How to Stay Professionally Healthy for Career Success
Author Name: Angela Slezak
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaslezak
Wellness programs don’t need to be solely about health. Maintaining “wellness” in your professional life also takes time and planning. Your career, like your body, can deteriorate through neglect, unhealthy choices or an unhealthy environment.
What is professional wellness?
Dimensions of Wellness describes Occupational Wellness as:
The occupational dimension of wellness is involved in preparing for work in which one will gain personal satisfaction and find enrichment in one’s life through work. Occupational development is related to one’s attitude about one’s work. Traveling a path toward your occupational wellness, you’ll contribute your unique gifts, skills and talents to work that is personally meaningful and rewarding. You’ll convey your values through your involvement in both paid and unpaid volunteer activities that are gratifying for you. You’ll know when you’re on the correct path for career wellness, when your work and hobbies become exciting (http://wellness.ucr.edu/seven_dimensions.html).
Does your professional life feel exciting or boring and routine? Is your professional life getting enough invigorating exercise and healthy nutrition?
The American Marketing Association Wellness Program
Often we wait for our professional life to get “sick” before we seek professional wellness. If you wait to get sick in order to maintain optimal health, the road to recovery is steep.
Like a health wellness plan, professional wellness revolves around your needs, time availability and personal goals.
Here is how AMA membership and events can keep you professionally healthy:
Have to drop off and pick up kids?
• Attend an AMA Monthly luncheon. You have to eat lunch, right? Meet colleagues, listen to engaging speakers and, of course, have some lunch – your own or catered.
• Read an article from an AMA publication like Marketing News or Marketing Insights and start a discussion at work or on LinkedIn’s AMA group. We’re in a social media world where you can network around your busy personal schedule.
Prefer a more relaxed networking environment?
• Drop in on Firsty Thursday held the first Thursday of the month at venues near and around downtown. It’s a great chance to meet colleagues in a relaxed, fun environment. What is networking if not fun?
Are you an early bird who gets the worm?
• The AMA Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) are held in the mornings – 7:30 – 9:00 am – and are a perfect way to spark your marketing creativity before you head into the office. The SIG topics include:
o Digital
o Healthcare
o B2B
Are you in transition or seeking a new career path?
• Volunteer with the AMA to learn about different industries before taking the leap into a new company or career. Meet colleagues from companies around the city to sneak a peak into their world before embarking on those job interviews.
• Stop by a Job Transition Group to develop skills and techniques for landing a new opportunity.
An Ounce of Professional Wellness is Worth a Pound of Job Search
Don’t wait until your professional life gets ill to seek new career growth. Becoming involved in professional activities is not only a way to see what you like, it is also a means to discover what you don’t like and can prevent you from moving into a career path not suited to your personal goals.
Keeping up with trends in your industry and meeting others to share ideas will lead naturally to more enthusiasm and a desire to follow those interests and those personal connections into new areas. Change will come naturally from within rather than occur when random changes happen from the outside.