Fixing limits to stabilise your work & life

In today's busy world, prioritizing between work and personal life can be a huge challenge. A poor work-life balance can result in stress, despondency and reduced productivity. Since we spend the majority of our time at work, in the absence of priorities, the work can bleed into our life outside the workplace. Fixing limits is therefore, essential if we want to be both physically and emotionally healthy.

Workplace pressures have increased manifold and together with them, there are a plethora of distractions that add to our problems. It is essential that all distractions are overcome and limits be fixed to attain some sort of a work-life balance. This can be a rather difficult affair, but is inescapable in the interest of your well-being.

When you decide to fix limits, you actually decide to alter your attitude and outlook to various issues related to your work and life. Resultantly, you are able to safeguard different features pertaining to them that you cherish the most. If you think that you will be able to stabilise your working parameters and personal obligations without drawing lines somewhere, you are mistaken. In fact, drawing lines to achieve a good work-life balance is a perquisite. And drawing lines call for having a positive outlook.

Fixing limits is a difficult proposition largely because of an apprehensive mind-set or feelings of remorse. You could be apprehensive about the consequences and ramifications of affecting changes to your way of working. When you alter the manner in which you do things, some difficulty could be brought about for others. You may not want to hurt the feelings of others because you may feel that in doing so, you could be seen as a self-seeking individual. That may prompt some feeling of guilt in you. However, if you are focussed in your approach and aim for your career and job success, all such apprehensions will be inevitably discarded. This is precisely the reason why efforts in this direction seem to be a real grind.

Fixing limits necessitate saying “No’ and safeguarding one’s time.  During the course of their work time and also leisure, most people are unable to decline and cannot protect their time. This is because assignment of tasks at workplace is a never-ending and thankless activity. Vexation, exasperation, regret, repentance and dread are bound to be generated in the process. In the light of the foregoing, the entire process of fixing limits or laying boundaries has to be gradual and done in a phased manner so that you do not succumb to the pressures of frustration and anxiety.   

Fixing limits facilitate protection of your time, personal freedom and vivacity. But before you actually get started, you need to be clear about:

· Raison d'être for creating limits: Your intentions and rationale behind fixing limits could be many. You may want to finish an assigned task much before the deadline. You may want to have adequate time to pursue your leisure activities or spend moments of togetherness with your family. It is also possible that you have not been able to hang out with your friends and feel that henceforth you need to engage yourself more in group activities with them. When you view the reasons to fix boundaries, you will be able to generate attention and thus serve to remind yourself of your urgencies and primacies if you cross a limit set by you.

· Prerequisites of declining & to whom: The maiden step in drawing lines is to identify issues to which and persons to whom you need to refuse. Your refusals, denials, negations and refutations need not be very categorical or uncompromising. You could acquiesce to a limited extent and yet achieve your aim. To illustrate the point, you could be asked to stay back after working hours to supervise some activity. You know that you cannot spare time for it on a routine basis, but do not want to say a straightforward nope. So, you agree to do it once a week. Your volunteering to chip in once a week is actually a refusal but concurrently also an acquiescence of the request.

By managing organisational aspirations and the hopes of your colleagues pinned on you as also setting practical boundaries, you can take charge of your work responsibilities better. You will thus be able maximize your chances of a long, rewarding and fruitful career with adequate time up your sleeves for other pursuits as well. But the inescapable requirement is to bring about an alteration in your perception of what is significant in establishing the limits for the merger and steadiness of work-life balance that you seek. As you start putting into operation some methods, you will feel the difference in you and in your relationships with others.

Falsehoods & illusions about selecting a career

People tend to suffer from wrong notions that they are aware of all elements and subtleties that go in to make an informed career choice. Most of them also suffer from fallacies that they know the correct method required to be adopted for selecting a profession. Such misconceptions and erroneous beliefs often lead to an inappropriate career choice and which eventually causes immense disenchantment and dissatisfaction in later years.

There are several figments and misrepresentations associated with career selection. The more common ones that prevail are:

· Career selection is a doddle: Making a career choice decision is actually an intricate procedure and calls for sparing time for it. In fact, it is a process that comprises several stages and which entail being self-aware and knowledgeable about the pros and cons of various professions that you may be wanting to take up.

