When you are beyond excited about your job prospects after months of campaigning and pulling out the stops in an effort to nail the job or your dreams, you might need to hit pause before you sign the offer letter and make sure you have thoroughly read the job description. Before you say, “Yes! to the job!” you may need to read the fine print in terms of what the job entails and what you think you should be doing before you accept your new role.

It may all look great from the outside. You could be swept up in the excitement of the title, the position, the prospects of a larger scope of responsibilities, travel and all the perks that may come along with accepting a new position. You may have charted this course for a long time and it’s now finally arrived. Hold up just a minute please! Now you’ve heard a rumor that they may need for you to move to change your physical location and you may report to someone else and work with another team. Before you start packing, it might be wise to pause and make sure this is all that it was intended to be and there are no more surprises waiting for you. You may have been blinded by the light of the offer and forgot to fully read the details of your new position and who is really calling the shots here.

You’ve got to ask yourself, Are you ready to lead or are you ready to follow the lead? If you think you are the job, and it doesn’t really matter, think again. You need to make sure you kick the tires in terms of what your role will include and not take for granted that you will figure it out once you get in. Knowing the full scope of your role includes understanding your professional relationships and evaluating the interpersonal dynamics of your new work environment and the people you will be forced to work with as well. Your job description should provide a road map for you to dig deeper in terms of the expectations you and others have of you before you say yes to the offer. Working above or below your pay grade will determine how well you succeed in the job. Know what you are getting into before you tender that resignation.

You may think you bring a unique set of skills or point of view to the new job. But, if you are not a match with what is expected of you changing the rules mid-stream is not necessarily a good or available option. You have to not only think of how the new job will effect you but how will it effect your family. Maybe you have a spouse or partner who is not interested in making a move. Maybe your kids have special needs and your new role will force them out into the spotlight before they are ready or able. Taking stock of your situation personally as well as professionally, before you agree to accept the full responsibilities of your new role whatever that may be, is a crucial step in being honest with yourself and with those that really matter.

It’s not a sign of failure if you decide this job may be more than you bargained for. Even if you won the final offer after exhaustive interviews, you need to make sure this is what you really want and that it’s right not only for you but for your family as well. When you rely on the opinions and comments of others you may be forced to make and accept decisions that are not right for you. Think long and hard before you say yes to the job, no matter how tempting the offer appears to be.

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It is time once again to give thanks for all that has transpired this past year. As you gather with friends and family, you may find it tough to give thanks because you are still reeling from the political scene, or maybe you lost someone close to you this year, or you may be in a job transition. Sometimes it’s hard to feel thankful-you may have to really work at it. Your thoughts may take you to an uncertain future not really sure of what will be, or you may be stuck in trying to figure out the events of the past hoping in vein for a different ending.

When you are together with friends and family this year what one thing can you point to that has either changed you in some way or made you think of your career in a new and different way?

If you are in doubt about your future, or you just feel lost, think of what gifts you have to offer and all of the wonderful opportunities that lay ahead for you in the coming year.

1. Thank you for the gift of work;
2. Thank you for the ability to provide for myself and my family;
3. Thank you for the new opportunities ever present in my life;
4. Thank you for the abundance I have in my life;
5. Thank you for my professional relationships, friends and co-workers;
6. Thank you for the many mentors I have had in my career;
7. Thank you for the ability to learn new things in new ways;
8. Thank you for the chance to use my skills in productive ways;
9. Thank you for my ability to help others in their career or in their work;
10. Thank you for all of the many chances I have to grow, learn and become who I am really meant to be in this life.

Giving thanks for all of what you have now allows you to make room for all of the new opportunities that are just waiting for you in the future. And if all else fails, there is always another helping of pumpkin pie and a to go bag that will surely last for days!

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The famous Garland Rice quote never held more meaning post election than, “It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game,” that counts. Despite which side of the party politics you find yourself on this week, one lesson can be learned from this election process, and that is how to win. Playing the winning game when it comes to looking for a job, or angling for a promotion or if you are considering a new career means you have choices to make in how you show up for the challenge. Whether you believe a winner is born or made doesn’t really matter, what matters is how badly you want something and all that you will you do to get it.

There has been a lot of bad behavior associated with the high-stakes game of winning. That does not mean you have to choose to act in a way that is not comfortable or natural to you. Believing in who you are and what you want is the most important thing when it comes to your chances of winning. That passion for what you want whether it’s a title change, a salary increase or an altogether new career means you have what it takes to fight the good fight no matter what obstacles lay in wait.

