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Your #Career : 5 Things You Should Never Say in a Job Performance Review…How you Respond to Criticism & Praise will Make a Difference in your Career Path. Let’s Take a Look at 5 Things you Should Never Say in a Performance Review.

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A performance review is like a report card for adults. It tells workers how they’re performing on the job, or at least how their bosses think they are performing. Except, job performance reviews are prone to more subjectivity. You don’t simply receive a letter grade or a “satisfactory” based on right or wrong homework answers, you receive feedback on how you’re viewed around the office. Furthermore, what you say in your performance review can make or break your career.

Male hands holding pen in working environment

Are annual performance reviews a waste of time? They certainly can be. According to a recent survey fromDeloitte, only 8% of companies report their performance management process drives high levels of value, while 58% of companies say it’s not an effective use of time. In fact, about half of HR executives believe their performance process is weak at driving business value. Deloitte found it was spending around 2 million hours a year on performance reviews, including filling out forms and holding meetings.

Several companies see annual performance reviews as an outdated measuring stick — a tool for when titans of industry like General Electric needed to know how many railroad ties workers installed. Today, employers need to measure everything from productivity and customer service to teamwork and attitude. As a result, more employers are replacing the annual performance review in favor of ongoing feedback and coaching methods.

Whether you work for an employer stuck in the past or one adapting to the 21st century, you need to be able to communicate effectively in your performance reviews. How you respond to criticism and praise will make a difference in your career path. Let’s take a look at five things you should never say in a performance review.

1. “That’s not in my job description”

Nothing says you need improvement on your office etiquette like blurting out a task that you’re expected to do isn’t in your job description. Remember, job descriptions are not 100% inclusive of your workplace duties, and job descriptions often evolve as business conditions fluctuate. It’s no secret that employers love flexible employees who know how to handle multiple tasks with a good attitude. At the same time though, you shouldn’t be afraid to push back a little if you find yourself overwhelmed with requests.

The key to saying, “that’s not in my job description” without uttering those exact words is to explain yourself, carefully. You could say something to this effect: “My priorities with set deadlines this past year (or substitute the timeframe of the performance review) prevented me from taking on this additional task.” You could also try to deflect a task by explaining that you’re not typically the person who handles that, and point your manager to someone better suited for the task if possible.

 

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2. “You expect too much from me”

Yes, your boss expects a lot from you. You likely even feel underpaid for what you have to do and put up with on a daily basis. Sometimes it may actually be too much for you to handle, but being over-defensive is probably not the best way to approach the situation. You need to remember to keep your emotions in check.

“It’s important to be honest, but you don’t want to be really defensive,” explains Lisa Chui, vice president of finance and human resources at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings, in an interview with The Cheat Sheet. “Depending on the level of criticism an employee reviews in a performance review, they can be very defensive. It’s always a good idea to be calm and collected, even if on the inside you are just screaming and want to run out of the room crying. It’s never a good idea to let your emotions get the best of you at that moment. If you’re receiving feedback that is driving an emotional response, process the feedback and continue the conversation.”

If declining a task isn’t an option during your performance review, ask your manager how they would like you to prioritize the task. This shows that you’re willing to be flexible, but provides you with some room to juggle otherjob responsibilities.

 

3. “I can’t”

I’m reminded of a famous Henry Ford quote: “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”

Saying “can’t” is limiting. You limit what you think you can do, and you also limit what other people (like your boss) think you’re capable of doing. Saying “can’t” in your performance review is equivalent to telling your boss that you don’t have the skills to complete a task. And, if you are short with your reply, you may also convey that you are unwilling to make an attempt to learn, which will further hurt your reputation.

“Instead of saying can’t, you may want to try saying ‘How about we try this’ and you can rephrase the work your boss if asking you to do into something more manageable for yourself,” explains Chui. “Or, there’s always the deferral. You could say ‘Hey that’s a great suggestion, let me get back to you on ways this can be accomplished’ versus just saying yes or no. In a performance review, sometimes if you’re just saying yes, then your boss is going to think you’re going to do exactly what he just told you to do. While you’re thinking you can’t commit to this. If you at least defer it, it puts the ball back in your court to then come up with a plan that suits you.”

