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People often say their lives are just too busy to add one more thing to their to-do list, even if it would bring them great personal satisfaction – or even advancement.

Often, it’s just fear that is holding them back.

A TV reporter who was dreaming of the day when she could walk away from the business told me she didn’t know what else she could do because all she knew was reporting. I pointed out that she understood  lighting, diction, wardrobe, research, pointed interviewing in a short period of time, how to appear credible on the air, all skills that someone – perhaps a newly-minted CEO, would be willing to pay her to teach him.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she replied.

As an outsider, the path was clear to me. She could identify a target audience of people who could use her services, figure out how to package herself as a professional groomer – much like “dressers” who prep celebrities and VIPs for red carpet events. Many in her target audience might well be people she had interviewed over the years. If she sat down and put together a business plan, she could figure out how to attract clients and get out from in front of the camera.

So far, she’s resisted taking action.

It isn’t that she isn’t capable. It’s that she fears walking away from the familiar and her guaranteed income. Usually, people wait until circumstances force them to act. Either they are fired or laid off or they get so unhappy with their current job that they start scrambling to find something else.

I recently heard Bill Banen, a time management expert, say, “When someone says ‘I don’t have time,’ that actually means ‘I don’t know how’ or that you have prioritized something else over this.”

So if you want to change jobs, buy a new house or simply read more but find yourself procrastinating, what are you really saying to yourself?

Are you afraid you can’t find a job in a tough economy? It may seem jobs are scare, but you still hear of people getting hired. What have they got that you haven’t? What did they do that you haven’t or won’t do? A house is a big financial commitment, but is it the money or the fact that you might have to rein in spending for a while? What else are you doing with your free time that’s keeping you from relaxing with a good book? Watching CSI reruns?

The trick is to identify what’s stopping you, figure out how to move forward and then take the time to make it happen.

Banen recommends setting aside an hour each day to focus on something you want or need to do. Set your timer for 50 minutes and work without distractions. Turn off the TV, the cell phone, hang a Do Not Disturb sign on your door. When the timer goes off, the last 10 minutes of the hour are free for stretching, checking e-mail, whatever distractions you’ve delayed.

What you may discover is that during that concentrated period you have accomplished more than you thought possible. Each day, I schedule an appointment for a midday walk so that I’m forced to take a break and get in daily exercise. The duration may vary, but it’s in the schedule faithfully, and it provides a chance to relax my mind and come back to my desk rejuvenated .

Planning is  like running up a steep hill. If you look at the top before you start, you’ll be convinced you can’t make it. If you focus on a step at a time, the next thing you know, you’re at the top.

You can begin to control your circumstances or let them control you. What are you waiting for?

I had a dinner party last night with two young musicians who recently moved to the D.C. area. They had been based in Atlanta, but kept getting gigs in and near Washington, so they packed up and headed north and are now building a following in a new town.

As they talked about all the different kinds of gigs they’ve been offered, the pitfalls of some of the pay arrangements that are out there for musicians, the fact that part-time musicians who perform for free because they have full-time jobs to support them make it tough for full-time musicians to earn a living, it became clear that none of that stood in the way of their plan to rely solely on their music.

“There’s only Plan A,” Steve said. “If you have a Plan B it gets in the way of the dream and you never get to Plan A.”

He and his partner Kim never said the route they chose was smooth, that they expected things to come together quickly and easily, but they are musicians and it is their intention to be musicians, full time, every day.

Just a few days earlier, I was at a meeting with a small group of people who decided 2010 was going to be the year of reinvention for them. They were going to break out from the confines of previous jobs and begin to do what they love. A few had been bought out or laid off. One person was walking away from 30 years in one industry to pursue a completely unrelated career. Another was doing what she loved and she was intent on continuing it without going back to an office job to make ends meet as she grew in her new vocation.

In all these cases, folks acknowledged their fears – not having enough money, losing the sense of identity that comes with a longtime career, dealing with the opinons of people who don’t support the dream – but they also committed to releasing the fear and not being deterred from their goals.