· Hobbies cannot become a source of livelihood: There can be nothing more distant from truth than this. When you are going about trying to select a career, there is nothing wrong in deciding on one that offers you concurrent pleasure and contentment, particularly if it happens to be pertinent to your leisure. You can become very adept and accomplished in your leisure activities, though most of the dexterity that you develop is a result of practical acquaintances in that field.

· Forecast & publicised jobs only warrant consideration: Career specialists forecast several career streams periodically and foretell jobs that will be in abundance or much sought after. There is nothing wrong in perusing such forecasts to discern if any of them appeal to you and to your proclivities. However, you cannot allow such predictions to influence your selection. The predictions made could be based on factual statistics, but they cannot be said to be relevant forever. Something that is popular and in demand today may not be same, say after five years. Hence, due caution has to be exercised in incorporating them in your decision; however, you cannot ignore your inclinations, principles and knowhow while selecting a career.

· Emulation of a successful person makes you successful you: A person could be excelling at his work and consequently being happy about it No two personalities are alike and anything that works for one person may not necessarily work for another, certain commonalities between the two notwithstanding. Therefore, if there happens to be a person whose career interests you, you must understand that the same may not be really your cup of tea.

· Things automatically come together after a decision: When you select a career, it is just the beginning of a journey. There will be a plethora of actions that will be required to be taken as time passes and you inch forward. Such actions have to be visualised and put down in black and white in what is known as a career action plan. The entire gamut of activities from the time you select a career, embark upon it and eventually attain your objectives should invariably form part of your career action plan.    

· Job satisfaction flows only from earnings: Remunerations are definitely a significant component of career selection. But they cannot be the only or prime consideration. Researches and studies conducted worldwide have proved that pecuniary issues do not necessarily and always bring about job satisfaction. It is what you get delight in at work that does so. The foregoing notwithstanding, income should always be considered as a factor when you weigh any profession for its suitability.

· Careers & jobs are for ever: Those days are history when people took up a job and superannuated from it. There is nothing that should preclude you from making a career change if at all your level of job satisfaction has plummeted. It is no wonder therefore, that quite a few people change careers during their working span. Career counsellors can pinpoint the career that you ought to pursue, though no accurate prognostication can be made. At best, he or she can simply guide you in arriving at a decision to select a career.

· Expertise related to one career is not relevant to another: The skills that you develop and acquire are exclusively yours, they ought to be retained and carried from one job to another where their application could well be put to use, albeit with some reformation. Skills, once acquired do not go waste.  

· Knowing about any profession is possible only when you join it: While a direct and personal practical experience is the best option, you can get to know about various professions and careers through other means too. Researching about them through online efforts or reading published works are a good source of knowledge. Meeting and interacting with people who are already in such a career can also be very beneficial.

Career selection is much more than choosing a job; several factors go into your decision and several things will be contingent on it. You will definitely want a career in which you will succeed in it. Therefore, you should go in for a career that fits you well and can continue to support you in the long-term too. Any tendency to fall prey to myths can lead to failure.

Why weren’t you selected for the job?

Being rejected after a job interview can severely dent your self-assuredness. No rejection is ever pleasant, but it should not be viewed as an indication of failure. It is in all fairness that you see rejection as an opportunity to build and improve on your core strengths so that you are able to find a job that suits you best.

But, why do people get rejected for jobs? Inability to meet the qualitative requirements apart, major reasons for the same are:

· The resume makes no impact: Every job calls for highlighting specific attributes and hence if you need to apply for several different jobs, your resume has to be modified accordingly to make the desired impact. You will get to discern specific qualitative requirements for a job from job listings; by carrying out independent checks and inquiries; and through informational interviews. Since companies seek to hire staff who are ardent to join them, non-specific and bleary resumes are unlikely to make the desired impact. A cover letter is an important complement of the resume and in its absence, you will not be able to convey accurately what your career objectives are and how you can add worth and value to your contributions in the discharge of your functions. Like resumes, cover letters are also required to be custom-made for different companies.

· Post-submission, case was not pursued assiduously: With unemployment being what it is, organisations and companies are flooded with resumes. Except when absolutely essential, most resumes are perused perfunctorily and are filed. When you forward your resume to a potential employer, your aim is to have it considered favourably and elicit a call for an interview. If that be so, you ought to follow up by making discreet inquiries and subtly enthuse him to believe your suitability for the job applied for. Such follow-up inquiries will make them recollect your name at the time of interview and psychologically consider you on a better plane.  