 

4. “Thank you for finally noticing”

Winning and losing is a part of life. You need to learn how to do both gracefully. Receiving a compliment or praise during your performance review is a nice little victory on your career path, but you can completely spoil that win if you don’t handle it well. Saying something to the effect of “thank you for finally noticing” fills the air with bitterness and will leave your boss wondering if they is more trouble brewing below the surface. It may also make your boss less likely to provide future compliments in order to avoid your snark.

On the positive side, there is a simple solution. When receiving a compliment, keep your reply short and sweet. A simple “thank you” is typically enough. If you feel it’s necessary to let your boss know how long you’ve been accomplishing something, you could provide a little more detail by saying something like: “Thank you. I initiated this change last year to improve our productivity after evaluating our current methods. I did X, Y, and Z to generate these results.”

 

5. “It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care.”

Movies provide a great deal of comic relief. Certain movies like Office Space do an incredible job highlighting the mundane aspects of our own jobs. However, that doesn’t mean you should necessarily try to lighten the mood with your favorite quotes. If your boss doesn’t recognize the quote, the situation could become uncomfortable, especially if the blank stare on his face leaves you squirming to figure out how to explain the quote without making yourself look like a disgruntled employee.

“The trend these days is to give constant feedback to employees,” says Chui. “I think we’re moving away from the traditional once-a-year review when you have to think back about everything you’ve accomplished over the year — that’s almost impossible to do. Having ongoing feedback sets the stage to not have that stuffy conversation and make anything awkward. But, if the performance review is starting to get uncomfortable, you can steer the conversation in a different direction. If you’re starting to get a lot of negative feedback or your starting to talk about things you’re unsure about, it’s OK to ask questions and steer the conversation back in a more positive direction.”

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 CheatSheet.com | June 10, 2016 | 

 

Your #Career : The Best & Worst States to Make a Living in 2016…The Ranking is Based on 5 Factors: Average Wages, State Tax Rates, Cost of Living, Unemployment Rates, & Incidents of Workplace Injuries.

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Not all states are created equal when it comes to making a living. While your income might be greater in places like New York or California, high tax rates and cost of living can greatly affect your lifestyle.

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The personal finance site MoneyRates used several data sources, including the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, to determine the best and worst states for making a living in 2016. The ranking is based on five factors: average wages, state tax rates, cost of living, unemployment rates, and incidents of workplace injuries.

 

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Check out the best and worst states below:

best and worst states 2016 map

With no state income tax and low cost of living, Wyoming took the number one spot this year, beating out last year’s winner, Texas.

best states 2016 chart

For the sixth year in a row Hawaii was named the worst state to make a living for its 68.6 percent higher cost of living than the national average.

worst states 2016 chart

Read the original article on Tech Insider. Follow Tech Insider on Facebook and Twitter. Copyright 2016.

Businessinsider.com | May 19, 2016 | Skye Gould, Tech Insider

#Leadership : 7 Leadership Tips When The Business Is Struggling…Working 24 Hours a Day, Losing your Cool, & Falling Back to a No-Risk Strategy are Not Conducive to Long-Term Success.

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It’s easy for an E ntrepreneur, Manager or a CEO to feel like a leader when things are going well, but the challenge is to keep that confidence and drive in the face of economic downturns, business turnarounds, and stressful personnel situations. Working twenty hours a day, losing your cool, and falling back to a no-risk strategy are not conducive to long-term success.

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Are you ready for that really tough challenge?

I saw some practical tips for business leaders under pressure a while back in the book “The Outside the Box Executive,” by Richard Lindenmuth, a seasoned interim CEO, who has stepped in and revitalized more than his share of struggling companies. I’m convinced that his advice is equally relevant to early startups, where the challenges are legion and the path is far from clear.

