Q: I’m changing industries and applied for a slew of jobs in a new field. I recently accepted a job offer for less money than I asked for to get my feet wet and hopefully move up the ladder. The very next day I was offered another job for the amount of money I asked and better benefits.  I asked and better benefits. It’s a small business world out there and I’m scared company No. 1 might have a target on my back. Can I retract my first acceptance without burning any bridges?

Congratulations on receiving two job offers in a brand new industry. It sounds like you’ve got talent. I view the second job offer with more money and benefits as a GOOD problem—something which can be used to improve your situation overall. Reframe the situation and see it as what the market is willing to pay for good people. It’s a new industry for you; therefore, you need to know the range of compensation employers pay in your field. Take a look at my tips below for handling this career situation.

Which company and job do you like better?

Before you do anything, decide whether you like the job offer at Company A or Company B better? What is it about each company you like? What are the chances of career progression? What are the people like at each company? Is there more opportunity for promotion or acceleration of earnings in the future at one company versus another? If it’s a new industry, which place do you think offers the better platform one, two or five years from now? Take a careful look at this as a first step.

Company B’s offer can be used for further negotiation. 

If you like Company A more, but the salary and benefits of Company B are better then use this as a starting point of renegotiation. Being offered another job that matches the money you originally asked for, along with better benefits is a great thing. You can use this to go back to the first company and tell them you received a better offer—and don’t be shy in asking if they can match it. Be honest and tell them you had been speaking to numerous companies during the job finding process, and even though you think Company A is awesome, another firm has come back with a better offer. There are many things to consider in taking a job, and money and benefits is an important factor.

Value yourself, and remember this when you are negotiating. 

As an employer, finding the right employee can take some time. The company may have received hundreds of applications, but there is something in YOU they like. It’s not only getting the right fit in terms of skill set, but also getting the right fit in terms of personality. After all, they have to work with you every day—so it’s better if everyone gets along. I also see it as a positive that two companies have offered you a job. Telling the first employer you have a better job offer can be a good thing in terms of how they view/value your contribution. A little competition can be good.

A client shared with me recently how guilty she feels for not being able to spend more time with her young children. She’s a working mother with a demanding job in the highly competitive financial industry. She said her guilt feels overwhelming, and it’s not just the time she’s not spending with her children and husband, it’s also the time she’s not spending with her aging parents, who live far away. When I ask her about taking time for herself, she immediately dismisses it as too unrealistic to consider and says she’s long given up on that idea.

Looking fatigued, the sadness in her face was prominent as she was describing the efficiency of the family routine. The family calendar runs from an app on the smart phones, with pop-up reminders of who’s doing what and when. Everyone has access from the full-time nanny to the dog walker. But her voice starts to crack as she describes everyone living under the one roof, but passing each other by. Thanks to the app, each family member and caregiver knows where everyone else is at all times, but where are the moments of spontaneous connection or time for intimacy? She finishes it by sharing, “my fear is that I will look back and decide that it wasn’t worth it.”

This challenge is not exclusive to my client. Many women (and men) I coach or interact with socially or connect with on social media are experiencing the same challenge. They feel an overwhelming amount of guilt meeting the demands of a career and missing many moments with their families.

Consider this — How does feeling guilty serve me?

You may decide there is a need for you to reexamine your work priorities and how your career schedule relates to your family life. When feelings of guilt weigh heavily on you, this is a practical and smart first step in my view. Your internal guidance may be giving you valuable feedback to re-prioritize. I spend a lot of time with clients working through creative ways in which they can bring greater balance into life and find more meaningful opportunities for connection with family and friends.

But after a point, when the practical steps have been taken and changes in routine are in place, then, the question to ask yourself is “How is continuing to feel guilty serving me?”

Does feeling guilty on its own make you a better mother, father, spouse? Does it help with your performance on the job or in advancing your career? Probably not.

My experience in working with people is that once guilt is no longer seen and used as your internal guidance calling for change, then experiencing guilt on its own becomes paralyzing and stifles creativity.

It’s at this point I ask clients, “Can you give yourself permission to experience joy and happiness, even though things are not perfect?”

The opportunity for healing is not focusing on the outside circumstances — remember you’ve already done this by tweaking your schedule. It’s about changing how we relate to the issue on the inside.

