We all agree stress is bad, but who should fix it? You or the “stressor?”

We answer that question differently, depending on how we view the world.  Some of us see ourselves as the primary source of change.  Some of us expect others to change to make our lives better.

Sounds like eye color or skin tone, right?–something you just are and accept for the rest of your life.  

Not so fast.  Those who assume others decide how their lives are going to go are asking for problems they don’t need to have.   When you expect someone else to make the decisions, take the lead, and “be the master” you increase your chances of a stroke, heart attack and dying sooner in general.  Do you really want to do that?

Yes, there are times when someone else gets to decide what you are going to do.  Work, marriage, and parenthood are all rife with these situations.  But it’s one thing to take work direction (even from a two-week old daughter) and another to assume subordinate status.  If life is stressing you big time, check out how you are seeing the world.  The big difference between humans and other organisms is that we have the power to choose.

When your start to feel stressed, look at how you are seeing the situation.  Do the work because you choose to do it, not because “you have to.”   Don’t give up your right to choose even when the other alternatives are so unacceptable you would never consider them.  And while you’re at it, hold on tight to your sense of why you are doing things.  That makes you the master of your own fate rather than a pawn in the game of Life.

Jonah Lehrer’s article in the August 2010 issue of Wired magazine does a nice job of highlighting the physical negatives of being subordinate.  In short, it’s a highly stressful role.  Much of that article explores the health effects of being a low ranking baboon (literally), but the implications go well beyond primate research.

The brain actually changes in a subordinate situation. Stress response mechanisms take priority and learning and memory activities decline.  We become less effective as problem solvers and even more vulnerable to stress when we accept subordinate status.   None of this is necessary, but it’s automatic if you aren’t paying attention.

Lehrer goes on to recommend seven steps you can take to reduce stress:

1.  Make friends

2.  Drink in moderation.  (Alcohol reduces anxiety.)

3.  Get enough sleep.

4.  Don’t fight.

5.  Confront your fears.

6.  Medidate.

7.  Don’t force yourself to exercise.

I would add one more to that list.

8.  Always remember you’re in charge of  your own life.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker, consultant, and coach and author of Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her website is http://www.mining-silver.com/

Just because you made a certain wage before doesn’t mean you’ll get it now.

One of the problems that keeps cropping up with why employers don’t want to hire older workers is salary expectations–or so they say.  Taking the time to look at where you are on this issue is important whether you are in the hunt for a new position or not.  Keeping your current company afloat may also be a matter of getting creative–taking additional flexibility in lieu of payroll dollars for example.

All too often, salary is a matter of ego.  “I am a success because I make a six figure income.”   (I’m convinced that’s why CEO’s get the ridiculous salaries they do, especially when they get in front of Congress to explain their company’s bad decisions and claim they knew nothing about what was going on.  A leader who’s out of the loop isn’t worth a damn.)  So let’s get rid of this baloney right now.  We are not ranked by salary in terms of our worth as human beings.

Some people think that just because they “need” a certain amount to live, they should be paid that, too.  That might work in a communist state (which have been pretty much proven not to work well overall).  But it’s completely at odds with how capitalism works.    A fair wage, yes,  but not more than that just because it makes your life work better.

Capitalism revolves around supply and demand.  If you want to make better money, you do the things that are in short supply.  At the same time, whatever you do you need to do well, so you also need to be working toward doing what you love.   When you have it right, you will find yourself saying “I can’t believe they pay me to do this!”

Here are a few dead ends you want to avoid:

• I should be making what everyone else is making at this job.   This is true to a point, but only if you are doing the same amount of work, of the same complexity, with the same amount of supervision to get it done,  in the same amount of time.  If you are being paid less, find out why.  Don’t assume it’s just because your boss–or HR or “the Company”–wants to be unfair.
• I should be making at least as much as I made at my last job.  What’s going on in this job has no relation to what you did before.  And in this market, even if you are a superstar, you are likely to see salary cuts.
• I should make more because I’ve been here longer.  Nope…not if you are doing the same work as everyone else.  But you probably do because seniority has been a union issue for at least half a century.   In this economic climate, that higher salary is like painting a bull’s eye on yourself.    If you can afford it, let the decision makers know you’d be willing to take a salary cut if they start talking lay-offs.