· Preparation for the interview was deficient: Quite a few applicants give a dismal performance during the interview. They go through the process sans any preparation; astonishingly they display a poor knowledge about the company because they made no efforts to research. Ignorant of current situations, they have no idea about the role that they would be required to perform. Resultantly, they fail to respond to even the most rudimentary of all questions. It is essential that when you are face to face with the interviewing panel, you are able to exhibit your knowledge, expertise and experience in an exclusive way so that you come to be regarded as the most suitable candidate for the job. Your responses to questions posed should convince the interviewers that you will make highly priceless contributions towards the progress of the company.  

· Deportment during interview was dishonourable: It is rightly said that the first impression is the last impression. You are required to make an impact. The interviewer is gauging you for your appropriateness for a job and will form an impression about your professional abilities with regard to discharging your assigned charter and gelling with the company culture. You are likely to miss the bus if your deportment is dishonourable in any way. You need to be present at the venue dressed appropriately at the correct time and refrain from indulging in a behaviour that smacks of fault-finding, antagonism and impudence. During the course of the interview, you will have to communicate a sincere message that you indeed are aware of what the job entails and that you will be able to come up to the desired standards of performance. While how you do that is your ingenuity, the fact of the matter is that you need to come prepared for the interview.  

· Failure to take appropriate post-interview continuation action: Having gone through the interview, it will be wrong to presume that you need not take any follow-up action thereafter. It is in the fitness of things to send a letter of thanks to the interviewers; doing so will convey your eagerness to join the company. You could also take it as an opportunity to highlight any specific issues that you missed out during the interview. A telephone call made after some time seeking to know any further action required to be taken by you will also reiterate your keenness.

· Unfavourable reportage by references: Feedback provided by references are very important. You need to make certain that the views of the references indicated by you are indeed favourable towards you otherwise you could well be in for a shock. To that extent, identifying references and making available their details to employers is a task that has far-reaching consequences.

Job rejection hurts, particularly if you have very high hopes. But the manner in which you deal with it that describes you in your job hunting endeavours. Like while courting, it is vital for you to realise that rejection should be accepted as an actuality but concurrently maintain some element of scepticism about its truth. If you remain upbeat, you can always transform any repressed feelings into positive energy to push your job search further than what you ever imagined.

Forge a successful career

All ventures have to have a starting point, even the longest and most difficult of them. Everybody knows this axiom, but yet do not know how to go ahead from the starting point. In your career too, moving ahead calls for a crucial first step and that is formulating a career plan for yourself.

The difficulty in steering yourself to the pinnacle of the career is not about how to reach there. It is the long time-interval that lies ahead of you that can be gruelling. Therefore, rather than taking off like a rocket from the word go and trying to grasp each and every job opportunity that whizzes past you, a slow, gradual approach to work out and understand your eventual objectives is what is necessary. You need to craft a line of action that will assist you with specific efforts that will be called for to make to the pinnacle of your career.

How do you craft that line of action? Some plans and strategies are:

· Widen your contact base: The action plan that you make can be supported and reinforced by your contacts. You need to build and expand your network on a continuous basis; the people you get acquainted with will facilitate building meaningful relationships with people who matter, including the who’s who of your current company. Resultantly, you will be able to get wherever you set your sights on – be it in your present organisation or in another one.  

· Work to hone your knowledge and skills: You have to make persistent efforts to improve your current skills and leave no stone unturned to acquire additional qualifications. Whether it is an interview for a new job or a career change, organisations will invariably try to gauge your worth. When you hone your knowledge and skills, you add value to your profile.

· Strike a workable balance between your personal and work obligations: There is no denying the fact that your career advancement is vital, but it should not be at the cost of your personal life and domestic obligations. It is up to you how to strike a workable balance between the two to ensure that the bonds and associations that you have built are not rendered vulnerable.

