This is the next in an ongoing series of posts  I'm doing about how to use design thinking in your career.  When we last left off in the Designing Your Career series, we had entered the Ideation phase where we talked about how to brainstorm potential ideas for experimentation. In this post we're going to discuss how to do a "reality check" on your ideas and how to begin evolving your thoughts for the next phase, Experimentation.  Reality Check As you look at the promising ideas you've developed in your initial brainstorming, you'll want to do some "reality checks" on these ideas in order to further evolve your thinking. Remember, we're brainstorming and exploring ideas that will help you grow your career and design a work life for yourself that meets your criteria for success.  For each promising idea you've identified, explore these questions: What's at the heart of this idea? What values is it expressing for you? What real needs or issues is your idea addressing? Let's say that you're exploring the possibility of starting a "side gig." What's attractive to you about this idea? Is it a need for freedom and independence? Is it about being able to utilize and express different aspects of yourself? The more you understand what's underneath your idea, the more open to all possiblities you become.  What are the constraints on your idea? What are the challenges and barriers you may face in implementing your idea? Who in your life might oppose what you're thinking? Remember, constraints or limitations don't have to be insurmountable. They merely give you a sense of where you may have to be more persistent or creative in your thinking.   Brainstorm new solutions. First look at the underlying values you identified previously. Are there other ways that you could express or connect to these values? Then brainstorm ways that you might address the challenges you identified. It can be helpful if you go back to the core group of people you were working with in your initial brainstorming session. They can often offer different perspectives or ideas for how to address these issues.  Work with each of the ideas you came up with in your initial session in this same way. Once you're finished, take a step back and see which ones feel most "do-able" at this time. Which of your ideas has the most juice and energy for you? Those are the ideas you'll want to experiment with, at least initially.  Make sure to archive any ideas you don't want to work with at this time. It may be that at a later point, you decide you want to go back to them. I have entire notebooks of ideas that I've been playing around with for years. Sometimes it's a matter of the right time and people coming together for an idea to take on some new life.    Summarize Your Idea(s) At this point, your ideas will have gone through several iterations. It can be helpful to summarize and refine it as you prepare to go into the Experimentation phase.  Take a look at your notes and field research and then try to capture your current understanding of your idea.  Give it a title--try something playful or inspiring.  Write a one-sentence summary--what's the heart of your idea?  Describe how your idea would work--what would you be doing? What needs and opportunities do you see in your idea? Who are other people involved in this and how can you get their support? What value and benefits for yourself and others do you see in your idea? How will this address your career and life aspirations?  What questions do you have? What is still open or uncertain for you?  Again, it can be helpful to share this next write-up with your brainstorming team. They may provide you with additional ideas and information or point out holes in your thinking.    In the next post in this series, we're going to look at how you play with your ideas in the Experimentation phase. This will be all about testing and trying out, pushing the edges of your comfort zone and being open to what you learn in the process. Stay tuned!    