Using a big stick called guilt to beat ourselves up so we continue to feel bad, limiting feelings of joy and peace doesn’t help in making us a better parent, spouse or colleague.

Can you give yourself permission to be joyous, finding peace in THIS moment? And can you come into acceptance for the choices you are making, finding fulfillment in the NOW?

Being overwhelmed with guilt about not spending time with the kids while at the office, or feeling guilty for leaving the office early to be with the family, only leaves you feeling dissatisfied in both situations.

So, reconsider, “How is feeling guilty continuing to serve me?” If you can take action which brings about a positive change is some way, then you could argue it has served a purpose — your inner guidance got your attention. But if guilt is without action and just leads to you feeling bad, then let it go.

How you relate to the issue is the issue. Unless you plan on changing your outer reality, move into acceptance for WHAT IS. Doing so will free you to enjoy the moments you do have with your family and time spent at work.

The advice written by Julie-Ann Tathem, Tathem LLC is opinion based and for entertainment and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be in place of a consultation with a health, tax, legal or other professional.

This article first appeared in Huffington Post. Julie-Ann is a regular Huffington Post Blogger and you can click here to see her articles.

Q: My best friend—and former teammate—just got promoted at work and now she’s my boss! I’m jealous, of course, but I also feel like it has changed our relationship. What advice do you have for working with her in this new way while not losing our friendship? Is that even possible?

I can understand that having your best friend as your new boss is not easy. It’s not only the relationship you have with each other that you need to consider, but also how your colleagues react to your relationship with their boss. You could be given the better projects based on merit, but your colleagues may think it’s due to favoritism. If you want to maintain your friendship with your new boss, here are a couple of things to consider.

You will need to get clear around your feelings of jealousy. 

It’s going to be hard to maintain a close friendship, which includes mutual support, when you are jealous of your friend’s success. Even if you think you are keeping your feelings well hidden, your new boss/best friend is almost certainly picking up on this. Use this as an opportunity for self-reflection. Usually when feelings of jealousy come up, there is an underlying misunderstanding that we feel unworthy about ourselves or not enough. And I say it’s a misunderstanding because the reality is, your worth is not defined by what you do or what promotion your best friend gets. You are worthy just for being you. Looking for the learning opportunity, you can use this incident as a time for self-reflection and personal healing.

Adopt the ‘If she can do it, so can I’ attitude.

Instead of being jealous of your friend, see her promotion as inspiration for you to move up the corporate ladder—whether at this firm or another. Ask her what she did to make the move. Was she working longer hours than you, is she better at self-promotion? Did she develop key relationships that helped in her promotion? Perhaps you need further training to match her skill set. As Anthony Robbins says—success leaves clues. So look for the clues, and if you want a similar promotion, emulate her success.

Maintain the friendship, develop good boundaries. 

If you are going to continue with a close friendship, then you will both need to hold good boundaries, agreeing ahead of time how you are going to relate to each other in and out of the office. Boundaries in this situation will be very important, particularly around confidentiality. Neither of you will want to be sharing personal information after hours and risk it being used against you in the office. Even though she is your best friend, as your new boss she has a commitment to the company to build the best team she can. And based on knowledge of you, both professional and personal, she is now in a position to greatly impact your career. Keep in mind, your friend will almost certainly be privy to sensitive and confidential company information as a manager. She will most likely not be able to share this with you, even if it directly affects your job. Getting clear inside yourself that she is doing her job, versus withholding from the friendship, can be helpful in avoiding feelings of betrayal.

Do you know what I’m talking about when I say paralyzed by imagined fear? I’m not talking about the fear where we sense real danger. This is what Gavin De Becker writes in his book, “The Gift of Fear” – our animal instinct of knowing when we are in the presence of danger.

I’m talking about the imagined fear which feels paralyzing each time we want to grow outside our comfort zone. It’s paralyzing because many start with an idea, moving forward confidently to explore further. But as the dream incubates, the reasons why it’s unlikely to work start to surface. Our initial enthusiasm is quickly overshadowed by self-doubt. Once the justifications of why it’s not going to work have taken a strong hold in our thoughts, our heartfelt dreams begin to be minimized. Before long they become reclassified as silly ideas or impractical thoughts which never had any hope of succeeding anyway. We tell ourselves with conviction “I’m too old, the economy is bad, I have responsibilities and bills to pay so there’s no way I can pursue that idea”.