 

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I agree with Lindenmuth that emotional intelligence and stability is a must in these environments. He calls it strategic empathy, which is sincerely focusing on the individual, but always with the big picture of the business as top of mind:

  1. Expect anxiety on the team and deal with it directly. When things are not going well, or when the future is clouded with unknowns, expect to find people on the team who are scared and angry. You have to act quickly to communicate strategy, be the role model for calm, and stand up to outliers before the whole team becomes dysfunctional.
  2. Let them say no, and actively listen to team input. Of course, no leader wants to hear negative views, but it’s important to show empathy and reach everyone on an emotional level, while containing your own emotions. People need to know that it’s safe to express their opinions. Once you get beyond the negatives, most people have real contribution
  3. Focus on team members who will tell it like it is. In any organization you will find people who will tell you what you want to hear, or who are fighting for their own survival. Although you must listen at every level, the best leaders look carefully for that middle ground or middle manager that can see the big picture and effectively implement change.
  4. Don’t send a representative in lieu of direct contact. Lack of your physical presence is read as detachment, or lack of leadership. Direct contact, to people at every level, is the best way to generate trust, respect, support, and action. A recipe for failure is assuming that you can deliver a message once, and get it passed down by subordinates.
  5. If you see something broken, fix it now. Decisive action inspires confidence. People’s perception of your leadership and trustworthiness is directly related to your word-action alignment and behavioral integrity. Show them what you expect, and people will follow your example. If everyone is fixing problems with confidence, the business will prosper.
  6. Everyone has to pull their weight in the same boat. Create an environment that encourages and rewards participation and progress, with no penalties for missteps. Define a common goal, such as improving the customer experience, and eliminate any contention between the internal towers of development, marketing, and sales.
  7. Practice the eight out of ten rule. Generally, out of ten ideas, eight are not usable, but that’s the only way to get to those two good ones. So welcome all suggestions and praise every attempt, which will encourage more ideas. This may also be stated as the Pareto principle, where 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the efforts.

When the business is struggling, it also makes sense to bring in outside help for a fresh perspective. This could be a peer, or independent business advisor, ideally one who has been through a similar kind of struggle in their business. The best leaders put aside their pride and emotion, and listen carefully to guidance from outside the organization.

When real change is required in business, a unilateral top-down business leadership strategy is rarely effective. Successful CEOs and entrepreneursinstead listen, learn, empathize and include everyone in the challenge. With their leadership, and everyone invested in the company’s survival, the odds of success go up dramatically. Are you ready for that really tough challenge?

 

Forbes.com | April 21, 2016 | Martin Zwilling

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#Leadership : Top CHROs Discuss Culture In A Digital World…It’s Important to Begin Planning Today for the Use of Cognitive Computing in Enhancing Workforce Productivity, Reducing Business Risk & Increasing Competitive Advantage.

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Steve Jobs once said, “Simple is harder than complex.” Human resources embodies that mantra where the complexities of behind the curtain data and analytics can yield the simplistic beauty of a great culture.

Free- Home Office

To explore how top companies build winning cultures in a fast-changing digital world, on February 23, 2016 I spoke with these CHROs of industry leaders:

  • Victoria Berger-Gross, CHRO, Tiffany & Co.
  • Matthew Owenby, CHRO, Aflac
  • Larry Pernosky, CHRO, Amedisys
  1. What is the one data point you look to first?

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys:  “Engagement because as our engagement barometer moves up or down, so will the culture and attrition.”

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co:  “Employee turnover — because even though it’s a lagging not leading indicator, it’s an objective sign of what’s going on in satisfaction, engagement, and the strength of your employee value proposition against the external marketplace.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac: “We focus on engagement as a leading indicator of many potential issues, from which we gauge the level of trust employees have in leadership which is the foundation for creating the best employment experience possible.”

 

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  1. What’s the relationship between data and culture?

