guidance

From Green with Envy to Happiness – the Power of a Smile.

~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 2 Comments
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. – Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
 
Over the past year my life has changed more than I could have ever imagined.  Some things like losing my grandmother I wish hadn’t happened and other things like finally moving with The Dude to Chicago were a dream come true.  Somewhere in between all the changes I learned a really important lesson.

The energy you give out you get back.  Now I know a lot of people know this concept, but I have truly lived it and seen the great things that positivity can bring.  A year ago I was pretty whiny and down on myself.  For whatever reasons – not graduating or working on my thesis, not officially moving, having issues in every single personal relationship I had.  But, one day after the dust settled and the grief subsided, I realized only I was going to get me out of the hole I was in.  It was hard and awkward, but I started by just smiling.  People get really tired of only talking about negativity especially if every time you talk it’s the same sob story over and over – no changes.  I realized no one wanted to hear it anymore – everyone was nice enough to let me sulk for a few months (thanks everyone seriously I know it was annoying), but if I kept it up I was going to lose friends and family.  I also was letting my negativity stop me from finishing my thesis, work on relationship that were important to me, commit to move, and overall be happy.

I hope they don’t mind my calling attention to them, but the best example I have of the power of positivity is my cousin Matt and his wife Oli.  I have never met two people who had so many opportunities, adventures, and so much love.  I wondered why – in my bad attitude days I was, well to be honest – jealous of them.  As embarrassing as it s to admit I always thought ‘they get everything they want! no fair!’  But, once I started smiling and acting positively even though it was hard at first, the stuff I wanted to happen started happening too!  Wow.  Then my green face turned into a smile for them – the opportunities they earn are exciting and well deserved.  I realized they created their own success by being positive, happy, and loving people (obviously with a lot of hard work too) – they most certainly didn’t get to travel around the world (several times) with a bad attitude and a surly face!  But seriously click on all the links in that paragraph and see how amazing Matt and Oli are – it will motivate you to start smiling and fulfilling your dreams too.

I needed to write about this because my life is so great right now – my relationship with The Dude is great, my animals and new addition are all healthy adorable and happy, I got the job I dreamed of, and live in the city of my dreams too.  It’s such a change from a year ago – even six months ago. How did all this happen?  I started smiling.

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The Elusive Capture of the Dream Job and the Resume That Was.

~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be frank here – Job searching stinks.  It’s one of the worst experiences we as a consumption-loving race of people have to endure.  It encompasses all the huge crappy feelings – uncertainty, doubt, humility, blows to the ego, stress, worry, and sadness.  The hunt for a position also has a process of getting one’s hopes up and then plummeting said hopes and aspirations right through the ground down to one of the inner-circles of hell.  I felt sharing my story of how I got a job might help others re-examine their statuses, realize it’s not personal, and hopefully adjust current processes to land a job.

 Okay so when I started actively searching for a job I really believed it would be so simple.  I have my Masters (just about), I have experience, I have great references, but I didn’t understand until a month went by with no leads that my resume stunk.  It was too vague – it didn’t have the right kind of experience on it for potential employers to even understand who I was.

 Here is what my first resume looked like:

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Not very specific huh? Well after getting help from a family friend, I worked on making my resume ‘mirror’ an actual job description of my ‘dream job.’  I actually used a statistician position from the treasury department and modified it to them using all their specific lingo and words.  That is really essential in building a resume – it has to contain more than enough ‘buzz words’ so the computer filter that scans the document will send your resume on for the next round of judging. Think of it as a Hunger Games for your resume.

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So here is my current resume:

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I left my information on there because if you were paying attention you would have already seen my professional blog that is attached to this domain name. http://briannadconnelly.wordpress.com I have work examples etc. there take a look if you get bored and want to read some older, but riveting Economic work from me.

 After completing this revision I started re-submitting and changing my resume .pdfs and the next week I got a call for the job I had first applied for (my dream job) that my old resume was not even considered for!  So funny!  Anyways if you’re currently in a job hunt and need resume help or advice you can always email me and I’d love to help!