Does this sound familiar? If it does, keep reading.

A number of years ago, my go-to audio book was Wayne Dyer’s “Power of intention”. I listened to it over and over, as there were so many topics which resonated with me – I couldn’t get enough of these gems of inspiration. One in particular was the importance of paying attention to the ideas stirring inside us, where the whispers of our heartfelt dreams and desires can be heard.

“Don’t die with your music still in you.” Wayne Dyer.

If you’ve heard the whispers of your dreams, and felt the initial excitement of connecting with a heartfelt desire, take a look at the steps below. Don’t let yourself be paralyzed by imagined fears before you’ve challenged yourself, discerning what are real or imagined.

Tip 1: Write out ALL of your fears and imagined worst case scenarios. Don’t stop until they are all out on paper. Often this alone can restore us to clarity and calm when the fears around heartfelt desires rise to the surface.

Tip 2: Sort out the practical from the “boogeyman in the closet”. Some fears are legitimate, and can be an indication you need additional work. But some fears dress up like the “boogeyman in the closet” – imagined fears which paralyze our progress unless confronted. This is where discernment is required.

One you’ve listed every fear on paper, you can start sorting. Perhaps your concern is not having enough money to start a business. Before you discount the idea, look at your finances and write up a budget. Get clear on the practical steps for sorting out a financial buffer.

If your fear is public speaking, enroll in a group like Toastmasters. Perhaps you want a promotion, but fear being turned down. Identify areas where you need some further training, or read self-help books such as “Mindset” by Carol Dweck, or “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks. Titles like these can be useful in identifying unconscious blocks to achieving success.

Whatever the fear is, it can usually be worked through with additional planning, or healing of unconscious patterns of behavior.

Tip 3: Breaking things down into small, digestible steps. A lot of what stops us from moving forward, particularly with our big dreams, can be feelings of overwhelm at the (perceived) enormity of change required to meet our goals, along with the idea that it all has to be actioned immediately.

In the words of Mark Twain, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

Tip 4: Having the staying power. One of the most difficult challenges in my view is having the staying power to sustain the ups and downs while seeing your dream through to reality. Any time we move in the direction of our heartfelt dreams, anything which is holding us back will come to the surface to be cleared.  This is where a life coach or support group can be invaluable in keeping the staying power.

The advice written by Julie-Ann Tathem, Tathem LLC is opinion based and for entertainment and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be in place of a consultation with a health, tax, legal or other professional.

This article was originally posted on Forbes.com.

Q: My boss avoids conflict. He’ll agree with ideas or suggestions in meetings, but then later I learn he implemented the exact opposite or ignored the suggestions. How do I get him to be direct?

Want to get your boss to follow through on his commitments? Take a look at my tips below.

Agree on specific next action steps in meetings. 

If you know your boss is prone to going back on his promises, then be very specific in meetings, asking for clear points of actions with agreed dates for implementation. And even if your boss isn’t prone to going back on his promises, it’s a good idea in any case, to get a list of next action steps before you and your colleagues leave the meeting. I’ve been in many meetings where everyone has agreed on the ideas discussed, where there has been enthusiasm and where colleagues feel very clear about the plan. The problem arises when the meeting finishes, people return to their desks, the phone rings, emails get answered and people get distracted and forget the specifics. Fast forward a couple of days, weeks and nothing, or very little, has been done toward meeting the agreed goal. One of the best ways I’ve found of making sure things get done is to go around the table and have people agree on specific next action steps.

Send a follow-up email.

Once the meeting is over, it’s always a good idea, particularly if you’ve hosted the meeting, for you to send a recap of the specific areas discussed, any conclusions made, and more importantly, a list of who has agreed to do what and by what date. Even if your colleagues have written down what they need to do, some people lose their meeting notes, particularly if it was written on a lose sheet of paper or they get busy and forget. If it’s written on an email, with all the attendees of the meeting cc’d, it’s harder for people to wiggle out of it. It’s clear to everyone on who’s doing what and when.

Life can feel more than a little overwhelming at times. For many it seems there are never enough hours in the day – meetings, errands, birthday parties, sick kids, sick dogs, difficulties sleeping, pay bills and the NEVER ENDING to do list. Aargh!! When does it all end.