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co.:  “Over time you develop culture with qualitative hand-selection of people, close relationships, and understanding what values you can and can’t adapt in people once they’re hired.  We use employee survey measurement, qualitative focus groups, and other data gathering to recognize our constraints and drive new offerings to encourage people to engage and grow with Tiffany.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “Data is particularly important from a hiring standpoint. We are careful to hire people who embody our strong, individualized culture. It’s not enough to have a technical competency, you’ve got to be a person that’s going to connect well with our culture. Data and analytics don’t build your culture– the culture is built on values. That’s what’s worked for us for over 60 years.  From a value perspective, communication is key–regularly, immediately, and with transparency. Access to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter makes it easier to gauge what types of communicators you may hiring”.

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “We sit on a plethora of data. In redefining our culture, we needed to redefine how we use our human capital data overlaying with business outcomes.  You then view your business outcome differently, incorporating engagement data to form a strategy that truly motivates and inspires employees to grow personally and professionally. That ties back to the success of the company.”

  1. How will mobile technologies and the Internet of Things affect the future of HR?

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “A practical view of mobile technologies and the future of HR is that more Millennials represent today’s workforce and shape the expectation around, ‘I want the ability to sign up for healthcare via my Smartphone.’ And more senior leaders increasingly want to access information real time. We’re using more of a push rather than pull strategy, meaning we are deliberately pushing content, doing more things mobile, from an access to information perspective.  Even our internal app which says, here’s what you need to be talking to your people about today and here’s how to incorporate diversity and inclusion in regular touch bases with your teammates”.

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co: “We are continuing to add more mobile technologies in retail, distribution and manufacturing (we are unusually vertically integrated). This connectivity supports absolute alignment between these groups.  At retail, repeat and long-term customer relationships are key to our mindset of customer service. Our retail staff are consummate and credentialed professionals – many are gemologists – and we use technology for on-going training.  We also use broad consumer analytics to understand the behavioral shopping preferences of different consumer groups, which affects how we select and train sales staff.”

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “Tele-medicine, tele-monitoring are becoming increasingly important to acute or even critical acute care. Partnerships across technology streams help us procure the best technology possible. A number one priority is work/life balance, and more often for Millennials. Incorporating fitness, health and well-being strategies, such as personalized data feeds from a Fitbit, builds a caring culture where employees say, “I’ve got an organization who cares, and even provides technology to help me manage my life.”

  1. How do you see the role of HR changing five years from now?

Victoria Berger-Gross, Tiffany & Co.:  “For the most part, whatever the size, companies are led by the same number of 10 to 15 people at the top. Data allows us to further scale and be more data driven, especially in the groups with high staff numbers, about scheduling and employee decisions in general. Utilizing people in different locations, not necessarily tied to particular customers in a particular location. Updated, faster customer databases– while balancing essential privacy issue.”

Matthew Owenby, Aflac:  “Accessing information in more real-time, user-friendly methods and doing basic and even complex HR transactions via your mobile device, from any location. Increased productivity and efficiency, whereby you no longer require someone to be in an office to perform a transaction.”

Larry Pernosky, Amedisys: “We will have dynamic workforce planning and forecasting capabilities. Companies will make predictive forecasting and analytic decisions versus today’s practice whereby somebody leaves and you replace them. That will change the game, business outcomes, and even capital analytics.

The future of human resources was summed up by Susan Steele, Executive Partner, Talent and Engagement at IBM. “It’s clear that the HR function, along with the entire enterprise, is increasingly becoming more digitally-oriented, data driven and cognitively-enabled. While this trend creates opportunity for tech-savvy HR leaders it can lead to new risks and challenges for those HR executives who are unprepared. I would therefore encourage all Chief HR Officers to begin planning today for the use of cognitive computing in enhancing workforce productivity, reducing business risk and increasing competitive advantage.”

 

Forbes.com | March 21, 2016 | Robert Reiss

 

#Leadership : How To Be A #Boss: 7 Tips For Hiring — And Firing — A Friend…The Really Hard Part was, & Has, Been Deciding Whether or Not to Hire Friends at All.