The “Great Recession” has pushed the reset button on salary growth.  It’s also given us a huge chance to use other things as elements of a compensation package.  Free time is often more valuable than the cut in pay to go to a four day (8 hour ) week.  The chance to cross train may be worth more to you than the raise you are suppposed to get.

With cities and states cutting budgets to make ends meet, it’s obvious we aren’t out of the weeds yet.  One of the ways to keep your own path clear is to be willing to flex on salary when needed.  You’re worth as a human doesn’t rest on what you make.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  For more see her website www.mining-silver.com.

Having enough money doesn’t mean you need to retire–look at Warren Buffet…

Check out Mary Lloyd’s May 27 guest post on Karma Kitaj’s blog Retirement as You Want It/.

Staying employed is as much about attitude as talent.

Virtually all of us have been affected by the current unemployment situation. If we haven’t personally lost a job, taken a pay cut, or ended up on reduced hours, we have friends and family members who are dealing with any and all of that. Keeping a job has become a far more serious concern of late. Be sure you aren’t setting yourself up with your attitude.  Here are three things to think about:

Are you excusing yourself from doing the work?  Yes, all this doom and gloom is demoralizing, but that doesn’t give you a free pass.  The longer you are in a job, the easier it is to tell yourself “I’ve done this a long time, I deserve to throttle back a little.”   You don’t have to go full bore all the time, but you do have to do the work. 

One of the most frustrating comments I hear from employers about older workers is that “they don’t want to work.”  We’re talking real estate professionals and scientists with graduate degrees here–at least in terms of where I’ve heard the comments.  Deciding that you’ve earned the right to slow down is okay of you take less pay to slow down.  But if you are still holding the same job and claiming the same salary, that “right” you think you deserve could land you in the unemployment line.

Are you part of the solution?  It makes no difference if you are eighteen or eighty, you have things to offer that can help the company thrive.  The probability that those talents have become highly polished skills increases with experience.  Use yours with intelligence, grace, and collaboration.

This is not a case of insisting that the old ways are better.  This is a commitment to dealing with the current challenges well by bringing everything you can to bear.  In particular, learn to build alliances with those who understand what you don’t.  Together, the difference you can make will be huge.

Are you gobbling benefits?   Just because the company offers health insurance doesn’t mean you need to head for the doctor’s office every time you get a cold.  Many of us have gotten far too accustomed to solving our problems with pills.  The resulting skyrocketing health insurance costs has become a horrendous burden to most employers.  This is big piece of why ”older workers are more expensive.”  Keep yourself healthy instead of expecting doctors to do it for you.  (They can’t anyway.  They just figure out why you are sick–sometimes.)

The same is true for taking more than you really need as sick days.  It’s wiser to stay home if you have something communicable, but taking a sick day to coach a baseball game is neither honest or smart if you want to keep the job.

For those of you grumbling about how miserable your job is, here’s one last bit of advice.  If you don’t want it, someone else would be ecstatic to have it.   Suck it up, turn on your smile and do the very best job you can.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and CEO of Mining Silver, a company focused on using the talent of those over 50 more effectively.  She’s the author of Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Contact her at mary@mining-silver.com.

Being certain about what’s supposed to happen can be a major obstacle–on the job and in your personal life. 

There’s a big difference between being ready for what comes next and deciding you know what comes next.  The former is like returning the ball in a tennis match.  You need to do what you can to be ready to deal with what comes, but you are well aware that you won’t know what’s coming until it’s on the way.

Assuming you know what’s coming next is like deciding your opponent is going to lob the ball and positioning yourself for that before the shot.  You’re out of position for every other possibility that might come once the ball is on the way.  That’s far less effective–in tennis and in life. 