Need a pick-me-up? Check out my 7-tips to Kick start Joy in your life.

Tip 1: Stop watching and reading the daily news. For one week, stop watching and/or reading the daily news and see how you feel? There seems to be a disproportionate focus on tragedies, political fighting and scandal when it comes to the news. Sound bites of information which leaves many feeling fearful, helpless, adding to their own state of overwhelm as well as feelings of depression. Some media studies say bad news outweighs good news by as much as 17 to 1 (according to Psychology Today).  Become mindful of what information you let in.

Tip 2: Write your 25 best qualities. Give voice to how GREAT you are and write out your 25 best qualities.  Once you’ve done that, send an email to a minimum of 25 people – a mix of friends, family, colleagues, business associates, neighbors, asking them to email you back with what they consider to be your 3 best qualities. Put them altogether in one big list and read daily. You can’t help but be reminded of your awesomeness after this.

Tip 3: Set an intention to notice the joyous things around you. It may be the flower in your garden, or taking a walk in nature, consciously breathing in the fresh air, and feel the grass under your feet. Get up early and watch the sunrise. Visit an art gallery, go for a picnic. Notice all the kind words people say to you – the good morning from the taxi driver, or the smile from the person serving you coffee. Pay attention to ALL the GOOD things in your day and most importantly, notice how this changes the way you feel.

Tip 4: Identify 1-2 activities a day which bring you joy. For the next week, identify 1-2 activities per day which bring you joy and feel self-nurturing to you. It could be taking an extra 10 minutes to sip a morning cappuccino, instead of ordering it to go, taking time for a yoga class during lunch, what about an evening bath – light candles and fill the bath tub with your favorite bath salts, dancing around the house to uplifting music, taking your dog for a walk. Make a commitment to YOU, and put yourself first.

Tip 5: Keep a dedicated Joy Journal. Keep a dedicated journal where you write down all the things which bring you joy. Include how you feel about the experiences – happy, uplifted, feelings of love, feeling calmer, more optimistic? Putting your attention on what brings you joy changes our physiology. It helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes healing and well-being as well as feeling calmer.

Tip 6: See learning in everything; reframe the negative to positive. Let’s face it, life happens and there’s no guarantee difficult situations won’t arise. However, from the words of Viktor Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.  If you consider that there is learning, upliftment and growth available in ALL experiences, then consider how you could reframe a negative situation and see the opportunity for learning.

Tip 7: Getting a good night sleep. Sounds simple, but with so many demands on our time, it can be tempting to stay up later and get up earlier to meet these demands. For the next week, try to schedule set bed times, where you are getting a restful night of sleep. We all feel better when we are well rested and tend to be more resilient in facing any of life’s ups and downs.

The advice written by Julie-Ann Tathem, Tathem LLC is opinion based and for entertainment and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be in place of a consultation with a health, tax, legal or other professional.

 Leaving a successful career in Wall Street behind,  Julie-Ann Tathem was able to realize her dream of combining the love of psychology, spirituality and business to start her own business and life coaching company, Tathem LLC. She gets to do what she loves every day: assisting people from around the world to see their lives anew and empowering clients to make better choices and live more meaningful and fulfilling lives. You can contact Julie-Ann at julieann@tathemllc.com, and follow her on Facebook  and Twitter.

How often do you say YES, when you really mean NO? It can be tempting to say YES, because the alternative can often feel icky. Many people are prone to self-judgment if they dare say NO – with the inner critic calling us all sorts of names, including selfish, lazy, pompous, self-important, and uncaring. Confronting the self-judgment can feel really uncomfortable, because our secret fear is often “what if it’s true?”. What if we ARE selfish, pompous and uncaring? So it seems easier to momentarily suppress our need for self-honoring choices and go along with the YES.

The problem is that while it can be tempting in the short term to override our limits and say YES when we really mean NO – it usually leads to resentment. It also means we’re not making self-honoring choices, we’ve overridden our boundaries and we’re not taking great care of our self.

To take this one step further, if we don’t consciously challenge our inauthentic YES’s, the resentment can breed a sense of righteous anger. Once we are relating from a place of righteous anger, we have gone into the one-up position, feel a sense of superiority, and have stopped relating to the other person as a precious human being. It’s also the place where we can “pick a fight”, unconsciously justifying our behavior from the place of righteous anger and ironically reversing the self-judgment and pointing the finger at the other person – now judging them as selfish and inconsiderate for asking in the first place.