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There are Still some Rules-of-Thumb for Managers/Founders Who are Considering Hiring Folks they Have a Relationship With.

When I first became a boss, one really tough thing was supervising my former co-workers and friends.  Kind of makes sense – right? You have to be a jerk sometimes and your erstwhile pals don’t take kindly to it. The bad: I lost a lot of party invitations. The good: the pay was better.

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It's important to realize that you don't actually need to like an employee's personality.

Whether to Hire a Friend or Not ?

But the really hard part was, and has, been deciding whether or not to hire friends at all. A lot of managers/entrepreneurs, for instance, do this during the startup phase. I did it at larger organizations, but still…it wasn’t a great when things went wrong. (Even when things didn’t go wrong,  you were always worried that things would go wrong – and how it would reflect on you.)

You don’t quite have that problem – you run the whole business after-all. But there are still some rules-of-thumb for managers/founders who are considering hiring folks they have a relationship with.

1. If you have to hire a friend, only Hire “A” players. That means folks at the top of their game. Yeah, I know. You do that all the time. But you tend to cut your friends some slack. That’s life. But it only creates a lot of problems. Your better employees resent cleaning up after your talentless buddies – and may look elsewhere for work. Customers will be annoyed. Even if the “A” player is a jerk, at least he or she is a talented jerk.

 

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2. Don’t Supervise Friends. If your “A” friend really has the chops, let your co- founder or a trusted employee run them. It isn’t always convenient, but it gets pretty uncomfortable directly supervising friends. And someone will always think you’re cutting them slack or paying them more or both.

3. Keep Your Door Open. I hired a friend to help me run a small magazine. He eventually left. When he did, a stream of folks came into my office to describe unspeakable stories of management malfeasance. I asked: “Why didn’t you tell me?” They replied, all of them: “Because he was your friend.” Jeez. The solution? Make sure all your employees know they can come to you if they have a problem.

4. Avoid the “Favor Syndrome.” Here’s how it goes. A friend will call you asking if you could give their friend, who “is really good,” some work. I have to tell you: This never, ever turns out well. If someone is calling you, that means their pal has been having trouble finding work. And you know what that means? More often than not often, that means they’re not very good.

5. Test Drives: See the “favor syndrome.” It doesn’t hurt to dole out a tryout assignment. If it doesn’t work, you may have to ghost your friend for a while. But it’s a lot better than friend-divorce. And speaking of which….

6. No Hard Feelings. I love this one. You tell your friend they have to agree that that the working relationship might not end well. And if it doesn’t, they have to leave and still like you. Well, it won’t work out just that way. But talking about it upfront helps.

7. Fire Fast. Yup, fire your friend if things aren’t working out. If you let problems linger, you’ll look bad to your co-founders, your employees, and your customers. You’ll lose your friend in the process, but so be it.

Your business, you know, is your only real friend.

Forbes.com | August 11, 2015 | Hank Gilman 

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Your #Career : 7 Ways To Deal With Today’s Long Job Hiring Process…If you’re Looking for a Job, You Might have Sensed that it Seems to be Taking Longer to Snag an Offer Than in the Past. You’re Right.

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A Recent Study from the Employment Site Glassdoor.com Found that the Average Interview Process in the U.S. is Now 22.9 Days, Nearly Double the 12.6 Days in 2010.  It’s a maddening shift that’s only added stress for job hunters. I’ll provide tips on how to deal with this new reality in a moment, but first it’s important to understand what’s driving this change.

Interviewer3

On the surface, the trend towards longer hiring cycles seems counterintuitive. After all, as the war for talent has been heating up, you’d expect employers to act faster, not slower, to lock-in the best candidates. The unemployment rate just hit a seven-year low (at 5.3%) and the CareerBuilder jobs site says 49% of employers plan to hire full-time, permanent employees in the second half of 2015, up from 47% last year.

So what gives?

