the increased focus on career breaks creates an outstanding opportunity to remove the stigma from them. Just because someone has taken a break does not mean they are lazy or that their skills are stagnating. Indeed, many people who take a career break are working just as hard, if not harder, as before and are gaining new skills that can serve them well when they reenter the workforce.

Career Breaks Are Okay Now

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/product-tips/linkedin-members-spotlight-career-breaks-on-profiles">LinkedIn</a>, recognizing the value of giving these workers every chance to regain employment, recently added a feature allowing its users to add career breaks to their résumé. So now, instead of having an employment gap that raises questions with prospective employers, LinkedIn users can make the most of their break, showing employers how it helped increase their value. It’s a good solution for all involved.

The Stamp Of Professionals

Career breaks are starting to become the norm. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/product-tips/linkedin-members-spotlight-career-breaks-on-profiles">62% of all employees worldwide</a> have taken a career break, and 64% of women have done so. Most people associate career breaks with either women who leave their employer to have children and care for them or younger workers who head off into the world for a gap year, but there are <a href="https://news.linkedin.com/2022/march/new-way-to-represent-career-breaks-on-linkedin">many other reasons</a> employees take time away, including parental leave (22%), medical leave (17%), and mental health reasons (14%).

Breaks Are Commonplace but Not so Commonly Accepted

The power dynamic on breaks is shifting, especially as the number of people with breaks on their résumé increases. The shift in the workforce toward millennials and younger generations is also forcing employers to reconsider their positions on career breaks. The vast majority of millennials (84%) expect to take an extended career break at some point in their life.In the future, it will be increasingly difficult for employers to find potential hires who have not had a break.

The Future Is Full Of Career Breaks

Just because an employee leaves the workforce temporarily does not mean that they are not developing relevant skills. Of those who returned to the workforce, 53% say they are better at their job after taking a break. 50% of hiring managers believe people returning from a career break have often gained valuable soft skills, and 51% believe workers who take breaks can restart their career any time.

Making the Most of Career Breaks

Some skill sets built during a break are harder to sell than others. Hard skills, such as solving healthcare issues for family members, is a chore that requires creative thinking and brainstorming. Employees may have to juggle mortgage payments, <a href="https://www.earnest.com/blog/student-loan-consolidation/">student loan payments</a>, and the added medical and living costs for family members, teaching them how to optimize spending. And when employees have to unexpectedly take in a family member, they must become logistics and budgeting experts—critical skills for many employers.

Career Break Reasons That Cannot Be Sold To Employers

Those who take breaks for caregiving reasons, whether for children or ailing family members, often cite increased patience and self-awareness as benefits of their time away. These <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90704279/eager-to-boost-your-teams-soft-skills-focus-on-this">soft skills</a> can be more difficult to translate into benefits for employers, even though they are undoubtedly important for both team building and effective management. Yet, for employees to showcase these skills, employers must get past the career break stigma.

Caring For Family

The pandemic and the ensuing Great Resignation <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90730449/the-second-year-of-the-pandemic-messed-with-you-more-than-you-realize">shined a spotlight</a> on workers’ legitimate needs and desires for a career break. In fact, 69% of people who took a break say the time away helped them gain perspective, and 68% say taking a break positively impacted their well-being. It’s time for employers and employees alike to change their perception of breaks. By offering certain profile features and sharing research, platforms like LinkedIn are making it easier for employees to include their new career-break skills and attract employers.

The Bottom Line

LinkedIn research shows a break in your career journey is no longer something to hide or speak vaguely about.


Stashed ideas

Taking a career hiatus is now perfectly okay

Researchers interviewed successful and effective people to discover how they learned to become successful. They found that: <ul><li>70% of their learning was from the experiences they had.</li><li>20% was from other people.</li><li>10% was from books and courses.</li></ul> We often go through experiences mindlessly. We move from one place to another and don't remember how we got there. We interact mindlessly with other people. However, we can only learn from our experiences if we are present in them.

The 70/20/10 tactic

The growth mindset, or learning mindset, is the idea that you want to come to this experience open to learning instead of clenched-jawed and with a performance mindset. You still want to perform but also learn from others about yourself.

