More To Life Than Shoes

OK, so it's not quite the new year, and we're all buzzing with talk of Christmas parties. But surely, fun at work shouldn't just come from getting hammered once a year and indulging in extra-curricular naughties on the photocopier. (Does anyone really do that?)

If the idea of going back to work after Christmas makes you want to do a runner in your reindeer jumper, read on.

If you don’t love what you do, there’s something wrong. Life without passion: it’s a hollow existence. Grey mornings, dull evenings and long boring bits in between – it’s not much fun. Plus, the chances are, if work is dullsville, it’ll impact on the rest of your life. You could become a comfort-eating, telly-watching moaner who’s no fun to be around.

Work is not a prison sentence and if we love our work we’ll be a hell of a lot better at it.

Surely, it would make more sense to work our thing and do something we love, instead of moaning to our friends, moping around and self harming using Dairy Milk.

For some people, passion seems to burn inside them. They’ve always known what they wanted to do with their lives. They have to do as their passion tells them; there’s no other option. It’s a done deal. Well, it’s alright for them, but what about the rest of us? When we were kids we might have passionately wanted to be an astronaut, a professional showjumper, but nowadays that all seems like a lifetime away. Having time and energy to think about our passions is a luxury we can’t afford. We’ve got no clear vision of where we’re going or what we want to do. So how do we go about getting some oomph in our lives?

Here are my top tips for loving what you do:

Passion can be a hard thing to uncover. It can take some people years to work out what’s going to make them leap out of bed in the mornings. But we’re not disheartened - we think the process of finding out what floats your boat is fun. It’s a chance to try new stuff, notice things around us and meet exciting new people. Not a bad way to spend our time, we reckon. One day it’ll hit us, and things will never be the same again.

Get skilled up: So you're good at hoarding old shoes, well, now's the time to gather skills. Bide your time and take the opportunity to learn as many new and useful skills as possible. Go on courses, learn computer programmes or languages, get qualified - by adding to your CV and your braincells, you're getting ready for the right moment to take over the world. You might even find that your employer will pay (just don't tell them you're planning to jump ship!)

Give your job a much needed fun-injection - Find ways of combining the things you love with your job. Start a company magazine, podcast, revamp the canteen, organise work events or outings, plan charity fundraisers etc .

Embrace the side project- you'll be amazed what you can get done during your lunch hour, on the tube and instead of watching TV. We've met some remarkable women (read interviews in our book More To Life Than Shoes: How to Kick-start Your Career and Change Your Life) who've achieved great things whilst working full time - especially Preethi Nair who wrote her bestselling novel on the tube during a long sweaty commute! So, start planning a new business, get started on your blog or do an evening class - embrace the "side hustle."

Get some More To Life Than Shoes action in your life! Get together with girls in your office or in your local area and start a More To Life Than Shoes group to to get your regular fix of new ideas, new friends and new energy and make it happen. Members of MTLTS are bagging their dream jobs, writing books, starting businesses and getting promoted. It's a great way of getting the support, inspiration and encouragement you need to make a change.

Break it down: We’re not saying you need to jack in your job, move country or rent premises, well not right away. Once you know what you want to do, break it into smaller steps, and then just take the first of them. Do some research, apply for courses – these aren’t scary things. Start out small and gradually things will happen. 

It is only November, people, so there's plenty of time to get cracking at this before Christmas is actually upon us and we're lost in a haze of mulled wine and bad knitwear.

Good luck!

As a professional or a businessperson, how do you stand out from the competition and explain to people why they should pick you above your competitors? I hear this question all the time from accountants, management consultants, HR experts, lawyers and coaches, and it applies equally to many other small business owners.

My clients often bemoan the fact that a competitor has a much higher profile than they do, often with much less experience. What are they doing wrong? Usually, they're missing the fact that their competitor has simply found a way to convey their uniqueness to their clients and create a compelling argument for why any client should sign up with them.

How can you get people to pick you?
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What’s going on with my current clients?
It can pay to sell yourself as a specialist. For example, if you are a therapist with a large percentage of clients who have depression, perhaps it makes sense to use that as your uniquene selling point (U.S.P) -  that you specialise in working with depression.

If most of your clients are coming to you for a specific reason, even if you could be doing a wider variety of work, perhaps you should be sticking to what you already do well. Someone is sending you a message somewhere!