According to Glassdoor Chief Economist Andrew Chamberlain, there are several reasons why the interview process is taking longer these days.

“Overall, the interview process has become longer largely due to the fact that more employers are requiring more comprehensive interview processes,” Chamberlain told me via email. “For job candidates, that basically means more hoops and hurdles they may have to jump through.”

Screening methods such as group presentations, IQ tests, personality tests and drug tests have gained in popularity, each lengthening the hiring timeline.

Chamberlain also noted that there’s been a marked change in the composition of the workplace in recent years, with a shift away from low-skilled, routine jobs and towards higher-skilled positions requiring more sophisticated skills. Hiring specialized and technical workers requires a more careful — that is, longer — vetting process.

Of course, hiring timelines vary according to job type and industry. Glassdoor says hiring decisions for entry-level jobs like retail sales clerks take less than a week, while the process for senior-level execs typically drags on for two months or more. If you’re a law enforcement candidate, you’d better have a holster full of patience: the average hiring time for police officers clocks in at a painfully slow 128 days.

Glassdoor says neither age, gender or education affect hiring time, though.

7 Tips for Job Seekers

Its report leaves little doubt that you should expect your job search to last awhile. Given that reality, here are seven ways to better manage the wait and, with any luck, cut the time it takes for you to get hired:

1.  Do your homework about the employer’s hiring process.Learn what you can before you apply. This will help you tamp down expectations.

Many companies now post information about their particular hiring process on the career page of their websites; some even offer online chats for prospective applicants.  You can also research the interview process by reading employer reviews on sites like Glassdoor.com or Indeed.com as well as by speaking with friends who work at your target employers.

 

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2. Ask about “next steps” at the end of each interview. Find out if more interviews will be needed — and if so, roughly how many, how soon they’ll occur and how they’ll be done (group, individual, phone, etc.). Ask the employer if you’ll need to provide any additional information such as references. Or, if appropriate, whether you’ll need to schedule drug testing. The more proactive you are about handling needed tasks early on, the less chance of delays happening on the back end.

3.  Do what you can to nudge the process along. While you can’t do much to control the employer’s internal decision-making process, there are a few ways to bolster your standing and help speed up a potential offer.

For one, send a compelling thank-you note that clearly explains why you’re the best person for the job. It’s not only the polite thing to do; the note will provide a reminder that you’re a savvy candidate who might get snatched up by a competitor if the employer doesn’t act quickly.

If you know someone who works for the employer, ask him or her to put in a good word for you. As I’ve written before, a strong internal reference is one of the most effective ways to best the competition.

Of course, it’s wise not to appear too eager. There’s a fine line between good follow-up and looking desperate. So demonstrate your interest by touching base at the agreed upon checkpoints, but resist the temptation to check in every time you get anxious.

4. Don’t read too much into employer promises. Even if you’re told “We’ll definitely have a decision by next week” or “You’re one of our top two candidates,” take such comments with a grain of salt.

Employers’ plans change. A hundred things that have nothing to do with you can delay the decision: The hiring manager goes on vacation; an internal project suddenly requires attention; the company becomes the target of a takeover.

It’s fine to take a moment to relish any encouraging comments, but then plow full steam ahead with the job search.

5. Adjust your expectations (and advise your significant others to do the same). Reset your mental time clock and plan on the process lasting two or three times longer than the employer indicates. If it finishes sooner, great. But in the meantime, you’ll have an easier time managing your anxiety during the wait.

6. Keep your job application pipeline full. When you only have one prospect, you’ll obsess over it day and night. The best way to keep your sanity during a long interview wait is by generating a steady flow of new opportunities.

Even if your dream job seems within reach, keep searching, keep networking and keep applying. That way, you’ll feel like you’re making progress and you may uncover other interesting job openings in the process.

7. Snag a competitive offer. Nothing speeds up the hiring process faster than letting employers know you have another job offer. Just like dating, you’ll appear way more attractive to potential suitors once they know others are seriously interested.