As a career coach, I've found that I'm most likely to be working with people in some kind of career crisis. Either they are unemployed and trying to find a new job or they have reached some kind of difficult tipping point in their careers where their unhappiness drives them to take action.  When people are in these situations, they tend to focus on practical things: How do I write a resume? How do I do a good job during an interview? How can I network more effectively? How do I make a career change? How do I start my own business? But in focusing on these practical "next steps," they often neglect to deal with the negative thoughts and feelings they are having related to their current circumstances. This is emotional baggage that can really weigh them down. For example, many people who are unemployed have a lot of unresolved anger and resentment about how they were treated by their previous company or organization both before and after their layoff. They can also have feelings of anxiety, fear, stress and even shame. These negative feelings often come across to potential employers and to networking contacts and can make it much harder for people to find a new job.  I also see a lot of people in really toxic work environments. They are stressed out by the demands of their jobs and dealing with a never-ending series of office dramas, petty politics and even bullying. This type of situation creates its own emotional baggage that can have wide-reaching impacts on people both in their work and personal lives. Work performance starts to suffer and if the person tries to job search in this mode, potential employers will definitely know that something is going on and tend to react negatively.  The Symptoms of Difficult Circumstances Regardless of the cause--unemployment, a toxic workplace--these people tend to share some similar symptoms: Feeling more negative emotions--finding it harder to laugh, feeling irritable, anxious or despairing. Greater difficulty with sleep, including problems falling asleep and/or staying asleep. More aches and pains, including headaches, stomach aches and other physical symptoms related to stress. Problems in  personal relationships with family and friends. They may have more frequent arguments or feel more irritated with people in their lives, both at home and at work. Feelings of isolation and loneliness and a desire to withdraw from their usual social activities. Obsessing about their situation, dwelling on worst case scenarios and/or anger with the situation and the people they feel have contributed to it.  Often what is going on is that people are trying to block their emotions around their difficult circumstances, afraid to really confront and deal with the negative thoughts and feelings that plague them. But emotions will not be denied. They may go underground for a bit, but they always come out and demand that we do something to address them. That's when these kinds of symptoms start to show up. Writing Through Your Negative Thoughts and Feelings Dealing with our emotional baggage is one of the greatest things we can do to get ourselves unstuck and re-energized. Surprisingly, one of the most effective ways for dealing with these situations is to use what's called "expressive writing"--a research-backed approach to writing about the thoughts and feelings we are having related to difficult circumstances in our lives.  While there are a number of different types of writing activities that can produce benefits, the core approach, pioneered by Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas, consists of 4 days of writing in response to some specific prompts.  The idea is that through the exploration of your deepest thoughts and feelings as they relate to a core traumatic experience or situation, you can begin to construct a more meaningful story for yourself of what has happened and its impact on you and your life. This helps you develop new insight into the situation and how it may have not only shaped your experience and your life, but also how it may have even benefited you and helped you grow.  Here's Dr. Pennebaker's basic prompt: Benefits of Expressive Writing Dr. Pennebaker's research with a number of different populations has indicated that most people who use  expressive writing strategies to address challenging situations experience some important changes. They have seen: An increase in positive moods and a reduction in negative thoughts and feelings. Improved physical health, including improved sleep patterns, lower blood pressure and lower heart rates. Improved relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Reduced feelings of stress. Improved focus. Further, they have also found that people find new jobs faster and improve their academic performance.  Interestingly, the people who tend to benefit most are those who are less likely to talk about their problems with someone else--especially men.  Writing for Recovery Although you can use Dr. Pennebaker's basic prompt to try out the expressive writing concept, I wanted to help people go a little deeper in the context of their careers. So I've developed two online writing programs specifically for people who are in a toxic work environment and people who are unemployed.  In each course, I help you set up for success, and then have you go through 4 days of writing with prompts that are specific to dealing with either toxic work or being unemployed. Each day, you also complete a pre-writing emotional check-in and a post-writing evaluation of how the process went for you.  At the end of the course, we evaluate your progress, looking not only at how your stress symptoms may be changing, but also at how your writing may provide you with some additional insight into what's going on with you. I also share "next steps" ideas and resources so that you can build on what you've started and begin to move forward again.  Each module includes audio, worksheets and other resources to guide you through the process. There are also discussion questions for some of the modules.  You can learn more about the course for the toxic workplace here and the course for recovering from unemployment here.  I'm limiting enrollment to 20 people per course because I want to evaluate how this works in an online, self-guided format. So if you're interested, I encourage you to sign up quickly! I'd also love to hear if you've ever used expressive writing techniques to deal with difficult circumstances. How has this worked for you? Leave me a note in comments!