As someone who often has coached people to move gradually to Plan A, with Plan B in their pockets, I began to wonder if that might be a disservice. Perhaps, the question to answer is why not focus only on Plan A?

What is your fear? That you might be happier? That you will discover what you are truly capable of? That you might succeed?

Rather than let the fear keep you from trying, rather than dip your toe in the water instead of jumping or wading in, perhaps it is time to take the plunge.

At the very least, it is time to be open to the possibility that you can have what you want if you go for it.  What has methodical, even excessive, caution gotten you?

Perhaps it’s time to step out on faith and take care of the business of you.

Many of us look foward to the holidays as an opportunity to give gifts to family and friends. We love watching their eyes light up if we manage to nail the perfect gift.

Let me suggest one more gift to put on your list this year: Taking Care of the Businesss of You.

We all get caught up in taking care of other people, satisfying a mate/a boss/a child/a parent/a friend. Sometimes we forget that if we don’t take care of ourselves that taking care of these other folks can’t happen.

Don’t wait for a New Year’s resolution to motivate yourself. It’s too easy to set a goal that gets set aside when all the other demands begin to hit after the holidays.

Start small. Whether it’s giving yourself time to take a 15 minute walk, read a book or register for a class, schedule the time and treat it like an appointment.

Next, make a list of what you want to do in the next three to six months, whether it’s a change of jobs, a promotion or getting up the courage to ask for a raise – even in this economic climate. Then figure out how you’re going to make it happen. Put together a game plan and do it.

If you need help, enlist a partner, a mentor, a minister to get started. Think about hiring a life or career coach to help you develop a game plan. Investing in yourself is not only the greatest gift you can give yourself, it’s a gift to your loved ones, too. A better you is a more engaged you, someone who can give and do more, someone who understands balance and taking time for the joy, love and laughter that are important not just during the holidays, but always.

Happy Holidays and may the New Year find you already on the path to Taking Care of the Business of You.

In the season of Thanksgiving, I recently learned I was a little less grateful than I thought I was. And for those of us wrestling with uncertainty, fearing the loss of a job or coping with one it is easy to forget there is still much for which to be thankful.

I recently read a blog by Boyce Watkins, a business professor at Syracuse University, who said, basically, there is no such thing as unemployment. We all work, even if our job at the moment is finding a job. We all expend energy trying to earn a living, grow professionally and realize our goals and dreams.

If we focus on what we do, rather than what we don’t, we may well just work ourselves into the place we want to be. If, instead, we focus on what makes us unhappy, what we don’t have, where we’re not going – or spend all our time going and doing and not paying attention to the sights along the way – we end up sad, empty handed and directionless.

The first step is to think about for whom and what we are thankful and look for ways to embrace them more fully.

I went to a cousin’s funeral last week and learned that my self-absorption had cost me a lot of valuable time getting to know my extended family.

My cousin Kevin suffered a near fatal beating several years ago, while doing some community work. He was never quite the same after that. He seemed to move and talk like someone who had suffered a serious stroke. What I didn’t know until the day of his funeral was he also had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I don’t know whether the diagnosis was before or after the beating. In fact, there was a lot I didn’t know about my cousin.

My cousin, whom I remembered as someone who always had a big smile and a kind word for everybody, was also a Hindi and a spiritual mentor. He wrote incredible essays that explained the purpose of human life and the soul and how we lead one affects the other.

As the testimonials came forward, I discovered one of his nephews, affectionately known as “Baby Kevin,” although he is now near 40, had a wonderful voice as he got up and sang “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Who knew? Other cousins came forward with music, poetry and heartfelt memories, sharing talents that I assumed had been hidden from view, but I soon realized I had simply not spent enough time around them to know what they could do.

I also learned that despite his suffering, Kevin never complained. I mean NEVER. Every person who spoke about him, every person who was there in his final days, from his immediate family, to the cousin who went to his home daily to check on him, prepare meals, make sure he ate and took his medication, said he never cursed his condition, never despaired, never wondered why he was chosen to suffer, never thought he had been treated unfairly.

