When you talk to people about impact, they seem to go one of two ways, either focusing on the brutal impact of a car crash or a right hook, or the positive, gentle, joyful impact that makes a difference in the world. 

What is common, though, is that people don’t tend to fully appreciate the impact that they, themselves, have. Why?...

I recently had the following comment from a teacher in the thread on one of my posts on LinkedIn: 

“I absolutely love my job as do so many in our field but the incessant focus on results, in particular at High School level is damaging to all: parents demand them, teachers worry about them and students become stressed and fixated on...

“Hey Dave, I’ve been teaching for 30 years and yet I always get the Sunday feeling, as do many other teachers I have worked with. No matter how much work you have done it never seems to be enough and it can frequently be overwhelming. I have loved every school I have taught in and every student I have met, even the trickiest ones...

So you joined teaching (actually, whatever profession you’re in) for a reason. It might well have been a very conscious choice because you knew what you wanted to do and the difference you wanted to make. 

This scenario is more usual in vocational type professions such as teaching and nursing, but just so we’re covering all the...

Teachers I meet and comments I read from teachers on social media often talk about how stressed they are and for many how, quite frankly, fed up they are with their career. I’ve paraphrased some of the most common comments I hear:  

• Some of the stuff I have to teach them just isn’t useful 
• I didn’t sign...

Curing the Sunday Night Blues

If you’re unhappy at work, or stressed, or feel overwhelmed, chances are that come Sunday night you are dreading the week ahead. 

That’s not good enough. You know that, don’t you? You know that you deserve better? 

I bet it's not just you that’s affected. Probably you’re not...

National Careers Week comes round every March. For many people the focus is on young people, the students at various stages of our education system. Not many people realise it's for adults too, and one of the main groups of people I love helping is teachers. 

Teachers spend their lives helping young people to develop their skills and...

It’s not the teachers, it's the system!

Why is it that young people are coming out of the education system without a clue how to manage their career? 

Is it the teachers?  Is it the students themselves? Is it the careers provision? Is it the parents/carers?

You could argue that to some extent we all have to take some...

Success!

Is that having a good job, a lot of money, social status? 

These are all common ways that people, and perhaps society, define success. Particularly around careers, you hear people say that certain jobs are good or they're bad. But who is the arbiter of all this?  What really is a good job? What is "a lot of money"?...

Just how important is it for you to have meaningful work? And what actually does "meaningful work" really mean anyway?

When I first started career coaching professionally, I'd just gone through my second major career change. It was the first time I'd really thought about what I wanted to get from work. What it had to do for me. 

Initially...