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Peter Drucker: Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.  As I work with people in thinking about their careers, what I notice is that people spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage themselves and their work. They are focused on doing things right for their current job. They focus on: Responding  to the needs of their current employer so they get great performance reviews and advance in their careers. Meeting (or preferably exceeding) the performance objectives that their employers have set for them.  Networking with the right people (from their employer's perspective) so they achieve their employer's organizational goals.  Developing the skills that their employer tells them that they need to do their current jobs well.  There's nothing wrong with this, of course. To keep your job, you need to be good at it. But what happens is that  in our focus on career management, we lose sight of career leadership.  In other words, while we are worrying about doing things right, we aren't taking the time to question if we are doing the right things. Too often what I find is that while people were focused on dotting all the "i's" and crossing all the "t's," the landscape around them was changing.  Suddenly, they are doing work that doesn't play to their strengths.  Or the requirements and demands of their occupation or industry have drastically changed and they haven't been keeping up. Or their organization closes and they find themselves adrift in a crappy job market. Or they wake up one morning, look around, and ask "Is this really all there is for me with work?" Career management doesn't cut it in today's economy. We need to become  leaders in our own lives.  Stop asking "Am I Doing Things Right?" and start asking "Am I Doing the Right Things?"  See how life begins to shift . . .  _______________________________________________________________________ Are you feeling burnt out and pissed off with work? This is one sign that you may be stuck in a toxic work environment. Check out my online course on Recovering from the Toxic Workplace: A 7-Day Course to Let Go and and Move On. 

I've been doing a lot of work around using design-thinking to improve career services and one of the things we've been talking about  is the need to understand how people are FEELING in order to help them figure out what they need next. Our emotional states are a powerful indicator of what we need.  In our careers, I've found that people tend to think that any concerns, issues, etc. they are having about their work is a sign that they need new, better or more information.  But that's not true. In fact, information is often not what we need at all. At least not initially.  Take a look at these core emotional states that we often feel in our work lives and the corresponding needs that they indicate. You'll see that in most cases, you need something other than information!   Core Emotion-->Stalled Are you feeling stuck, like you just can't move ahead? Does your job feel like Groundhog Day?  Core Need-->Inspiration For folks who are feeling stuck, inspiration is your core need. How can you get inspired to take action? Often, we need exposure to new people, new thinking, new environments. How can you stretch your wings and try something new? Maybe you could do a 30-Day Challenge with yourself? Or take on a stretch assignment? Maybe you need to start thinking about multiple income streams.  Look for ways to inspire yourself.   Core Emotion-->Discouraged Have you lost enthusiasm for your job? Maybe you're losing confidence in yourself or in your skills? Core Need--> Emotional Support When we're discouraged, we need emotional support to help us get back on our feet again. We need to be around people who can bear witness to what we're feeling, who can listen, acknowledge our feelings and remind us of our greatness and of our ability to resolve whatever may be causing us to feel discouraged.    Core Emotion-->Panicked Sometimes we're in a panic about our careers. This usually happens if we've been laid off or we are worried that we will be laid off.    Core Need-->Address "Emergency" Needs If you're in panic mode, it can help to deal with the basics. If you are just worried about a layoff, now's the time to work on your Layoff Plan. There are things you can do now to get prepared, just in case.  If a layoff has already happened, focus on the basics. Here's some good advice from Forbes on setting yourself up right as you make your exit. And here's a great list of very practical things to pay attention to.    Core Emotion-->Elated Sometimes we're on a high when it comes to our careers. Things are going really well and we just feel great. That doesn't mean that we do nothing. This can actually be a clue that we need to. . .  Core Need-->Channel Momentum This is where we may need to look at how we use that excitement we're feeling to take some serious action. How do we channel that positive emotion into making the right moves or building the skills we need to take on a new, exciting challenge? Enjoy the moment, for sure, but also use it to propel you forward.    Core Emotion-->Exploring Sometimes we just start to feel curious about other possibilities. What would happen if we made a career change? Or started our own business? Or got serious about developing ourselves in a particular area?  Core Need-->Structure and Guidance When you're in the exploration phase, this is when you are most in need of information. If you're thinking about starting up a business, for example, you'll want to understand more about what's involved, what you would need to do to get started, etc.  Structure can also be helpful--a plan, participating in a coaching or accountability group, giving yourself deadlines to make things happen. How can you pull together what you need to make a decision and move ahead? More Than One Emotion. . .  Most of us feel more than one emotion at a time. It's entirely possible to be both panicked at losing a job AND a little bit elated. In fact, this is fairly common. You can use these ideas, though, to get a feel for what kinds of help and support you might seek in combination. If you're feeling both panicked and elated, then make sure you deal with whatever your concerns are AND that you give yourself a way to channel your positive emotions into some forward action and movement.    The important point here is that our emotions can provide us with powerful clues about what it is we need when it comes to career support and guidance. Try tuning into how you're feeling and then coming up with strategies based on the core needs above to help you make the right moves at the right time! _______________________________________________________________________ If you're struggling with the emotional fallout of being laid off, you may want to check out my new online course, Recovering from Unemployment: A 7-Day Course to Help You Let Go and Move On. Only $9.99, this course is self-guided and can give you the emotional boost you need to get back on track with your job search!      