· Identify what contributes to your happiness and pursue them: It is important that you pursue a career that is in consonance with what you are. Doing so will relieve you of several worries. You can easily determine what makes you happy by recalling specific aspects of your work that made you feel on top of the world. In addition, you must introspect to determine facets of your present job that you both like and detest. Is it possible to carry on with the present state? Your honest responses will prompt you to take an appropriate decision with regard to carrying on or making a change.   

· Have no ambiguity about who you are and what you stand for: Your self-awareness will offer you excellent opportunities to conclude your career plan on a positive note. Getting to know with exactness what your personality is on your own is rather difficult; you can always go for a professional evaluation that will recommend various career options that conform to your outlook and disposition. It is only if you know who you are and what you stand for that you will be able to formulate a fruitful career plan.

· Have great visualisations of your future: The importance of hitching your wagon to the star cannot be denied. But you must appreciate that the career journey is never a smooth ride. If the bumps and potholes that you encounter en route take the better of you, your focus will go haywire. And that will herald your collapse. That does not mean that you cannot have lofty objectives. You should catalogue various things that you aspire for and if at any time you feel that you are going off-track, a perusal of the same will inspire you and put you back on the correct course. 

· Have and uphold an optimistic outlook: An upbeat disposition is inescapable for career success; in fact it helps you in your navigation to the zenith. Your career plan is like an automobile that is powered by your confidence, constructiveness and optimism. You can devise a personal chant to train your mind and nosh it with explicit optimistic vim. That will make you tough when the going gets tough.  

· Pursue you plan with intense fervour: Just like a faint heart that never won a fair lady, your career plan will not be successful if you do not implement it with ardour. Your judgement should never be allowed to be overshadowed by qualms. You simply have to maintain your momentum, keep your visualisation of your future in mind and put into effect your planned line of action. If you have reached this stage, the acme is just a stone’s throw away.

Your career success is contingent on your devotion and stanchness. It is you and you alone who has to make efforts; what you achieve will be commensurate with them. And remember that your success is put together on your capability to do better than what is just good enough for others. You have to set yourself on fire.

Has a promotion been eluding you?

Promotion time at the workplace can generate several feelings and reactions. Those who get one feel elated. And those who do not, experience a blend of immense dejection and some happiness – dejection for being overlooked and happiness for the promotion of co-workers.

When you took up a job, you were full of enthusiasm and were thrilled at the growth prospects it offered. You would have fantasised moving up the career ladder. Therefore, the feelings of bitterness and dejection are justifiable. However, you must take it that all is not lost. In order to get the promotion that you want, you have to first understand why it was denied to you. There could be a horde of reasons and which can be remedied for certain. Some possible reasons are:

· You have not been able to express your career aspirations in concrete terms: Are you certain that your career aspirations are understood by your boss? Are you sure that your boss knows that you have been working hard and that you deserve a promotion? At the time of joining an organisation, you obviously cannot make such intents known. However, upon establishing yourself and with nothing visibly adverse against you, the need for your boss to join up in your career aspirations is inescapable. It is only then that you will be able to make certain that you are afforded all prospects and backings are made available to you.   

· You have perhaps been waiting for your genius and potential to be discovered: Your promotion is also contingent on your efforts towards self-promotion. You need to knock off the belief that if you do things well, you will automatically be recognised. However, self-promotion does not entail blowing your own horn. Your efforts need not be loathsome, but the fact is that you need to let people who matter know whatever you have achieved at work. It is only then that you will be noticeable and your efforts truly acknowledged. Your destiny is not a thing to be waited for; you have to go all out to achieve it.   

· You have not been vigorously pursuing your dues: Have you been pursuing your promotion or not? Or is it that you have been sitting under a tree waiting for the fruit to fall? A promotion will never come to you on its own. Besides excelling in your chartered role, you also need to go after work and responsibilities that are higher and beyond it. Have you been doing that? There is an age-old adage that says that shallow men believe in luck and strong men believe in cause and effect. You have to be the foundation of your promotion. Remember that nothing comes home; you have to get out and get it.

· You survived a nightmare but failed to take initiative to re-establish yourself: There could have been difficult times and you came out of them. Living through them could have meant real hard work and all your resources may have been depleted. You thought that you will be recognised, but things failed to turn out in your favour. Perhaps you were unable to call the shots for whatever reasons, however, it is your responsibility to take initiative to get moving ahead again.

