Believe in Yourself

This is a post from Job Coach Cindy Virtue who encourages us to make the most of the holiday break and to BELIEVE in ourselves!

Believe in yourself and your dreams!

Today my calendar was marked to sit down and write the blog for Pinnacle Empowerment Center this morning. It was on my to-do-list for 9:00am to hold me accountable or Heather may not be too jolly with me come our Wednesday Open House Celebration. Well it is now 4:00pm a little later than anticipated, but as everyone knows little bumps in the road sometimes comes up. Here is my bump:

I have a good friend who wrote a book 8-years ago, which had sat on her bookshelf just getting dusty. While reflecting over the last holiday season and with the encouragement of her friends and family she decided to submit it for publication. She found three possible publishers in March and submitted her transcript. To her surprise two-weeks later she was sitting with a contract with a target publishing date for October 2012 in time for the holiday sales. Since this was a book about the meaning of Christmas timing was an issue. She worked very hard over the summer, meeting demanding deadlines for rewrites.  Unfortunately, due to factors out of her control, the book was finally printed mid-November missing the shelves in major book store, but it is now available online.

As we were catching up last week and she was filling me in with all the details of what the publisher will do to promote her book they also encouraged her to reach out to her network. Well, this is my area!   I could see she felt so overwhelmed so I helped her come up with a promotional plan- which is very similar to what I do when I help job seekers.

We sat and brainstormed on how to best use the limited time left before the holiday to market her holiday book. Helping her understand how to reach out to her network, making phone calls asking her friends for help to spread the word, identifying upcoming events to attend and possibly ask if she could setup a table for a book signing  such as the Dec, 20th Girls Night Out Even in Downtown Ellicott City. Finally, why not create a FREE website through wordpress.com which will make it easier for her network to spread the word. This was my BUMP since I only have created one several months ago this took longer than anticipated, but was well worth it. I am much better or should I say faster in helping job seekers with Linkedin profiles then I am in creating a website, so I may need to keep my day job. In the end, she took a leap of faith and she is now a published author!

With the holiday upon us and as you may be job searching you need to believe in yourself. Take this time to regroup, take a fresh look at your resume and Linked profile, come up with a game plan on how you can reach out to your network, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Pull out your calendar now and start setting deadlines and goals for the New Year. Attend PEC FREE Job Club or Empowerment Circle for help. The year 2013 will be your time but you need to make it happen!

Note: January Job Club has been moved to Tuesday, January 8^th due to the holiday. Please contact me for times and location at cindy@empowerctr.org or (410) 799-1097 ext. 300

Have a safe and wonderful holiday season!

Want to learn more about Ellicott City newest author? www.missmarybelieves.wordpress.com