How developing impact at work is your key to promotion.

How to make the impact you want to at work.

Developing impact is something that we focus on with many clients at all levels. It’s a fascinating area to look at and so gratifying to develop, spanning all aspects of life with far-reaching benefits for those who master it.

What is professional impact?

Making an impact, being impactful, is less about ‘what’ we do and more about ‘how’ we do it, whether that’s how we communicate, present or deliver. Your tone of voice, your posture, you image, your non-verbal cues, how you hold yourself, are all contributing to the impact you have on the people around you. How much people value your opinion, your work or are influenced by you all come down to the impact, or not, that you make.

Non-verbal communication is 79% of your communication, so your impact is in fact and ironically, determined by your internal dialogue much more than anything else, which comes from your beliefs and relationship with yourself. If there’s a gap between how you’re presenting and how you really think or feel, it’s called ‘leaking’. We can’t help but leak our true feelings, non-verbally. People may not be able to pinpoint exactly why they feel better about one person over another, but they instinctively engage more with the person who’s congruent in their presentation. Congruence is the most long-lasting, authentic way to develop true impact. Read more


5 Invaluable Lessons from working with a Career Coach

Whether you’re feeling stuck in your current role, you’re ready to switch industries or you’d just like to build out a more explicit plan for your career, working with a career coach may be the tool you need.

 

Below you’ll find the most invaluable lessons I learned from working with a coach.

1. When thinking about your career, step out of the day-to-day and think “big picture”

Day-to-day life is so packed with responsibilities that it can be difficult to think about what you’ll be doing next week, never mind six months from now. In “Lean In”, Sheryl Sandberg recommends having an 18-month plan for your career. This could mean where you’d like to go within your current company, or it could be a roadmap for how you want to get to a new opportunity.

Working with a career coach helped me “get out of the weeds” and look at my career from a big picture point of view. This new perspective helped me to get back in touch with my goals and build a much clearer vision of the type of role I’d like to be in–and what I need to do in order to get there. Read more


Uncovering the power of your natural strengths in 7 steps by our Executive Coach

In Jasper’s last post he finished off by saying that we should strive to improve our performance by focussing on our strengths. There are reams of Harvard Business Review papers extolling the virtues of this approach, supported by the most celebrated names in psychology and neuroscience. Here, Jasper gives us an incredibly brief seven point synopsis as to how and why you should pay attention to your strengths.

1. Reflect

Recall the last time you were completely energised and buzzing in your role. Take a moment and come back when you have it to mind. It’s pleasant to even think of it isn’t it? That’s because I’ll bet it involved you using one of your core strengths.

2.Definition

Your strengths are those work-related activities by which you are energised. They fuel your motivation in tasks and projects. You may be good at something yet still be drained when doing it. I’d call this a learned skill rather than a strength. A strength is a source of enjoyment for you.

3. Engagement

When you enjoy doing something and you’re good at it, you are going to more engaged in the process. In my experience, it is nigh on impossible to reach and/or remain at the top without being really engaged in your work.

4. Alignment

To give yourself the best chance to maintain high levels of performance in your role you need to align your strengths with your skills (learned expertise) and your professional objectives. Think about your current role. What are your objectives for 2015? What skills do you have which will help you achieve them? And what are your work-related strengths which will keep you committed and resilient to challenges as they arise through the year.

5.Profiling

Of course, this is a tough exercise if you’re not crystal clear on what your strengths are. You’ll know some of them for sure, but will you confuse some with skills? Using a strengths profiling tool is hugely helpful here, and there is one which is streets ahead of the rest. Click here to find out more

6.Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the most critical aspect in anyone’s improvement plan. You can’t improve something if you’re not aware of it. Knowing how you can use, develop and stretch your strengths to change ineffective behaviours and develop productive habits is incredibly empowering. Weaknesses shouldn’t be ignored, they should simply be approached from a more resourceful perspective.

