Category: Self Help Tips

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The Importance of Work-Life Balance

Picture of an Apple keyboard, a planner, highlighter pens and a smartphone.

As the days go on, getting lost in the craziness and feeling like there is no end in sight seems like a daily occurance. With the busy season ramping up, it is important to find a good balance to your work-life and your life outside of the office.

Working day in and day out can be exhausting, especially in the ever fast-paced world of public relations. According to CNBC, public relations came in the eighth spot as part of their list of the top 10 most stressful jobs in America. I can attest to this claim with my brief time in this industry. Constantly thinking about how the public will perceive your message, being able to create a compelling message and making sure the world doesn’t blow up in your face is indeed high stress. Having a good work-life balance, especially in a high-stress career like public relations, is vital.

Finding hobbies that help you forget about work for even just a moment is a great way to help draw a line in the sand of work and personal life. Activities such as hiking, cooking, painting and just exploring your town or city can all be great ways to disconnect and be present in the moment. Even just making it a habit of leaving your work at the office can help push you to keep your work from creeping into your personal life.

With the rise of new age technology, it’s hard to stop yourself from refreshing your emails, scrolling through your newsfeed and essentially waiting for the world to throw a new curveball at you. Being able to turn off your phone and stop obsessing over work after leaving the office is a task that does come with its difficulties, but in order to not turn into a frazzled workaholic, it’s crucial.

Being able to take a step back and enjoy your life is something that I feel has been pushed aside. Everyone wants to be constantly busy and have something on their plate. However, that lifestyle is not sustainable. Please for your own sake, take a minute to stop, take a deep breath and relax for just a moment.

By Shannon White

Photo by Shannon White

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Personal Success in PR: The Importance of Self Concept

Hidden flower in France

In business, the way you perceive and present yourself correlates directly with how others perceive you. Self-concept relates to how an individual regards their identity.

Self-concept is developed by both internal and external factors. Personality and personal background play a huge role on building one’s self-concept.

Many individuals may have a positive view of themselves whereas others may have a more negative view. Building up confidence to reach a positive view of yourself is crucial for ultimate success in business and personal relationships.

How can you strengthen personal confidence?

Start with developing a positive opinion of yourself through frequent uplifting thoughts. Focus on positive self-talk and an understanding of the importance of being uniquely you.

  1. Verbal communication is key. Speak clearly and confidently.
  2. Nonverbal communication is as important as verbal communication. Make a habit of practicing positive body language tactics. Make eye contact with others, standup straight and keep your head up when walking in a crowd.
  3. Spread kindness to other people. Random acts of kindness towards strangers can have a direct correlation with how you view yourself.
  4. Analyze your social media presence. Post content related to your interests and stuff that you are passionate about sharing. Before publishing content, think about how it makes you feel and how it may make others feel.

Making a habit of these tactics can help you reach more opportunities in business. Your attitude and confidence levels will strengthen by empowering how you view yourself. With increased confidence will increase your networking opportunities.

In any personal and business endeavors always remember that there is no one exactly like you and that is your super power.

By Kailey Gaffikin

Photo by Kailey Gaffikin

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The Key to a Stress-Free Life

Sitting back and relaxing with feet up on the desk.

Stress, we all get it, but where does it derive from? It can be caused by multiple things such as having a lot on your plate, meeting deadlines, or even having to resolve a problem. Regardless of what is causing you to stress, I will give you a tip that has helped me deal with stress during the last five years of my life.

 

Before I get to that, let me give you a small glimpse of the type of stress I was facing.

 

I transferred to Chico State from a community college in San Diego. I dealt with the most amount of stress during my final year. I was working 40 hours a week for a deadline-oriented market research firm. I was the scheduler in charge of meeting weekly deadlines for my two assigned states. I was also the team lead of my department which meant I had to help my team members meet their deadlines. At the same time, I was dealing with transfer applications while taking 15 units of classes. Somehow, I managed.

 

How did I do it? I scheduled an hour a day to do something I enjoyed. Everyone has that one thing we look forward to doing, that thing that lets us disconnect from the present and gives us peace of mind. In my case, that was playing video games. I realized that regardless of how stressed I was feeling I always felt much better and re-energized after disconnecting for a bit.