The mindset you bring to experience

<ol><li>Work on your mindset. You won't learn if you try to prove how great you are or prevent people from thinking you're weak.</li><li>Set an intention for how you want to grow. Experiences are random. If you know which area you need to grow, such as being a better listener or more open, you will likely pay more attention to that dimension.</li><li>Consider how you will achieve your intention to grow in a specific area.</li><li>Ask for feedback.</li><li>Emotion regulation. Extreme emotions get in the way of learning. Try to keep them in check.</li><li>Reflection. During and after an experience, think about what you've learned.</li></ol>

Practices of a growth mindset

Experiences that help people learn the most are: <ul><li>Highly visible experiences because they're more challenging.</li><li>Experiences where there's a lot at stake.</li><li>Experiences where you're crossing boundaries. For example, a marketing person works with someone in operations.</li><li>Experiences that cross cultural divides, such as working with someone from a different country, race, gender, or other difference.</li></ul> Experiences are only useful if you have a way of capitalizing on the learning, which involves using the six practices of a growth mindset.

Opportunities to challenge yourself

People returning to the office will want a certain kind of leadership. So it comes down to three things: <ul><li>Confidence, because they are scared and want to know that someone is confident that we'll get through this.</li><li>Competence, so that they can be confident in you.</li><li>Compassion, because they want people that are compassionate about what they're going through.</li></ul>

Types of leaders we need to be

The 70/20/10 Rule For Growing in Your Job

Over the next few years some jobs will ‘disappear’, but most are likely to be redesigned thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and the rapid changes in technology.By developing your transferable skills and attributes further, you will be in a prime position to take charge and transit with ease to the next natural place.

The Future of Work

<ul>
<li>Adjusting and responding quickly to your new circumstances and environment.</li>
<li> Nurture your curiosity, dig deeper and re-evaluate previous opinions. Curiosity and learning enrich your mind to accept change and embrace the future.</li>
<li>Initiative. It will assist you to be more problem-solving-oriented.</li>
<li>Self-awareness. It incorporates your emotional intelligence, your ability to take on feedback and helps you to build self-confidence.</li>
<li>Communication skills. An effective communicator can lead, influence, negotiate, sell, manage, and do much more.</li>
</ul>

Key Skills You Need To Make a Career Pivot

With jobs set to disappear, here’s the 5 key skills you need to make a career pivot - CEOWORLD magazine

Picking up the wrong book to start learning about Stoicism can derail even the most interested person. A list of three books can help you to understand Stoicism and also teach you valuable life lessons. These books feel as if they were written a few weeks ago and are some of the most interesting and influential works from human history.

Learning about Stoicism

<ul><li>Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is the thoughts of the most powerful man advising himself on how to take up his responsibilities and obligations of his positions. The book is practical philosophy throughout and easily readable and accessible.</li><li>Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus. He is able to express his thoughts very clearly and profoundly.</li><li>Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. These letters can guide us through problems with grief, wealth, poverty, success, failure, education, and more.</li></ul>

Three must-read books to understand Stoicism

Self Improvement

The Stoic Reading List: 3 Must-Read Books To Get You Started

We mistakenly assume that each choice we make, and each individual action we make, is only affecting that particular moment, or circumstance.

That workout we skip or the project we procrastinate on are not isolating incidents. They will compound, and while they're unnoticeable today, they will have an effect over time.
Choosing comfort over stretching yourself becomes a cause set in motion and a reason to do it again and again.

Compounding actions

Every time you decide to do the easy thing, instead of the right thing, you are shaping your identity.
If you want to change where you are going, you need to do what's right. Self-discipline is built one step at a time, especially when you don't feel like doing it. For example, when the alarm clock goes off, you can choose to hit the snooze button and go back to sleep, or you can get out of bed and make progress towards your goals.

The easy thing and the right thing

<ol>
<li>Have a "To Stop" list. Identify the behaviour you want to stop and what you should do instead.</li>
<li>Decide the type of person you want to become, then you won't take isolated incidents carelessly.</li>
<li>Identify your Why. Why do you want to start a business? Why do you want to lose 14 pounds?</li>
</ol>

How to minimise isolating events

“Every time you choose to do the easy thing, instead of the right thing, you are shaping your identity”, write Elrod, “you’re ... by Sam Thomas Davies

The Easy Thing Versus The Right Thing: Which Do You Choose?

The ongoing pandemic is a once-in-a-century event that has put the feeling of comfort at a premium. One such unexpected source of comfort is the relatively new genre of cli-fi, that is the dystopian world of climate fiction: stories related to environmental devastation revolving around either the pre-apocalyptic ‘before’ or the post-apocalyptic ‘after’.
This genre is a rising trend, with novels that offer climatic doom or widespread ecological calamities becoming award-winning bestsellers.