7.Working with your strengths

This encourages you to bring the best of you to the table. No one can tell you what is best for you, except you. You’ll empowered to design and implement the career plan that best fits you, not one that you feel you “should” follow or that someone else wants you to pursue. And because you’ll be engaged in it all the way, your commitment levels and results will soar. You’ll be confident in your approach, because it will be your own.

If you would like to book a phone consultation to discuss your strengths and coaching with Jasper Walshe, our Executive Coach or one of our other Coaches, book here!


A blogger’s experience of our free coaching phone consultation

We offer all potential new client enquiries a free 20 minute phone consultation to better understand the coaching process and learn about the specifics around how coaching can help you and your individual situation and also, the difference between SEVEN’s approach and style of our coaches to other coaching companies! I spoke with Linde just this past Friday on one such phone call and this is her account, she shared with her readers on her blog An Urban Village, she also designed the gorgeous quotes inspired from our chat! Thanks Linde.

 

“So - on Friday I found a site online - they offer career coaching, and I thought to myself that’s it - I need to speak to someone who can objectively help me refocus my vision, and help me re-adjust my abilities - in order to get to where I’m supposed to be. I filled in an online form, and within a couple of hours I had an email from the office and they were setting up a call for the same afternoon. A half an hour free consultation. Great, progress in less than a day!

A couple of hours later I had a call from Evelyn, from Seven Career Coaching - and we had a most inspiring chat - I felt at ease to chat with her freely and openly and she was engaging and I think this is a path that will definitely assist me just to get a bit; no a lot! of clarity on my life, where I’d like to be - and how to ultimately get there. The last question she asked me was this: what would you like to accomplish at the end of our couching course? I though for a moment and I said - I want to live an ambitious life. And that’s where my first quote originated from: be ambitious with your life. Its quite empowering to say these words, to believe in them, and to keep repeating them. Print it out, stick it on your wall - surround yourself with positivity… and you’ll become more positive and more inspired.

Saturday morning I woke up with the following on my mind: be your own kind of wonderful …
be unique, be you, believe in yourself, believe in your own kind of wonderful, and be just that. The world doesn’t need copies of copies of copies of people, the world needs you, just the way you are - perfectly imperfect - share the beauty that is within you, share the sadness you may feel - share the uncertainties, share the honesty of your life. Sometimes we feel broken, sometimes we feel inspired, sometimes we feel like we need some quiet time to absorb and to figure things out. And sometimes we need to reach out and ask for some direction, reach out and ask for some help. And that for me is one of the most difficult parts of this journey - but one I must venture on in order to venture forth. To grow, and to break free from the cage that is holding me back.

And it suddenly kind of dawned on me - that if within half an hour she could help me realise this one thing - what would we not be able to accomplish if I booked some time in with her. Today I received an email from Evelyn on the next steps, the packages they offer and how to proceed. I think its a good enough time as any to get going. Take the first steps, make the commitment - and hopefully see some change…”

Written by Linde and images designed by Linde at An Urban Village Blog

If you’d like to speak to one of our Career Coaches or Life Coaches today, to discuss how coaching can help you, book your phone consultation here!


We’re backing Stylist’s ‘Reclaim your lunch break’ campaign!

We’re delighted Stylist magazine has launched this simple but oh so necessary campaign today, on the back of stats that over 54% of Londoners work through their lunch hour every day! That’s 240 hours a year!

Just imagine what you could accomplish with that one hour every day, five hours every week, 20 hours every month, 240 hours a year? From a work-life balance perspective, taking breaks, stepping away from the desk, getting some daylight and air, switching off for even 30 minutes increases productivity, decreases stress and helps overall wellbeing! Imagine you used 1 lunchtime a week, to reach out and speak to other people in different parts of your company to develop your network and learn more about the industry or business you’re in or want to move into, at the end of a year, you’d have considerably built up your knowledge base and network for your next move and all in your lunch hour! Lunchtimes are important and not just for refuelling!

Here is the Stylist’s Reclaim your Lunch Break manifesto - we will be following this and encourage you to do the same and notice the difference an hour downtime a day can make! Read more


The 7 top tips to keeping your New Year’s Resolutions!