 

The key to being stress free isn’t video games. It’s finding that one thing that gives you freedom, makes you forget all your problems and allows you take a break and breath. My tip to you is, find that thing you look forward to doing and make time for it. It could be running, reading, cooking or even hanging out with friends. Whatever it may be, make time for it. Your deadlines won’t go away, but you will feel energized and relieved, giving you enough strength to tackle anything.

 

Public relations can be a stress heavy field, or so I’ve been told. But, I look forward to developing my career in an industry involving crisis communications. I like being challenged and being pushed to do my best. As long as I have gaming or something that can help me relieve stress, I welcome any challenge that comes my way.

 By: Alma Garcia 

Photo by: StartupStockPhotos

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The Stages of Morning

Gold clock with black numbers and white background

Have you ever been in the middle of that amazing dream where your celebrity crush is so in love with you, and as they’re about to kiss you the toll bell rings… and rings… and rings and you slowly drift awake and you realize it’s your alarm? The celebrity crush is gone, you’re back in reality and another day of busy public relations lifestyle is ahead. Suddenly the five stages of grief and loss set in: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance.

Denial: “Ugh! It can’t be 7 a.m. already… can it? There’s no way it’s time to get up,” I say to myself as I hit the snooze button for the first time. Okay, okay, maybe for the third time.

Anger: After the alarm goes off for the fifth time in 20 minutes, it’s hard not to get violent with the snooze button. I envy morning people. They’ll never understand the pain and torture of waking up at 7 a.m.

Bargaining: Every morning begins with the hopes that my 9 a.m. client meeting is canceled. “Please, oh please be canceled,” I pray as I roll over and check my work email. I promise to go to bed early tonight if I could just have one more hour of sleep. Nope! Meeting’s still on.

Depression: “WHY?” I say as I mentally breakdown under my covers. Ahh, it’s so warm under here. I never want to leave.

Acceptance: After the seventh time, the alarm goes off and reality sets in that the media pitches won’t write themselves and the events won’t get planned unless I get up. I finally accept my fate. I must get up and face my responsibilities. I hit the off button instead of snooze and brace myself for the cold air and bright lights. You win. I’m up.

Mornings come fast and most of the time it’s hard to get up, but a wise person once said, “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them.” Remember that tomorrow morning when 7 a.m. comes and you start the stages of grief and loss all over again.

By: Licia Dering

Picture provided by Pixabay.com

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Time Management: It’s Not Just a Skill… It’s a Lifestyle

An organized, color coded planner with granola and coffee beside it with a note pad

BEEP BEEP BEEP…It’s 7 a.m. when your alarm goes off and the first thought is, “How am I going to do today.” As the day progresses, you begin to realize your list of to-do’s is growing and you are losing daylight to complete everything. By the end of the day, you struggle to finally find a peaceful night’s rest. The ever growing list of very important things you need to complete by a looming deadline never seems to go away.

As a student working to pay my way through college and completing an internship with Tehama Group Communications, my day to day life makes time management a must. Time management can have different meanings for each individual. For me, it feels as though I am achieving my highest level productivity. Below are the five ways that I make time management part of my life style.

How to beat your busy PR schedule:

  1. Write it down:

Write down everything that needs to be done for the day. This helps by making sure that you aren’t forgetting anything important by trying to memorize it all in your head.

  1. Prioritize:

Put the things that need to be completed first at the top. By doing this, you will be able to make sure that even if you don’t complete everything on your list you at least finished the most pressing and important!

  1. Schedule in breaks:

It is easy to try to push through the day without taking time for yourself; give your body and brain a rest. When you come back from your breaks, you will feel more refreshed and ready to get down to business.

  1. Cross it off:

As the day goes on and you are able to complete a task, cross it off. The act of crossing off an item can help alleviate stress of looming deadlines.

  1. Find a routine:

Staying with a consistent routine will help you make sure that you are taking care of yourself and the little things that become after thoughts on the busiest of days.

How you spend your day and the amount of work that you feel like you are completing can be a huge factor in the amount of stress that you feel every day. So the next time you hear BEEP BEEP BEEP, you will know that with a little time management the day is yours!

By: Taylor Pickle