The Appeal Of Doomsday Novels

<ul>
<li>In uncertain times, the appeal for novels telling stories of havoc and wrenching loss is rising. With anxiety and uncertainty all around us, the narratives offer a degree of hope, humour and catharsis.</li>
<li>The disorientating environment, existential despair and the many new challenges which are part of the narration in dystopian novels provide a new kind of thrill and entertain the readers even with their bleakness.</li>
<li>The new kinds of decisions that many have to make offer an extreme alternative of what could happen, resulting in the readers re-examining their current relationships and feeling better.</li>
</ul>

Reading Apocalyptic Novels During A Global Crisis

Climate Fiction, or Cli-Fi is the latest hot trend in the literary world, and feels less like imagination and more like the near future. 
We get the feeling that things could be much worse than now, when the outside world is almost dystopian and highly uncertain. The extreme bleakness in the hot-selling novels is complicated by the fact that the problems described are normalized in the minds of the reader.

Climate Fiction: When Fiction Becomes Reality

In our times of uncertainty, the latest fiction about climate disaster is unsettling – but also strangely comforting. Hephzibah Anderson speaks to the authors.

The rise of apocalyptic novels

Billionaires are often highly disciplined and set extraordinarily high standards for themselves and the people around them. Of course, they have lazy and unmotivated days but they don’t allow themselves to slack off.You can’t be successful if you don’t hone your skills. Limit the distractions and temptations that hinder your progress, show up and be eager to grow your skills.

Practice Discipline

Routines and rituals are sets of habits that, when practiced consistently, lead to profound, long-term results. Most billionaire routines start early in the day and include exercising, reading and contemplating.It doesn’t matter when you do your routine activities. What counts is that you commit to doing them — even when you don’t feel like it.

Commit To Routines

Billionaires love setting aside alone time. .. To think. They might do this by meditating or some other relaxing activity they enjoy.

Contemplate

Many billionaires are avid readers of a wide range of topics from fiction and nonfiction.Keep a priority list of titles based on your interests or recommendations from mentors — anything that will add value to your life. If you want to go the extra mile, mark interesting passages and write down notes, thoughts and ideas.

Read

Billionaires maintain their health by exercising regularly. They also often practice meditation or stick to a nutritious diet.Many incorporate their favorite sports into their workout regimen and claim that sports teach us about winning and losing, essential skills in business and life.

Take Care Of Your Health

Most billionaires wake-up around 5:30 a. m. Waking up early gives you more time to think in silence, work undisturbed and mentally prepare for the day.It’s important to note that getting less sleep isn’t what makes you successful. The majority of billionaires function best after seven to eight hours of rest; they simply go to bed earlier.

Wake Up Early

There are billions of people in the world, and only a tiny fraction of billionaires. These are the people who have created phenomenally successful businesses and changed the world in significant ways. What's their secret to achieving such impressive accomplishments? What are their belief systems? What gives them the energy to pursue ambitious goals?

I interviewed 21 self-made billionaires about their secrets to wealth and success-here's what I learned

We spend almost 25 percent of our adult life in our jobs, which most of us hate. So we basically wake up every morning and do something which we don’t even like to do.
We need to find a career that does not make us miserable all the time, and according to the Japanese concept of IKIGAI, it is the intersection of three things:
<ol>
<li>What we value.</li>
<li>What we are good at.</li>
<li>What the world values.</li>
</ol>

Your Career And Your Life

What we are passionate about is often superficial, but what we value, we can do no matter how difficult the circumstances, because we derive meaning and value from it. It is different from a compulsion or an addiction.
We need to ask three questions to direct our energy:
<ol>
<li>What big problem exists that people don’t care enough about?</li>
<li>What problems do you enjoy tackling just for fun, but others don’t?</li>
<li>What do you naturally start to do when left on your own?</li>
</ol>

What We Value

To find a perfect career, we need to be good at what we do. It may be a technical skill like writing or coding, or something different, like designing homes, or cooking. 
Intangible soft skills, ignored for decades, have now become important. These include emotional intelligence, empathy or making boring topics sound interesting.