When you decide you know something you really can’t know, you’ve essentially decided all other possibilities don’t exist.  They become part of the “background noise” that your sensory system filters out before you even realize they’re there. You don’t decide on what they actually might offer because you’ve already decided they aren’t coming.

Ellen Langer puts it well in her 2009 book, Counterclockwise:  Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility :  “Certainty is a cruel mindset.”  She makes the point relative to medical care and illness, but it’s equally true for career planning, interpersonal relationships, and romance.

We get a lot of advice to “ask for what you want” and “visualize your ideal” but there’s a downside to that approach.  If I ask for a chocolate chip cookie and the person to whom I made the request is both capable of and willing to give me a glorious box of handmade chocolate truffles instead, I will never know what I missed out on.  If I write down that I want “a regular fulltime job with good benefits,” the chance to do something with an unconventional work schedule that suits me better will never hit my radar.

Yes, we need to know what we need and want.  And we need to be effective in expressing it.  But do the specifics make a difference?  If not, don’t use them.  ”A meaningful job doing challenging works with pay that covers my needs” leaves a lot more room for positive surprises than “a senior level accounting job in a Fortune 500 firm.”

To give yourself direction, be specific about what you need rather than what kind of clothes you’re going to be wearing when you get it.

In that same vein, stay open to being open.  Don’t rule anything out until you really look at it.  It’s easy to say you’re open to new directions, but it takes a concerted effort to get your mind to go to those unfamiliar places.  Look for the unusual possibilities and look at them when they appear.

Life is an adventure.  None of us know what is going to come next.  The better you get at dealing with what does (instead of deciding what should have) the more enjoyable the adventure will be.  And the better you will set things up for the next positive surprise.

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Mary Lloyd is a consultant , seminar leader, and speaker and author of Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.

Well, how much work is “enough”? And how much is too much? Or too little?  As so many of us grapple with being “out of work” these questions take on more significance.   And that’s good, because most of us look  at “work” as “whatever the boss tells me I have to do.”

Work is both bigger than that and more important than that.  How much of it you need in your life is not going to be the same as what your spouse, mom, kids, or best friend needs.  Work is a uniquely personal thing, yet we don’t often look at it that way.

We all need to work.   Much of it won’t be for  pay. but it’s still effort expended toward something bigger than your personal comfort.  So while we are waiting around for something that pays–or even better something that pays well–take a look at what work really means for you.

What’s the most important thing about work ?  The chance to excel?  The confirmation of competence that comes from getting paid?  Money to pay the bills?  The opportunity to make a difference or to solve a complex problem?  Knowing what’s the most important thing about work for you gives you a much better shot at being satisfied when you work.

It also will give you good clues about “how much is enough?”  If you are in it for the extrinsic motivators–a paycheck, a title, or recognition within a community, enough to get that will be all you need.  If you are in it for the intrinsic motivators–the chance to solve a problem, make a difference or be part of a highly productive team, the limiits are higher.  And the challenge of keeping your work  in balance with the rest of the things you want in your life is greater.

But how much is enough?  That, too, is personally defined.  The crazy thing is that we are all married to this “fulltime” mindset without any real evaluation of what would work best for us as individuals.

A lot of us are working fewer hours–for less pay–because of the downturn.  Do you like having that extra time for other things?  Could you live on that number of work hours on an on-going basis?

Others of us are working ourselves to a frazzle because we’re among the few left on board after deep and repeated staffing cuts.  Does the job do enough for you that you want to continue this pace?

Some of us were forced into retirement–or took  it willingly.    Is not working at all working for you?

We all need work.  What kind and how much is a far more personal decision than we usually make it.

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Mary Lloyd is CEO of Mining Silver and author of Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote and Do What You Love.

“Love what you do” is great advice, but what if you’re stuck in a job you hate?

Every so often, a new guru advocates “Do what you love.” It’s the best career advice ever, whether you’re just starting your work years or getting ready to throttle back for retirement.

But what if you’re already doing something you don‘t love?  Most of us can’t afford to just implode what’s paying the bills.  How do you get from what you are doing now—which you may literally hate—to what you really want to do without totally starting over?