How neuroscientists are learning to predict emotions with increasing accuracy. » Continue reading: How To Read Someone’s Emotions With 90% Accuracy » Read HealthiestBlog.com, the new site from PsyBlog's author Related articles: How The Brain Processes The Emotions Men and Women Process Emotions in Different Ways: This Affects What They Remember What Your Brain Is Doing When You Think It’s Doing Nothing How Many Basic Emotions Are There? Fewer Than Previously Thought Why Positive Thinking May Be Harmful for Some

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Welcome to our first podcast! The podcast is all about what is new with Adapted Physical Education(APE). We will have a wide variety of interviews with experts, parents of children with disabilities and service providers on their perspectives on APE, the benefits of APE, new equipment in the field, the IEP process, new legislation, and much more. This very special first episode was conducted with Caryl Dazer and I. Caryl is a very passionate APE teacher in Livonia Public Schools in the state of Michigan. We discussed her views on the field of APE, strategies on how to communicate with parents and other staff and some common obstacles that an APE teacher may find in the field.  Caryl Dazer, Michigan 2014 APE Teacher of the YearAdapted Tricycles mentioned in the Podcast. Please visit Angelesstore.com to learn more/purchase Please send me any feedback that you can about the podcast. My goal is to inform and educate as many people as possible about the importance of the field of Adapted Physical Education . We want to make this podcast as strong as possible and help those out there who are listening. Please send me an email about a topic you may like to hear about or if you are having any issues in the field that we may be able to help you problem solve. My email is scmcnamara23@gmail.com . After we continue to tweak this podcast, my hope is to get it running on iTunes in the near future. Please enjoy, The APE ManPodcastScott McNamara

Eric Hope, APE TeacherHello Adapted PE(APE) podcast listeners! Our first episode went so well we decided to keep this project going. We had over 650 views of the podcast within a week! Thank you to everyone for all your support. Please continue giving the podcast feedback and topic ideas for future episodes. Zero Entry Pool For Increased AccessI am proud to be giving you our second exciting episode! In our second episode, I interviewed Erica Hope, a 3rd year APE teacher in Michigan. Erica's day primarily consist of working with adapted aquatics and early childhood at a center-based school for students with a wide variety of disabilities. During the interview we discuss an array of topics. The topics ranged from adapted aquatics, early childhood, the IEP process, and issues with being a new APE teacher. In the podcast she goes into detail about the accommodations she uses on a regular basis in an aquatics and early childhood setting. Thanks to a very good friend of mine, Ray Krol, the podcast has it's own original intro and outro music. Please stop by his website if you want to listen to more or think you may want to use it for a project of your own(make sure you contact him before using his music).The podcast is preparing for a launch on iTunes, which should be taking place within the week. Once we are on iTunes, please subscribe to us and let us know what you think of the podcast.Next week we will be having a very special interview with the 2013 National APE Teacher Of The Year, Brad Weiner. So please stay tuned.Until next time,The APE ManScott McNamara