I looked around at my talented family whom I seemed barely to know and vowed that I would work at getting closer to them and that I was done complaining.

I am thankful for awareness and the ability to reconnect. I am healthy; I am working; I am alive and thinking and feeling and able to interact with people. That is an opportunity to be embraced.

‘Tis the season to be jolly – and happy, and loving, and dedicated to being better not just personally, but professionally. I am certain that the spirit you share with loved ones can spill over and serve you just as well in the workplace.

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving – and a joyous professional future.

At the end of my freshman year in high school, I asked teachers as well as friends to sign my yearbook. One of the nuns, my favorite who taught Latin, wrote: Jackie, don’t be such a worry wort!

I had no idea what a worry wort was, but a friend quickly explained that it was someone who fretted over just about everything. I protested a bit, but it was true. I worried about every grade, what people thought about me, whether they thought about me, whether I measured up and, if I thought I didn’t, how I could change to do so.

Like most folks, I look back on those years and wish that I knew then what I know now: You can’t do everything; you can’t please everyone and, frankly, you probably don’t want to.

But it took me a long while to get there.

As a young professional I fretted over work and if I made a mistake I was completely mortified. If a supervisor leaned into me at all about it I pretty much folded like a cheap card table. I tried to remain cool on the outside, but inside I was just a mess.  And sometimes I made things worse because I was so nervous that I was constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering if I was being watched, instead of concentrating on work. It didn’t help that I was sometimes taken to task publicly – as if I wasn’t chagrined enough to have made the mistake in the first place.

There’s an old saying: A jealous man can’t work. Well, neither can a nervous worker. A workplace study http://news.ufl.edu/2008/01/24/rude-workplace-2/ found that even mild criticism, especially delivered publicly, can affect productivity and creativity in the workplace.

“We found that even when the rude behavior is pretty mild, it impairs a person’s cognitive functioning and has spillover effects in how they treat their co-workers,” said Amir Erez, a professor of management at the University of Florida, who co-authored the study.

So how do you handle it when it happens to you?

Many workers find approaching the boss and trying to talk it over doesn’t usually solve the problem because the supervisor doesn’t want to be put on the spot about the behavior and is likely to find more fault with you – even if it’s largely bluster.

The challenge, then, is to find a way to shake it off and focus on being better at what you do. It may have just been a one-shot deal that won’t happen again. If it is a chronic issue, find a way to change the way you operate so that you can avoid making the mistake again. Whether it’s a mantra, changing your routine or finding out where the mistake occurred and setting up a system that flags the potential for it, figure out what you need to do and just do it.

Whatever you do, don’t let a mistake define you. Once you start looking at yourself as inept, or doomed, you pretty much are. Don’t let that nagging voice – your boss’ or yours – stay in your head. Think about what you do when you’re at the top of your game and figure out how to recreate that feeling – if only in your mind.

Create the environment you need to do your best work and don’t be a worry wort.

I read an article in “Black Enterprise” magazine recently in which Chris Gardner, author of “The Pursuit of Happyness” and subject of a movie by the same name starring Will Smith, said he and the partners at his financial services firm had agreed not to accept the recession.

Gardner wasn’t in denial. He acknowledged it was out there, but he said he refused to let it pull him down. In fact, he said later in the article, that he got some additional business from clients who wouldn’t have looked at his firm a few years ago, but his success suddenly started looking good to them and in this kind of economy — in so many words — doing well was the best revenge.

I thought about that and wondered how many of us talk ourselves out of success because of all the excuses that flutter through our minds and what would happen if we just refused to give in to our psychic bullies?

Yes, the economy is rocky, various industries are suffering and some of us have been laid off, bought out, taken deep pay cuts or wonder if any of these things is in our future. That said, we still have bad habits like eating and paying the rent. So what are we to do?

First of all, take inventory. Figure out what you have going for you and how to make it work for you. Become the go-to person for something of value in your organization.