We’re doing a special New Year’s series throughout January, sharing the expertise of our Career Coaches, Life Coaches, Image Coach and Executive Coach to give you the best tips to make sure 2015 is your year. Kicking-off, we have these 7 top coaching tips to keeping your New Year’s Resolutions longer than mid-January, from our Executive Coach Jasper Walshe.

Depending on your source, it’s commonly suggested that between 81% and 92% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. In other words, people fall back in to their old ways at least 8 out of 10 times.

There are countless potential reasons for such a high failure rate, so I just want to help you focus on that which you can control. Here’s my Seven Step Guide to Setting Effective Goals.

1. Establish the Why

If you’re setting a goal because it’s something you think you “should” do, then you will lack commitment very shortly. As with (Networking Essentials) Be Yourself. Set goals that you’re really motivated by – understand why you want to achieve a certain outcome. Ask yourself – “when I have achieved this outcome, how will I feel?” Read more


Happy New Year from all of us at SEVEN!

 

2015 is here! We love a New Year at SEVEN HQ! New energy, new focus and hopefully everyone’s rejuvenated after a long Christmas break of eating and sleeping! We spent most of our time snowboarding in the very beautiful Meribel, France, so did extra eating for good measure!

Whatever your goals are for 2015, putting some clear shape around them and creating a system that supports you in achieving those goals is the only way to guarantee your success. We thought it would be valuable to you to run a series of articles across January, where we’ll be sharing our top coaching, success and productivity tips to ensure success is yours in 2015! So stay tuned!

We have so much planned for 2015, it’s very exciting and soon we’ll announce much more. Something I can divulge right now, is that we will shortly have our own in-house SEVEN image coach, a fabulous Italian lady Veronica with a natural flair for style, who will be working with our clients to coach them on dressing for success, leadership and presenting themselves in a way to help maximise their potential and anchor their new career direction, mindset and self-image in a very physical way.

We’ll continue with our ‘Kickstart your Career Change’ 1-day intensive workshop series, with our next one being on January 31st in Shoreditch, for more information click on the image below, to register your spot, click on the button. We do limit it to 12 spaces per workshop, so do ensure you get your spot.

 


Happy Christmas from all of the SEVEN team!

 

We’ve had such a fantastic 2014, we’ve been honoured to coach and work with so many wonderful people, been inspired by so many client’s courage, focus and achievements!

 

We’ll be back from January 5th 2015 for lots more.

 

Until then, have a fantastic Christmas break!


The Essentials of Networking from our Executive Coach

SEVEN’s Executive Coach Jasper Walshe share’s his pearls of wisdom and top networking tips!

Building a professional network is essential in almost every role. Nothing happens in the world of business without the support of people. If you want to advance your career, having people who can support you along the way, from clients to advisors and superiors to direct reports – we need to make the most of building effective relationships. First impressions last, so be aware of the following tips when you go to a networking event.

Relax and Be Yourself

People all too often think they need to behave like some sort of an expert. Wrong – this isn’t an industry knowledge assessment centre, it’s a networking event. Just be yourself going in the door, and stay yourself throughout.

Read more


The Career Change Journals Week 2

We’re continuing the weekly journal feature, written week by week by one of our clients, following their journey from why they started career coaching, wanted a career change and how they are experiencing the coaching journey. This is week two of Jane’s diary.

The End of the Beginning.

I am going to go off on a tangent and ask you to let me tell you a story.

I am the oldest of two girls and have always been typed as the ‘academic’ or ‘quiet’ one, whilst my sister was the ‘social and sporty’ one. Having a younger sister who demanded a lot of attention, my mum focused on her and with my dad away three quarters of the time, I felt intensely lonely for most of my childhood and adolescence. It was only when my dad was at home that I felt that there was someone around who understood me. He was and still is my hero.

“though I wrote about 40 applications for vacation schemes and training contracts over the course of 3 years, I only got three interviews”

Read more


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