· You and your boss are not in harmony with each other: All along, you could have been endeavouring hard. But you failed to create the desired impact on your immediate boss. If such a situation persists, it is unlikely that you will have any career advancement come to you. The need is and shall always be to make known your efforts and get appreciated for them.

Bygones being bygones, they should be forgotten. You need to initiate appropriate remedial action. How can you do that? The following guidelines can be of immense use:

·  Have no ambiguity plague you about the course that you are on: You should be clear about the direction in which you have set your compass on and the time frame in which you want to attain your objective of securing a promotion. It will be prudent to discuss the foregoing with your boss or any other individual who matters in your organisation. This will ensure that you are not devoid of patronage and encouragement.

· Work much beyond your designated role: You have to display real dynamism. This would entail willingly shouldering additional responsibilities, including functions required to be performed by higher appointments.

· Indulge in discreet self-promotion: You need not be boastful in making your efforts being noticed and acknowledged. Any boastfulness could be misinterpreted as self-aggrandizement and arrogance. You need to convey within the bounds of modesty whatever you are doing and whatever you have achieved. 

But what happens if things still do not work out? You cannot let your hopes drown. Perhaps looking for better pastures elsewhere may not be out of place. A promotion may have eluded you, but nevertheless you tried. And if you keep trying with all the sincerity at your command, you will be successful in getting it for certain. Remember that there is nothing in this world that can take away hard work from success; it only enhances it.

Driving tenets of career management

If you seek to make the most out of your career, there is no alternative to taking interest in and working hard at it. A career management plan helps you to maintain your bearings. If you do not have any, your career will drift on a different track and sooner or later, you will become lackadaisical towards it. You will realise that your aspirations and objectives are not in harmony with your current activities. And when that happens, the stage gets set for you to be at the receiving end; you will cease to be at the wheels of your career.

Your career plan is a plotted map that indicates to you the route that you ought to adopt to reach the end-point of your career journey. In you get stuck en route, there are premeditated actions available to you to overcome problems. Evidently, the intended aim is to make your career journey a pleasant ride.

How do you ensure that your career journey is a comfortable experience? You will need to follow certain driving tenets of career management and they are:

· Remain competent by upgrading your skills: All top achievers are life-long learners; they look for new skills, visions, and concepts. Learning is an everlasting process and you can learn and enhance your skills at any age. As you progress in your career, your competence will be directly contingent on your ability to remain current and upgrade your skills. It is only then that you will be able to accomplish your objectives. Learning never exhausts anybody’s mind and hence if you have to keep abreast of change, there is no option but to keep upgrading your skills on a continual basis.

· Network extensively: In the competitive world of today, success is not easily accomplishable. You should be able to connect, bond and get on well with people. The relationships that you build with others have to be based on mutual confidence and trust. You have to make constant efforts to reinforce and fortify them. That is what networking is all about. In fact, networking helps you to sell and promote yourself. If you network well, your contact base will serve you well for decades to follow. It will be an extra but highly important tool in your possession to keep you career secure, particularly when the going gets tough.

· Be dedicated & faithful: An employee who is seen as a loyal worker always stands to gain. You have to take keen interest in various workplace challenges and have due regard for the concerns of your co-workers. It is essential that you work without any ulterior motives; this implies some element of self-sacrifice. It is you who has to make it known to others that you indeed are more than willing to be a person who is to be looked up for help whenever required. Doing so will project you as a dependable employee and when opportunities arise, your name will stand out in the list for evident reasons.

· Display a high degree of professionalism: Behaving in a professional manner is a talent that can make your life a success. And for that, you need to comprehend the codes of ethics that you have acquiesced to. If you encounter intricate predicaments that impact principles and moral belief, it is the codes of ethics that will offer you a structure for making decisions and resolutions towards a methodical evaluation of different options. To get ahead, be taken seriously, and have your boss think of you as an organisational asset, doing things in a professional way is vital.

· Catalogue your activities & accomplishments: Your career management has to be a structured process that entails regular evaluation of the progress that you have made. To be able to do so proficiently, you should keep record of your important day to day activities, particularly your accomplishments. Referring to them periodically will help you to apply appropriate mid-term corrections or identify new paths and new destinations. Therefore, the need to recurrently stalk whatever you have done and learnt is inescapable to facilitate your career advancement.  