Next, do your homework. Know your employer’s goals and values and what you can do to meet them. It’s important to work hard, but it’s more important to work smart. If you are producing work that is not valued in your workplace, then you must decide whether you want to remain in that organization and if so what you need to do to make that happen.

Every experience counts. You may currently be in a role that is not your dream job, but the most successful people understand how every role in the organization contributes to the bottom line. And once you know how to do that job, it’s one more skill in your toolkit.

Watch any of the competitive reality shows (i.e. Design Star, Top Chef, Project Runway). Those who fare the best are the ones who have multiple skills. They can execute their visions because they have a wide range of experiences. If you look at a less than plum assignment as an opportunity to learn rather than a punishment, you may be able to turn it into a better opportunity.

But most importantly, your attitude will carry the day.

If you approach everything as though it’s ultimately for your good – even when it feels like a setback – you will develop the drive and persistence that will see you through. If you apply for a job or a promotion and don’t get it, find out why. Find out what the employer is looking for in candidates. Ask questions, prepare yourself to be what you want to be.

Develop a strategy that puts you in the position you want. You may not want to own your own business, but think about your career like an entrepreneur. In the end, it’s all about the business of you.

The call is yours. Refuse to lose.

Journalists have been buzzing about the news that disgraced journalist Jayson Blair has risen from the ashes of plagiarism and fabrication to find a career as a life coach.

Some feel he doesn’t deserve to be allowed to work at anything that has any intrinsic value to people because he betrayed the public’s trust. Others just feel he doesn’t deserve to ever be happy.

For those who missed it, or have forgotten, Blair was forced out as a New York Times reporter in 2003 after an internal investigation revealed that he had made up quotes, pretended to be reporting from places he had not gone, made up details and plagiarized from the stories of others.

Perhaps the great irony is that one of the stories that finally led to his undoing involved his plagiarism and fabrications in the tale of Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in 2003. The narrative of an attack on Lynch’s convoy, her injury, capture and hospitalizaton was embellished by the military and the Bush administration into a tale of heroism that didn’t quite happen the way the public initially was led to believe.

Shortly after The Times’ scandal erupted and Blair’s resignation, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After some time in treatment and looking for a way to get his life in order, including writing a highly ridiculed book about his experiences at The Times, Blair earned his life coach certification and now works for a psychological practice in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Unlike a lot of people, however, news about Blair’s career as a life coach doesn’t upset me. In fact, in many ways it makes perfect sense. He knows exactly what it means to blow it all and have to figure out how to put life back together.

A lot of people don’t have anyone to walk them through that process when they experience something similar – or worse. What we need to understand is that even at our lowest moments, we have reason to keep living, keep trying, keep looking for the silver lining. Life goes on and we had better get on with ours.

The lies of his life are the truth of his life. He was a liar and a cheat and, eventually, he got caught. He could have spent the rest of his life in denial and pretending to be a victim or he could determine that he wasn’t destined to be a pariah for life and that he actually might be able to put that experience to some use that would not only be healthy for him but could help others.

Resurrecting himself is the ultimate lead-by-example message.

Some folks, including a number of journalists, want to stay angry with Blair. They want him to continue to be punished for what he did in the name of journalism. They want him to roast.

Well, he certainly won’t ever be a member of the journalistic fraternity again, which for those who hold dear the highest standards of journalism such ostracism would be punishment enough. In fact, Blair told The Washington Post just that.

“There is nothing I ever wanted to do other than be a journalist,” he told the newspaper, which pointed out that Blair said he still grieved for his career and his role in ruining it.

Most of us like tales of redemption – someone who overcomes poverty, drugs, prison, abuse to become solid citizens who contribute to their community. Some of us only want those happy endings, though, for people we have judged to be deserving. Many of us, too, want to find ways to do something useful that contributes to society and makes us feel good about ourselves.

Jayson Blair may have found just that.

I can’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether he “deserves” it. As a life and career coach, I assume we all deserve chances to find our purpose and passion in life and to pursue it. Blair can’t be a journalist, but he can become a better person by helping others to do the same for themselves.