Of course, there are risks involved with this strategy, so use it wisely. Once you tell an employer there’s a competing offer, you start the clock ticking. That’s why this approach can backfire if the employer’s lengthy interview timeline can’t be easily shortened. Also, some employers might resent being pressured into making a decision before they’re ready.

But when presented in a non-threatening and professional manner, having a bird in hand is one of the best ways to force the employer’shand — and maybe even get a higher starting salary to boot.

Nancy Collamer, M.S., is a career coach, speaker and author of Second-Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit From Your Passions During Semi-Retirement and a contributor to Next Avenue. Her website is MyLifestyleCareer.com; on Twitter she is @NancyCollamer.

Forbes.com | July 14, 2015 | Next Avenue 

#Strategy : 5 Ways To Use Life’s Challenges To Make You Better, Not Bitter…The “My-Life-Fell-Apart-at-Age-26 Club” is a Group that No One Wants to Join, but When We Do, we’re Always Eager to Meet the Other Members & Hear Their Stories.

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That Email was from Courtney Clark, and while our Stories Weren’t Quite the Same—I was Widowed at age 26 & She was Diagnosed with Cancer—we could relate to one another. But Clark’s story didn’t end after she beat Melanoma. Since then, she’s had two more recurrences of cancer. And as if that wasn’t enough to deal with, she also survived a brain aneurysm. Yet, rather than become bitter about the hand she’s been dealt, she chooses to spend her time teaching others about resilience.

Courtney Clark

The “My-Life-Fell-Apart-at-Age-26 Club” is a Group that No One Wants to Join, but When We Do, we’re Always Eager to Meet the Other Members & Hear Their Stories. So when I got an email a couple of weeks ago with a subject line that said, “My life blew up at age 26, too!” it caught my attention.

That email was from Courtney Clark, and while our stories weren’t quite the same—I was widowed at age 26 and she was diagnosed with cancer—we could relate to one another. But Clark’s story didn’t end after she beat Melanoma. Since then, she’s had two more recurrences of cancer. And as if that wasn’t enough to deal with, she also survived a brain aneurysm. Yet, rather than become bitter about the hand she’s been dealt, she chooses to spend her time teaching others about resilience.

Clark, who describes herself as the luckiest unlucky person in the world, is the author of The Giving Prescription, a book that describes how helping others provides physical and emotional healing to anyone going through traumatic circumstances. She’s also a keynote speaker and the founder of a nonprofit.

After several conversations with Clark, I wanted to know her secret to bouncing back after adversity. I asked her how has she’s handled so many health issues without turning into an angry, bitter person. Here are Clark’s five strategies for facing change and overcoming life’s challenges without resentment:

1. Concentrate on the Bull’s-Eye

Life is full of urgent activities—like that email that just pinged onto your computer as you were reading this sentence. In our busy lives, we often get distracted from the tasks that are really important, and start trying to do 25 other things, too.  But those 25 things put together are less important than the bull’s-eye. Particularly in times of challenge, you have to focus on what’s most important, and let the rest go.

 

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2. Be Willing to Go with Plan B

We’re told that successful people have plans. That’s true, but the really successful people are the ones who know what to do when their plan doesn’t work out. The key is learning how to let go of a plan that isn’t serving you.  I was diagnosed with cancer at 26 and learned that biological children weren’t likely in my future. Four years later, I met my teenaged son at a volunteer event. Motherhood doesn’t look like I expected, but my son is the child I was meant to parent. We have to let go of Plan A to make room for Plan B.

3. Focus on How You Deal, Not What You’re Dealt

Why did hundreds of people survive the Titanic, but Molly Brown is the only one who became infamous for it? Molly commandeered her lifeboat and organized months-long volunteer efforts on behalf of the other Titanic survivors, rallying everyone around her. Two people can be dealt the same issue, with dramatically different results.  Your life story isn’t about what happens to you, it’s about what you do from that moment on.

 

Forbes.com | July 13, 2015 | Amy Morin