· Introspect periodically & understand the significance of work-life balance: It is imperative that you get to know your own self well as also what you expect your career to offer you. This will prevent you from not unnecessarily getting bogged down. You will thus be able to split your time and energy; and be motivated to put in your best.  Your awareness of your fortes and limitations will assist you to make plans to deal with your personal obligations and career responsibilities. It is you who should draw a line and decide what is important for you and what is not. Achieving balance in both your work and personal lives will allow you to perform optimally in both areas.

Career management is not a one-time affair. Rain or sunshine, summers or winters, it is required all throughout your career. Setting objectives is one thing, but you need to devise sensible and pragmatic strategies to accomplish them so that your otherwise elusive career dreams come true.

Get in the good books of your employer

Employees who get into the good books of their employers are always action-oriented. They are intelligent, ambitious and tenacious. You will not find them looking for guidance at every stage; on the contrary they display initiative. Positive in their approach, good employees are always confident and self-assured. They are meticulous in their work and have genuine desire to see their organisation prosper. So, it is no wonder that they always remain in the good books of their employers.

How do you get to know if you are in the good books of your employer? You will know the truth if your company offers you more opportunities for training and growth. Likewise, if your boss places his trust in you, it just goes to show your reliability and credibility. He may devote more time on you vis-à-vis others in guiding you. Employees who are good performers will invariably be in the organisational good books. That is why it is no small wonder that some people get out-of-turn promotions or high salary increments.

But the crucial issue is getting into the good books of your employer. You can make it into the good books through your resolute exertion. While hard work is indeed hard, it is not difficult. You must alter your outlook towards your work. This essentially implies changing yourself and your approach to your work. You will have to shed bad practices that you could be indulging in and develop skills and expertise on a continual basis. This would necessitate bringing about an alteration to your mind-set and even central principles and standards. Ushering in such changes could well be a challenge by itself, but then there is no other option if you have to get into the good books of your employer. You will have to also assure your company that you indeed have changed and will be able to persist with changes. You will have to convince your employer about your renewed pledge and that you take it as an obligation.

Remember that when others form an impression about you, the impression carries on forever. And that is why good employees harvest appreciation, benefits and success. There are some inescapable attributes, expertise, individualities, approaches, dogmas ideals and standards that you need to possess to get into the good books of your employer. You can be one if you are:

· Industrious & assiduous: You need to always work hard and keep organisational interests above everything else. You have to genuinely be sedulous and not pretend to be busy so that you get noticed. Your hard work has to invariably manifest in the form of productivity and usefulness. In other words, you have to deliver results.

· Responsible & answerable: It is a known fact that good employees remain responsible to themselves and take full liability for whatever they do. As team leaders, they refrain from apportioning blame to others for failures and below-average outputs. Giving lame explanations is not in their character. In addition, good employees are more than willing to share the load of others and undertake additional responsibilities. Ever willing to guide and help others, they are always focussed in achieving organisational objectives.

· Determined to progress: All good employees are devoted to constant progress in their careers. They are not satisfied with what they are and look for ways and means to be more proficient at their work. They take mistakes as learning experiences and make certain that repetitive slip-ups are not committed. In addition to workplace issues, good employees also seek to give a boost to their abilities and aptitudes as men. They harbour strong aspirations to hone their knowledge and expertise so that they can deliver worthwhile results and thus be of great utility to their organisations.

· Appreciative of others: The workplace of today is all about team work. Good employers are good team players. They understand the importance of collaboration and cooperation; and possess a high degree of sagacity to monitor their own and other people’s feelings to guide their actions and conduct. Resultantly, they comprehend working environments and the dynamics of work better; and thus have an open mind. They are never reluctant to give credit to whomsoever it is due.

· Honest & candid: You need to build for yourself an image of truthfulness and uprightness in all your endeavours at work. Everything that you do has to be proceeded in an honest manner and with no element of pretentiousness. That is what integrity is all about. If you have to offer opinions, they should be forthright. Remember that the key to integrity is trust and which you should not betray.

No employer says so, but he always knows which employee is good and which is not. Good employees are in the good books and bad employees on the hit list. If you know what is that makes an employee good and try to become one, you will get into the good books of your employer. Be a good employee and get into the good books of your employer.