If he can emerge from scandal with a stronger sense of self-worth, then maybe we ought to stop making excuses to hold ourselves back.

I met with a young client who just completed his master’s degree and he feels just as unsure now about what he wants to do for a living as he did when he started the program.

Oh, he’s learned a number of skills and feels immensely smarter than he did two years ago. In fact, he has learned so much and has found so many things that interest him that he can’t figure out where to start.

He came to me for a reality check. He wanted to be sure he wasn’t the only person to spend six years in college and still not know what he wants to be when he grows up.

“By this point in my career, should I be sure?” he asked. “Is something wrong with me for not being sure?”

Well, whoever coined the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a sure thing,” must have known what many of us have discovered over time: Even when you think you’re sure, things can change. And not being sure to begin with is something lots of people go through, regardless of whether they are willing to admit it.

I asked the student if he was in a hurry to decide. He said he had a supportive family, no debt and relatives with family businesses he could work in if push came to shove. With the sense of urgency out of the way, I asked him what really turned him on.

There were two or three things at the top of his list. We then proceeded to brainstorm ways he could pursue one or all of these passions to create his dream job – or at least something he would be comfortable doing while he figured out what might be his dream job.

He has plenty of tools. He has a master’s degree, so teaching is always an option. He is a good writer, a photographer and understands the Internet and social media. His undergraduate background was in history, so he knows how to use research. He loves to travel and has done so extensively.

Little by little, we chipped away at short-term and long-term ideas, what he could do at this moment to create some freelance income, how to identify alternatives and how not to panic that he doesn’t have a game plan completely drawn up.

It’s okay not to know what you want. What’s not okay is not to try anything because you’re afraid it will be the wrong thing.

No matter how old you are, it’s okay to try something and drop it if it’s not working for you. Now, if you’re responsible for the rent/mortgage, caring for children or parents, etc., you know you have to ensure a basic income, but it doesn’t mean you can’t develop side jobs or freelance opportunities to test the waters. If you’re pursuing a passion it’s more than a second job. It’s a chance to see if you can make a go of something you really want to do.

You can work a regular job and make jewelry on the weekends, paint, sell baked goods, etc. You can find ways to finance a return to school without plunging into debt with loans, etc.

Fear is your biggest enemy. It can stop you from trying something because the one thing trying can’t promise you is certain success. But the fact that you make the attempt is success in and of itself. So many people haven’t figured out how to give themselves permission to act. Once you give yourself the freedom to go for it, you’ve already accomplished something major.

And that, my friends, is a sure thing.

I was recently looking over a handout given to college students on Effective Interviewing and Salary Negotiation. It listed a series of sample questions ranging from tell-me-about-yourself to why-should-I-hire-you to where-do-you-see-yourself-in-five-years?

Highly experienced people tend to cringe when they find themselves answering the kinds of questions they answered, 10, 15, 20 years ago or more. But in these challenging economic times, many people are finding they have to answer those questions from prospective employers who want positive, upbeat responses that tell them they are hiring people who are still eager to work and will show up with a positive attitude.

That’s hard work for some folks. If you love your job, like your bosses and co-workers and only recently had to think about what to do if that job disappeared, the idea of talking about where you see yourself in five years doesn’t sit well.

In 1981, the newspaper I worked for folded. Fortunately, it was a well-respected publication and dozens of editors from other newspapers showed up in its offices to recruit its employees. True to form, the recruiters asked all the questions you get under normal job-hunting circumstances.
What do you know about our paper/town? Are you looking to settle down in (name of city) or are you looking for a short-term position? Where do you see yourself in five years?

As I met with each prospective employer, I started out pretty upbeat. After meeting with several in one day, fielding a ton of questions and not knowing if I were any closer to finding a job before the paper’s last edition went to print, I lost it with one employer when he asked where I saw myself in five years and was I committed to the area in which his newspaper was based (which was two time zones away). I broke it down to a basic summary: I was where I wanted to be and was taken by surprise by the announcement the paper was folding; in five years I expected to still be working as a reporter; I was a single parent with a 6-year-old boy to raise and needed a job; hire me and I’ll show you commitment.

