Finding Your Mission in Life

What is our mission in life?  Will any of us really ever know?  What are we good at?  What does each of us enjoy?  What were we born to do?  I think that it is a valid statement that each and everyone of us will ponder these questions at some point in their life.

What is a mission?  Personally, when I think about the word mission, I think about religion and what I was called to do by God. Religious or not, mission is something that relates to all of us. So, backing away from the religious aspect of the term mission, here are three things I know for sure will help in your search for your mission in life...

1. You have talents that you are meant to utilize in this life.  Find your greatest talent and put it to use!
2. You may use these talents in the places/settings that most appeal to you.
3. In some way or another, these talents will benefit the world.

Now in more religious terms, 

1. Your mission on earth is to seek to stand hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your Mission is derived.
2. Your second mission is to do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place, following the leading and guidance of God's Spirit within you and around you.  
3. Similar to what I said above, your mission is to exercise the Talent that you particularly came to Earth to use - your greatest gift, which you most delight to use, in the place(s) or setting(s) that God has caused to appeal to you the most, and for those purposes that God most needs to have done in the world.  

Here's the thing, religious or not religious, finding your mission is all the same.  It is about finding yourself and what you are meant to do in this life.  Once we find what our passion and determine our mission, it will be much easier in finding the careers and jobs that make us happy because we are doing the things that we like to do.  And to me, that is the most important thing in life: happiness.  

Social Media Campaign

Learning about social media is more effective when you just dive right in.  That is exactly what I did when creating a social media campaign.  The idea was to create a Facebook advertisement, determine who the intended audience was, create a budget and run time for the advertisement, and then wait for the results.

My objective in running this ad was to promote awareness about a not-for-profit organization called Miracles in Progress.  I wanted the ad to essentially lead people to the Miracles in Progress website so that people can become more aware of the organization and learn more information.

Below, you will find a short presentation about this campaign, the background, the budget, and the results.  Enjoy!

Ways to Look for a Job

As we know job-hunting can be extremely difficult.  There are just times that we will face when we realize our job hunt is just not working.  What are we to do?  First, never give up.  Three words that should be inserted directly into the brain and never forgotten: never give up. Take a breath and try a different approach.  Even when you are feeling as low as the ground and feel as if you have tried everything... chances are you haven't.  Time to think outside the box.  Don't just work hard to find a job, work harder at a different strategy.  Do some deep thinking, use your brain, and attempt to solve the problem.

With that said, provided are some of the best and worst ways to look for a job.  Hopefully this will help in avoiding, or perhaps using some of these methods... 

1. Looking for job postings on the Internet.  Many will argue that this method is in fact the best way to look for a job.  Surprisingly this works on average only 4% of the time (according to information provided by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles)
2. Mailing out your resume to employers.  Only works about 7% of the time...
3. Answering local newspaper ads.  As times are changing, so are the ways of employers.  This method works anywhere between 5% and 24% at best.
4. Seeking help from private employment agencies or search firms.  This method works somewhere between 5% and 28% of the time.
5. Responding to ads in professional or trade journals, relating to your field.  This method only works about 7% of the time. 
6. Job clubs.  What is a job club?  I didn't even know... Apparently they are clubs that job hunt together.  Apparently the success rate is around 10%... I sure didn't know these "clubs" existed. 
7. Seeking help from the state or federal employment office.  Only works about 14% of the time.
8. Going to places where employers pick up workers.  This is for union members - assuming you have access to a union hiring hall, this will find you work up to 22% of the time. 
9. Asking for job leads.  Knowing someone is always a plus.  Knowing someone who knows someone is also good.  This method works around 33% of the time.
10. Going directly to the employer/office and knocking on the door.  This works best with smaller employers and is known to work 47% of the time.
11. Using Yellow Pages.  I was shocked to see this percentage.  Apparently this method works 65% of the time.  What you do is go through the Yellow Pages of your local phone book and identify what interests you.  Old fashioned, but apparently it works!  

When it comes to job-hunting, I prefer using the internet to search job postings.  I think that with today's technology, it is the most efficient way of seeing what is out there and I can contact employers with just a click of a button.  I argue that this method works a small percentage of the time.  I have had great luck with finding job postings on the Internet and even landed a job within a few weeks of searching.  But we all have different ways of doing things and that's what makes us different!

Hootsuite

Being pretty social media savvy myself, I would say that I have a pretty decent background in the field of social media.  However, it wasn't until a few months ago that I found out about Hootsuite.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hootsuite, it is a free social media dashboard that allows users to manage and measure their social networks.  It lets users manage multiple social networks, schedule tweets and messages, track brand mentions, analyze social media market, and more!  What a perfect idea for keeping your social media organized and all in one place.

Getting started with using Hootsuite may seem overwhelming at first.  If you don’t know where to start, a recommendation is to start with Hootsuite University.  When I first wanted to see what Hootsuite was about, I dove right in and went to www.hootsuite.com and got a feel for some of the things I could do in Hootsuite to see if it was something that interested me.  Now, I have a Hootsuite certification!  Who would have thought!

Facebook Ads

Facebook has been and continues to remain a huge and influential social media site, which was the first social network to surpass 1 billion registered accounts, according to statista.com.  A very common way of advertising today is through Facebook.  Facebook advertising, just like any type of advertising is important to use carefully and correctly.  With that being said, there are several ways to advertise on Facebook.  However, the most common type of ad that appears on the site is the type that you see on the right hand of your screen after logging in.  Another type of ad can be seen on your news feed that reads, “Suggested Post."

One thing that a lot of people don’t know is that Facebook ads are not just limited to businesses to try to sell you their products.  Anyone wanting to promote something, whether it is an organization trying to spread awareness, or an individual trying to promote his or her published works, Facebook ads are for everyone.

In fact, the graphic to the left is a screenshot of a Facebook ad I just created myself.  The ad is promoting an organization called Miracles in Progress.  The objective of this ad campaign is to get people to click on the website and spread awareness about the organization

You too can make an ad like I did!  All you need is a Facebook account and an idea of what you will be advertising!  You can access www.facebook.com/advertising.  From there, you can click on "Create An Ad" to get your ad campaign started!

Dealing with Handicaps in the Job World

There are times when you go in for an interview and think you nailed it.  There's no way you didn't land the job... you were a superstar and they loved you.  Then reality sinks in and you find out you didn't actually get the job.  When an individual gets turned down, he or she may naturally think about what could have gone wrong.  Then you think about the "I got turned down because I..."

It isn't you or the handicaps you think you have.  Some employers just have a very distinct set of requirements for hiring.  So even if you think the reason for you not getting hired is because of a "handicap" you may have, understand that you can't possibly have a handicap that will keep all employers from hiring you.  Some employer, somewhere is looking for someone like you.

When I use the word "handicap," I am referring to everyone.  Yep, everyone.  Sure, you're probably thinking "I'm not handicapped."  Well... handicapped refers to a disability and it is true that everyone, in some sense has some sort of disability, or the inability to do something.  There are some things a person simply does not have the ability to do.  

So when job-hunting, realize that everyone has some type of disability that can keep them from being hired, not JUST you.  There may be a million things you can't do, but focus on the million and one hings you can do.  Think of why an employer would be lucky to have you.  If the company you just interviewed for turned you down, it's their loss, not yours.