroes are now dumped on the social scrap heap like old tires along with the rest of us disregarded by many corportions.

Welcome home, soldier. You are now one of the unemployed.

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"When the frost is on the pumpkin..."

Daylight Savings Time ended with no protest tinged with a little sadness in my town. It must be that Election Day is Tuesday, among other things. Being just plain tired of a long job search is another.

Somehow, it becomes harder to keep up the wild energy job hunting requires at this time of year. People really tire of job hunting; of coming out into the cold to hear some waxy-faced interiewer ask endless questions. It becomes harder to pay attention. Spirit and body sag like the last of the brown leaves clinging to the trees. Quite frankly, I vote for spiced apple cider and clicking on the “Martha Stewart” icon on my tool bar as I make lists for holiday cooking, gift giving, and seasonal prep because this time of year calls strongly to me as a homekeeper.

Image via Wikipedia

There is a “memorization project” poem often brought home after mid-terms on a dirty, illegible homework assignment page as the year shuffles grudgingly toward winter  called, “When the Frost is On The Pumpkin” by James Whitcomb Riley. I bring this up because of a remarkable story about how this very poem saved the author his job.

All the experts I have been reading on line are saying there should be no “vacation” taking from job hunting during the holidays. All those get-togethers, cookie bakings, and holiday parties are opportunities to not look for a job, but to network. This is a great time to meet new people especially if the search has “petered out” or the trail has “gone cold”. More about that next time. But, for now…

Take a look at a recitation of the poem by Kent Risley on You Tube in all of “the Hoosier poet” dialect beauty here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEY9iYQ-Ves

Here is the text of the poem to help your kid out. I found it at answers.com:

“When the Frost is on the Punkin”

vintage engraving of pumpkin and leaf

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