There are only two things that will assure you win the top prize of whatever it is you are after. That is, being clear and staying focused. When you are clear on your direction, your message and what you want to accomplish and can see the end game; nothing will deter you from going for the win. When you remain focused on the path towards success, keep the plan simple and stay true to what you believe in, you can’t help but make it across the finish line. Now whether you come in first, second or last does not mean you lost. The only goal you have is to cross the finish line and make it towards your intended goal.

If you don’t succeed, you have learned valuable lessons along the way that will help you to move forward in the future. You can wallow in your failure, call the job game “rigged” or feel like you are being discriminated against if you don’t ultimately get what you want. Again, it’s your choice on how you show up to play the game, and your reaction of the outcome. Having the chops to go after what you want may not be easy but you have no one to blame but yourself if you don’t at least try.

Your job and your career choices are yours to win or to lose. How well you show up and engage with your audience, and are clear on what it is you want and remain focused, will determine if you come in first or in second place on the race to winning your new job.

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Whether you are running for President, a promotion or are a finalist for a new job, how you choose to show up and take the win will determine how well you are equipped to do the job. It’s not so much about your credentials, your experience or whom you know that will determine whether you win or lose. How you project who you are and what you stand for will seal the deal in your efforts to take the top prize. You are your words and your actions. There is no taking it back once you put it out there. Choose carefully otherwise it will haunt you your entire career.

How you win depends on how well you stay true to your platform, your mission and your goals. It means not speaking out of turn, respecting your allies and adversaries and being humble about your position. But when you are compromised because of your gender, your race, your sexual orientation or any other protected class you are in essence in a free fall with nowhere to land. In a sad commentary on the state of affairs, we no longer have to worry about leaning in but whether we will even be allowed to participate in the same conversation, meeting or path to the top.

Fighting the good fight no longer means, raising the bar to a higher standard. It no longer implies when “They go low, you go high.” What do you need to do to ensure you get heard no matter what your position or point of view? Whether you lost out as a job finalist, or on a promotion or as President of the free world, how you move forward after the fall will depend on who you are as a person not what gender, color, orientation, religion you are wrapped in. Being fearful because there are no other options will surely make it hard to figure out your next right move.

When you are in free fall you can do a few things including hoping for a soft landing or waiting to hear the sound of breaking bone. How you choose your reaction to falling back will determine whether you ultimately survive the fall or not. You may feel like you can’t get up, move up or find the door. But falling back does not mean you can’t move forward. The path may be slow, longer, harder but so long as you remain clear and focused on your direction and choose your steps carefully, you will get to the finish line-one way or another.

You may have been at this job thing for a while, looking for the right fit and the right opportunity to move your career in a new direction. Maybe a recruiter came knocking at your door one day and you decided to take a look at what is out there. Or, your boss decided to throw a lot of cash on the table in fear you might decide to start your own competing business and entice you to stay on board instead. However, you got to the position of being the most popular kid in the employee break room, you need to be able to separate fact from fantasy when it comes to weighing your options and negotiating your position forward.

You may have the perfect resume, your credentials are impeccable or you have a unique skill set that only a select few can appreciate. Leveraging your assets is a good thing but negotiating against yourself when it comes time to make a decision about your future, isn’t. What does that scenario look like? Well, let’s say you are making $100K a year now and someone is willing to offer you $200K but you decide you have more opportunity to go it on your own and tell them you want $300K to accept the offer because you have the potential to make more money on your own. This is where you need to know how to separate fact from fantasy. Negotiations on salary need to be about what you are actually making or have made in the past, and not on your perception of what you can make lest you appear “greedy” If your current employer or future employer is willing to in essence double your salary, you should not start asking for extra time off, an increase to your 401K match or some other variable which does not make you look like a savvy negotiator but more like a spoiled, petulant child!

When it comes to figuring out your worth you have to be in a position to have earned the level of income and stature your position demands on the open market. If you have not been offered and turned down an amazing salary for a certain amount of money or title in the past, then you can’t expect your current boss or prospective employer to make up the difference. You have to be earning or have earned a certain salary or position or benefit in order to effectively negotiate a more substantial offer moving forward.

To compare yourself to others who make more with no facts in your favor to back it up is not leveraging your assets, it starts resembling a hostage negotiation. Making unreasonable demands especially when you really, really want the opportunity in hand is a very dangerous game to play. It may be a seller’s market right now, where candidates have an upper hand due to a shortage of talent, but the tables can turn at any time and you don’t want to be the one standing in the Starbuck’s line wishing you had taken that last offer that came along but you passed because the vacation was more but not enough than what you previously had.

Whenever you are in a situation where someone is offering you more than what you currently have on many levels from base pay, to benefits, to title, to opportunity, be careful not to squander the offer because you are fixated on the details that in the big picture, don’t add up on your career balance sheet. Greed is good but not when you lose out on something you really want.

Looking for a job?  Find us at www.greenlightjobs.com

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