• It doesn’t have to be a jump over the cliff. We tend to think either/or on this.  Keep doing what you’re making money at now or take a massive, scary leap into the unknown.  You can do a lot on your current job to prepare for that better work life.  Think remodel rather than demolition.

• Get real about what you want to do. Flesh out your dream job right now so you know what you’re getting into.  If you fantasize rather than taking a serious look, you see only the minuses of your current job and only the pluses of your dream job.  Be honest about that new work and thorough with the details. You’ll either be creating momentum for the day when you can make the transition or learning that your “dream job” isn’t all that much better—or maybe even different—than what you’re doing.

• Become a virtuoso at what you can now. Many of the skills you need for your “perfect work” can be developed in any job.  Follow-through, time management, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills are all transferable. Patience, tolerance, and persistence are attributes that are golden anywhere.  Work at becoming a superstar at these kinds of things right now.

• Find the center of the sweet spot. What’s most important about your dream job?  Sometimes the crux of what you yearn for can be part of what you are already doing.  If you can’t find a way to put it in your current work, give yourself that special thing in a hobby or with group involvement.  Doing so will whet you appetite for more and create the motivation to take bigger steps eventually.

• Educate yourself in small doses. The word “educate” conjures up expensive, time-intensive options—college degrees or formal training for accreditation of some sort.  That thinking makes the dream unachievable because the “entry fee” is more than you can handle either in time or money or both.

Get your education in smaller doses.  Read books.  Surf the Net.  Make friends with people who do what you want to do.  Join groups involved in that profession or interest area. You can learn a lot in doable steps if you get rid of the  idea that learning has to be in some kind of formal setting.  Plus as people in the field get to know you, you develop a network that you’ll need later.

• Don’t wait. Staying in a job you hate indefinitely is self-inflicted slavery.  Anything you can do to help yourself move toward something better is healthier emotionally.

Getting your feet wet has lots of benefits.  People in that field get to know you and start to appreciate you.  Your focus becomes sharper as you get more depth.  And if you do eventually decide to seek that formal credential, the coursework will be easier because you are already familiar with the terminology and the concepts.

Anybody can say “I hate my job.”  And any job is going to be awful on occasion.  But if you really need something different to make your heart sing, the only one stopping you is you.

You can change that.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

NOTE:  This post first appeared in the March 2010 edition of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO Mining Silver

This article originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of Barbara Morris’s newsletter Put Old on Hold.

Here we are again, at the beginning of another year.  And this year, we have a zero at the end of it, which means it’s a big deal year for many of us–a year to do “great things.” 

“I resolve to be a better person in 2010.”  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.

New Year’s resolutions don’t get us very far. All those newbies at the gym Jan. 2 are usually back on the couch watching TV in a couple of weeks.  Why?  Because those resolutions are typically based on seeing something wrong with ourselves.  It’s no fun to be flawed.  Much as we’d like to do better in certain ways, when the motivation to do so is mired in negativity, it’s hard to stay at it. 

Plus we tend to be rather global in how we phrase them.  “I’m going to find my dream job.”  Or “Be a better parent.”  That’s a lot to do with very little specific direction for doing it.

The start of a new year is a great time to stop and assess where you are and where you want to be.  It’s a great “landmark of time” to help us remember to take stock.  But the kind of planning common to New Year’s Day (or somewhere near it), tends to come across as inalterable.  That’s another reason New Year’s resolutions don’t work.

You don’t need “New Year’s resolutions,” you need goals if you want to make change really happen.  Goals are based on what you want rather than what’s wrong with you.  Plus, you can construct goals out of Spandex instead of January 1 cement.  As you work toward a goal, you learn more about what’s realistic and you modify the goal accordingly.  Sometimes that’s a case of reaching higher; sometimes it’s a U-turn from where you thought you needed to go.  Goals can flex.

So what does a good goal look like?

It states specific action.    A goal is about action; resolutions are about good intentions.  A goal defines how you are going to make the change.  For example “I will take a two-mile walk at least four times a week” rather than “I’m going to get in shape.” 