Clearly, that was the wrong response. No matter how much an employer encourages you to be frank, you usually ought to keep those kinds of feelings to yourself.

What you want to emphasize is that you are smart, capable, hard-working and willing to be the best employee you can be. Even if you’re being pulled away from the job/town/friends & family you love, employers want to believe that you want to work for them. Loyalty is a valued premium. Do your homework about the job and show the bosses what you know about the firm, that you share its mission or values, tell them what added value you bring to the table and tell them that you can be a team player. If you can do that you are in a much better position to snag the job.

Make a list of the kinds of questions you expect — good, bad and downright silly (Why are you leaving your current position? Yes, it has been asked of those laid off or bought out.) — and have someone practice with you before you go on the interview. Better yet, if you can, videotape yourself and watch your body language and how you respond to questions. Do your interview clothes fit well? Do you need to update your look? You want to look like a fit, confident, poised candidate, even if deep down you just want to scream and pound the desk.

This is also an opportunity for you to make sure you are matching up with the kind of company for which you want to work. Ask questions of the interviewer that show you have thought a lot about that particular company and that will tell you whether the organizational culture will be a good fit for you. Once you get an offer, take a day or two to think things over and be sure this is a place you really want to work. You don’t want to take a job because you feel desperate instead of confident.

Times may be tight, but that’s no reason to make a bad decision. In fact, it is more important than ever to make the move that best serves you not only now but in the future.

A former client sent me an e-mail recently telling me that her newspaper is moving all of its operations to a slightly larger sister paper in the company chain and that she has been offered an opportunity to move. There are open positions that remain at her paper and several more at the sister paper and she’s trying to decide what to do.

At a recent conference, a young woman told me and my fellow panelists that her newspaper had shelved its online unit, which she thought was counterintuitive and she worried that it might be a sign that more layoffs or buyouts were ahead or that her newspaper might be closing.

What neither of these journalists had done was their homework about the company for which they work.

In each of these instances, the company had made a decision to regionalize or centralize its operation. Each of these journalists needed to do her homework and see where the company was putting its resources so she could figure out where and how she could fit in.

Employees can no longer ignore the inner workings at their jobs. When I got my first job I didn’t even think about negotiating a salary. I was offered a position, told what the salary and the benefits were for the job and I accepted and went to work and it went that way through several positions before I thought I was in a position to negotiate. Most people know how to cut a deal to get in the door, but they don’t know how to work the system to stay inside.

I certainly never thought about how the place operated, how it really made money or what happened outside of my department.

Those days are gone. Employees have to know what their company’s priorities are and which positions feed those goals and whether they are in those positions or have a realistic chance of getting there.

The old saw about working smarter, not harder, has never been more true. It’s not just putting in more hours, producing more of whatever it is you produce that will make employers happy. If you are creating more of something they don’t want, you’re going to end up on the path to nowhere.

In the case of the woman whose newspaper was slowly dismantling the online division, the parent company had decided to centralize its online operations. All of its national and international coverage would come through once source and be distributed to all the newspapers in the chain. The only contribution individual newspapers would make would be local stories from the communities they served. Reporters for the newspaper would continue to write both for the newspaper and the Web site. That cuts out a lot of expense for the corporation. If the young woman wants to stay at the paper, she’s better off staying put and learning some Web skills for the future, in case she decides to leave for an online operation.

My former client is in a similar situation. All the editing for the newspapers in her region will be done by one big editing staff at one site. Trying to remain an editor at her current paper is likely to result in a job loss if she doesn’t move to the larger operation. The opportunities to move up in the editing ranks soon will no longer exist where she works now. She can resist the move and risk soon being out of work or not having a better job to move up to. The move to a new community will be far enough away that she will have to move, but she still will be in driving distance to friends and family.

In a tight economy you have to figure out how to stay employed and how to prepare yourself when the position you want comes along when things get flush again. And they will.