What We Are Good At

<ul>
<li>What we like doing is a hobby, but if it is valued by the world, it becomes a career.</li>
<li>We can figure out our strengths and what we value, and look for commercial opportunities that align with our working styles and quirks.</li>
<li>We all have our own preferences and working styles, like the desired level of freedom, what we get paid, and how respected we feel.</li>
<li>We can also be an entrepreneur and create opportunities where the current market or level of interest is under-serving, filling the gap left by others.</li>
</ul>

What The World Values

How to Find The Perfect Career

“Happiness and emotional health are not extras, or bonuses, or nice-to-haves – they’re actually at the core of what helps us live well.”

Happiness is not a goal or something to pursue at a later time. Emotional health is a skill to be mastered, not a destination to eventually arrive at.
And being happy is being linked to an active lifestyle, a better diet, better sleep, better weight management, lower stress levels, an improved immune system, and increased life expectancy.

Happy Happy People

Get perspective and clarity on which area of your life you have to focus on. Start by analyzing, examining and identifying the problem areas:
<ul>
<li>Fun and Recreation</li>
<li>Physical Environment</li>
<li>Career</li>
<li>Finances</li>
<li>Personal Growth</li>
<li>Romance</li>
<li>Family and Friends</li>
<li>Health</li>
</ul>

Analyze and Identify

Most people are stuck in negativity out of sheer habit and think happiness is just available in small doses, occasionally. To get out of the negative thinking:
<ul>
<li>Start a Gratitude practice, using a journal or a notepad, and note down the things you like about a certain aspect of your life (like your job, for instance).</li>
<li>A daily morning routine of noting three specific things that you are grateful for, no matter how small, also helps you push yourself into a positive mindset.</li>
</ul>

Being Thankful

Being meaningfully kind to others, using small gestures like helping someone get a chair, or asking about their health, releases oxytocin to both the kind person and the receiving person.
This, in turn, helps in job satisfaction and an overall sense of happiness.

Meaningful Kindness

Being intentionally happy in your relationships, and in your family raises our happiness levels in untold ways.
One feels more connected, joyful, peaceful and blissful when exchanging love with family members and our circle of close friends.

Family Love

Go to sleep early. Having a sense of discipline in our life patterns and routines provides us with a sense of happiness, even if it means depriving ourselves of certain pleasures in the short-term.

Routines and Discipline

The last time I felt joy was at an event that would be many people's vision of hell: a drunken Taylor Swift club-night singalong in the early hours of the morning a few weekends ago. I certainly experience joy, either as peaks of euphoria or in quiet, unexpected bursts.

The joy audit: how to have more fun

Observation is as important now as it was a thousand years ago. However, we have to do it more quickly and efficiently because we may run into fifty strangers in a day where our ancestors saw only a few.
We often see people distracted while driving (applying makeup, making phone calls, texting) and getting into traffic accidents. When we fail to observe, it leads to avoidable circumstances. It can increase the chances of being victimized. Someone may say, "I had a feeling, in the beginning, that something wasn't right."

We have become observationally lazy

Observation is about seeing the world around you, having situational awareness, and interpreting what others communicate verbally and nonverbally.
Good observation skills allow us to test and validate what others intend for us. Are they kind, unselfish, empathetic? Or selfish, cruel, indifferent, and apathetic? If we discover it early enough, we can spare ourselves.

It's never too late to start observing

Being observant does not mean being obnoxious or intrusive. It is done with subtlety and purpose. We assess for two things primarily: 
<ul>
<li>Danger: How does this situation or individual make me feel? If you are walking to your car at night and see someone walking briskly towards you, your inner voice will make you more alert, and you can act on the feeling and avoid possible danger.</li>
<li>Comfort: Does this person make me feel comfortable at all times? Never ignore clues that say something is wrong.</li>
</ul>

Observation can protect you

Study after study has demonstrated that we humans are terrible observers - often distracted and not very discerning. Has it always been this way and can we become better observers? The answer is no and yes.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Kyle Red
@redkyle

Taking a career hiatus is now perfectly okay

The 70/20/10 Rule For Growing in Your Job

With jobs set to disappear, here’s the 5 key skills you need to make a career pivot - CEOWORLD magazine

The Stoic Reading List: 3 Must-Read Books To Get You Started

The Easy Thing Versus The Right Thing: Which Do You Choose?

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Kyle Red@redkyle

Taking a career hiatus is now perfectly okay

The 70/20/10 Rule For Growing in Your Job

With jobs set to disappear, here’s the 5 key skills you need to make a career pivot - CEOWORLD magazine

The Stoic Reading List: 3 Must-Read Books To Get You Started

The Easy Thing Versus The Right Thing: Which Do You Choose?

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Kyle Red
@redkyle