It’s measurable.    One of the keys to staying at something is being able to see progress.  When the change you are trying to make has milestones to it, you get an extra boost to keep going every time you pass one—sort of like mile markers in a race.  When you set a goal to lose ten pounds, losing that first pound makes you believe you can lose the second one, and so on.  Yes/no is a measurement, too.  Did you write that query letter?  Stop having lunch with the toxic gossip at work?   Get home from work by 6:00 four out of five nights a week?

Part of your measurement is a deadline for when you are going to have the goal accomplished.  You may need to modify the deadline, but don’t leave it off.  Goals without deadlines are much harder to make happen. 

It’s achievable.  Being realistic is another key to successful goal setting.  Commit to things that you can reasonably make happen in the time frame you set.  Telling yourself you are going to lose 50 pounds before Valentine’s Day is unworkable.  Set yourself up for success by establishing a pace for what you want to do that’s reasonable to accomplish.  If you get things going faster than you expected, you c an always change the goal to reflect the faster pace.

It’s relevant.  It’s got to be important to you for you to stay with it.  If you goal is to please a certain person (e.g. boss or spouse) including things they want instead to what makes your heart sing may work, but you will find much stronger motivation in laying it out according to your own value system.  Maybe “your health” isn’t so important, but your ability to continue to play your favorite sport is.  If so, cloak your health goals in what you need for your sport.

Find goals that excite and energize you—that make you want to start right now.  Resolutions just make you feel bad when you forget about them.  Goals have power.  Now’s a great time to set some.

Happy 2010!  May it be meaningful, satisfying, and full of joy.

Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver

With the current economic challenges, having a job is a big plus and keeping it is a must.   But sometimes, the wrong job can be even more emotionally destructive than having no job.   What do you do then?

Those of us who can at least see retirement on the horizon are legitimately even more skitterish.  When an older worker loses a job, it takes longer to find a new one.  Plus, once you are on the sidelines for a while, being older means being more vulnerable to losing confidence in yourself and letting go of work by default.  So we hunker down and keep the job we hate. 

We need to get smart about finding that next thing instead of remaining a victim of the lousy economy and horrid work situation.

The first step in a good job transition is knowing where you want to go.  If you need to find something else, be sure you are clear about why you need to change things.  Assuming that the reason work is bad is the boss or the company, when you hate that kind of work altogether is a ticket to a repeat of the job angst.  Take some time to think about what doesn’t work about this job and what’s behind that.  You may think your boss is the Ultimate Bossilla until you listen to what you friends and peers are saying about their bosses. 

Learn all you can about yourself so you have some certainty about what would be a great job for you.  Also be sure you’ve gotten to the actual core of why the current situation isn’t working.  If it’s just that the economy has slowed things down, planning an exit is a case of “out of the frying pan and into the fire.”  But if you have lost interest in the work you are now doing, maybe you need a new direction to get your mojo back.  Check this stuff out–and don’t just make a bunch of assumptions without getting real information.

The next step is to identify realistic options for working elsewhere.  Be forewarned, if you need to jump ship, you might end up starting a whole lot farther down the ladder with the new outfit.  This may be the best thing you ever did, but take the time to think about it.  Also think in terms of where you might be able to move within  your current company if it’s really a matter of bad boss or co-worker chemistry.   

This step has an unexpected and immediate benefit.  Sometimes when you take a close look at what else you could realistically do, the job you are doing becomes a whole lot more appealing.

Then figure out how to be really good at doing what you want to do next.  This may be by taking classes on your own.  It may be by talking with people who are already doing that kind of work.  It may be by applying yourself on your current job more diligently so that you develop skills needed for the next job.  As Thomas Edison said, “When opportunity arrives, many people miss it because it’s wearing overalls and looks like work.”  Do the work to get good enough to be valuable in the new arena. 

Build your network to include people with that interest and expertise.    Networking is not about collecting business cards from people you don’t know.  It’s about getting to know people–as friends–who are doing what you want to do.   You don’t have to like them personally or have the same politics to become good business buddies. 