What do I have that is different from everyone else?
This is a difficult one and you may have to dig deep. But what do clients say about working with you? Do you have qualifications over and above your professional competitors? Celebrity clients? These don’t even have to be the Grazia and OK type of celebrities, even household business names come under celebrity status when it comes to PR. Name drop with impunity! What do you do for your clients beyond the call of duty? Really think about what it is you offer them.

 And if you can’t think of anything...then start doing something. Today.

Work a little differently, give them added extras. Just make a difference.

Is it time to Get Over Myself?
Shyness is acceptable in your first job. But that was then. Most clients would rather work with someone who is confident, unflustered and doesn't go to pieces at the thought of being in the spotlight, So, If you have any qualms about putting yourself forward, get over them.

 You can promote yourself in a way that doesn’t involve putting down others, resorting to bragging or lying or hot air. Be proud about what you have achieved, show people the professionalism you put into your work and the delight you get out of it.

Share success on social media platforms, at networking events, support your clients publicly and even create your own community of loyal clients and customers. You can do this virtually on places like Facebook or in real life by organising events (one of my successful marketing activities has been to organise occasional PR and networking evenings – for free).

How can I turn my competitors into compatriots?
Create a special interest or mastermind group where you can interact with other figures in your industry. Hunt out professional bodies and events when you will find them. Befriend them, create special projects and start working with rather than against them.

Do you have a novel in you?

But when NaNoWriMo finished, I was back to the problem of working without a deadline. With no word count to meet, I’ve been noodling around with planning and structures and generally procrastinating for a few months now. My inner editor is having a field day. But last month I discovered a new way of imposing my own personal deadline. 750words.com is a website that encourages you in the practice of ‘morning pages’, a technique suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self. It’s simple – start your day by writing 3 pages, or 750 words, on anything that comes into your head. It can be your dreams, a diary, a rant, your random thoughts – whatever it is, it’s like an idea-dump. Whether you’re writing a novel, a blog or a personal journal, forcing yourself to write when your brain is still fresh will clear your thought process for the day. The website sends you friendly reminder emails, counts your words, and gives you pretty graphs and tables about what you're writing to give you some insight into how your brain is working.

750 words a day is a picnic compared to NaNoWriMo, but even so, when I checked my monthly word count recently I discovered I was well on the way to 12,000 words this month. It was a good feeling. With a 6-month old baby to look after, I sometimes feel like I’m not going to have any time to myself until he leaves home at 18. But I can manage 750 words, and my morning pages are proving to me that it is possible to get a novel finished, one tiny step at a time.

These top tips are taken from 'More To Life Than Shoes: How to Kick-start Your Career and Change Your Life' by Nadia Finer and Emily Nash.

Ella Heeks became MD of organic veg box company Abel and Cole in her twenties, but the company didn’t even know they needed her until she came along and told them so. She shares her top tips for creating your perfect job and making sure you get it. 

1. Build Your Hit List
‘Do your research. Identify the kind of company you want to work for, then make a list of who’s out there and target them. This is about so much more than scanning the jobs pages over a cuppa – it’s targeted, specific research. You should end up with a hit list of dream employers. Now you can go to them instead of waiting for them to come to you.’

 2. Work Your Assets
Before you rush in, work out what skills you’ll need to be useful to them, and then make sure you can put them on your CV. Make yourself irresistible – think about what would catch an employer’s eye, making it impossible for them to turn you down. If you don’t have these things, get on it – take a course, land an internship or find some work experience. Don’t blow your chances by rushing in ... only fools do that. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about here.’

3. Create Your Job
‘Don’t wait for a job to be advertised. Your ideal role might not even exist yet, so you may need to make it up. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘I’d love to work for you but realize you might not have any jobs. Could I talk to you anyway?’’

 4. Big Yourself Up
Build your confidence before you make the call. Think about all the reasons why these people would be really lucky to have you there. Good salesmanship is about listening to the person you’re talking to, finding out what they need and then explaining how you could meet that need.’

5. Give Yourself Away
'Suggest a trial period to show what you can do. You could even offer to demonstrate your abilities for free for a while, if you can afford to. Don’t be sniffy about working for free – it could get you a foot in the door to your perfect job, which will pay off later.’

Get more top tips on everything from protecting your invention to getting organised in 'More To Life Than Shoes: How to Kick-start Your Career and Change Your Life.