The smartest thing anyone can do in a down economy is to be helpful in the business context.  If you see an article that someone else would appreciate, send them the link.  If you note a problem developing that a business friend needs to know about, give them the heads up (unless it involves a conflict of interest to do so).  Being kind is always in vogue, regardess of what the Wall Street stereotype is played like in the movies.

As a strategic capstone, keep doing your current job to the very best of your ability.  That is called integrity.  It doens’t make any difference if the whole rest of the world has lost it (which it hasn’t), operating to the best of your ability will keep you saner, happier, and more appealing as an employee–and a person

No matter how old you are, if you want to work, you can find work.  The best way to set yourself up so that you call the shots with that is to do what you love and be good at it.  So if your current job doesn’t give you that, you may need to change long term.  If you do, doing these things can make a big difference.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver

When it comes to job performance, most of us would prefer to be in the dark.  We see even the best critique of what we are doing for the company as criticism that isn’t fair or necessary.  But there’s gold in getting that feedback.  Knowing what you need to improve makes it a whole lot easier to work on it.

Younger workers want to believe they know it all when they’ve only had the chance to scrape the surface in terms of being good at the work they do.  But older workers can get complacent just as easily.  So anybody who wants to be really good at what they do (which is the best job insurance you can find) needs to have good systems in place for getting that feedback.  There are three realms of information that you can use.

Formal Performance Reviews:  Large companies have policies and procedures that require some kind of employee review, typically annually.    Most of us dread these.  Try not to.  Even if your boss is awful at them–which is too often the case, they are a place to start.  The trick is to not let that one feedback session be where you stop.

Take in what’s said, ask questions, and try to avoid the “yes but” reactions.  Supervisors are not always right, but arguing about the quality of your performance is not the way to change his or her mind.  To do that, you have to PERFORM differently.

So be sure you understand what you’re being told needs to change and then pursue additional information from other sources to confirm and expand on that.  Make a plan for how you’re going to improve and have another conversation with your boss about your intentions.  Then follow-through, even  if you are the only one keeping track of it.

Ideally, a supervisor gives feedback on performance on an ongoing basis.  If you are blessed with this kind of miracle, pay attention to what you’re being told.  But if you are not being told anything, don’t assume all is well.  Being good at what you do will make a huge difference in your job security; so take responsibility for it yourself.

Input from Peers, Clients, and Vendors:   You work with a lot of people on your job.  If you are paying attention, they are offering you feedback all day everyday.  Did one of your clients call Shipping directly instead of asking you to figure out what’s going on as your job description indicates?  Ask what made them feel that was a better way of doing it.  Encourage your customers to give you feedback.  Saying something like “I’m working on being sure I’m as accessible as my clients need.  Have there been any problems with you on that?” will both give you important information and create a better bond with that client.

Getting gentle feedback all along about things you need to improve on avoids that “hammer over the head” of being let go because you weren’t pulling as much weight as you thought.    Keep your ears open and follow up when you have the chance to learn what you could have done better.

And remember, it’s very comfortable to hear the nice things people see in you, but that’s not the feedback you really need.

Numbers, Ratings, and Reports:  Every job has something that you can quanitify and those numbers can help you keep track of how well you’re doing.  But be careful with this stuff.  Looking onlyat sales figures (or some other trackable performance number) isn’t wise.  But numbers have a quick, “snapshot” quality to them that makes them great for doing comparisons over time.

What dimensions of your job can you keep track of?  Sales calls?  Billable hours?  Test scores of your students on what you taught them?  Time between ordering and receiving the espresso drinks you create for customers?  Find ways to measure what you are trying to improve though, rather than trying to use existing but irrelevant numbers.  Keeping track of something will only help you improve if  the number relates to that aspect of your performance.

Bottom line to all of it is this:  Feedback on how to do you job better is far more important to your career than the “atta boys” we all love and seek.  The best job insurance is to be good at what you do. And to do that, you have to learn where you need to improve. 

There are ways.  Lots of ways.  Use them.