Saying NO can be really hard. I’ve seen it happen to most of us, myself included.  I’ve been working my process around this for years, and I still slip up sometimes, going into over-responsibility, and wanting to be seen as nice and caring, OR it’s because I don’t want to deal with feelings of guilt for saying NO.

And I’ve found women in particular often have a hard time in saying NO; with families, friends, and in the workplace. Even though we’ve come a long way, I don’t think many of us have broken out of the Nice Girl Stereotype, which is often seen as caring, kind, considerate of other people’s needs and wanting to be liked.

If you subscribe to the stereotype, then as a Nice Girl you definitely don’t want to be called selfish and very few want to be seen putting their needs at the expense of others. It can be a very confining place to be. This is why it’s extremely important we all start to examine our inauthentic YES’s and look at what’s underneath.

Taking time to get in touch with who we are, knowing we have a right to healthy needs and wants, a right to make self-honoring choices and set boundaries AND we have a right to say NO when it doesn’t feel authentic.

Our self-worth is not based on the opinions of other people, or on what we do, don’t do. We are worthy for who we are – this doesn’t need to be bought.

Next action step: Next time someone asks you to do something, slow it down. Take a moment to consider the request and don’t be in a rush to respond. Remember, we give our best when our emotional cup is full, and we are giving from the overflow. Encourage people you are close to, to say NO to your requests – and give the same permission to yourself. This way you are more assured that their YES’s, as well as your own, are authentic YES’s; and not a NO which probably seeps out at some point as resentment.

The advice written by Julie-Ann Tathem, Tathem LLC is opinion based and for entertainment and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be in place of a consultation with a health, tax, legal or other professional.

 Leaving a successful career in Wall Street behind, Julie-Ann Tathem was able to realize her dream of combining the love of psychology, spirituality and business to start her own business and life coaching company, Tathem LLC. She gets to do what she loves every day: assisting people from around the world to see their lives anew and empowering clients to make better choices and live more meaningful and fulfilling lives. You can contact Julie-Ann at julieann@tathemllc.com, and follow her on Facebook  and Twitter.

Growing up in Australia, my grandmother was always particular about how she hung the laundry on the back yard clothes line. It was always one peg to join the corners of two separate pieces of clothing, never ever two pegs. The tea towels and linens were hung together, preferably sorted by color, and under garments were hung on the inside to avoid being seen by the neighbors. Her precision in laundry hanging was not driven from her own pleasure of job well done, but from an anxious concern that the neighbors may judge her as an unfit housewife… Looking back, so much of her spontaneity and pleasure was crippled as her decisions were closely tied to “What will the neighbors think?”

It’s crazy now for me to consider she spent so much time worrying what the neighbors thought, particularly over how the bed sheets were hung.

But if you think about it, not much has really changed. Many of us may no longer worry about our laundry hanging skills, but we haven’t cured the temptation to compare. In offices, households, neighborhoods everywhere, there seems to be an almost compulsive preoccupation and need to continuously compare ourselves to others. And it doesn’t matter your socio economic, cultural or demographic make-up, we all seem to do it; either feeling better about ourselves because we perceive we are somehow ahead of the other person, or feeling worse about ourselves because what we have or who we are isn’t good enough. We see-saw back and forth between one-up, one-down, better-than, less-than.

Think about it. How many times do you slyly hop onto the ‘one-up, one-down seesaw’ and as you are engaged in conversation with someone, are you also silently comparing and contrasting. “She has a nice handbag, hmm I feel uncomfortable, it looks better than mine.”  “I feel good – it seems I’m doing much better in business than they are”. “Her shoes look better than mine, but she’s definitely put on some pounds over the holidays”.  “Feel a little anxious, he’s telling me he’s got a new sports car – ahh, but mine is better”.

Why do we do it?

As Pia Mellody highlights in her work on co-dependency and self-esteem, “We are taught to compare ourselves to others to determine our value. If you do not apply the concept of self-esteem to yourself you will probably try to obtain a sense of value through the affirmation of others.”  In this case, other-esteem can leave us in quite a vulnerable position, because we are always looking for reference points or reassurance of our value and worth outside of ourselves.  And it can feel quite traumatic for many if they don’t get it.

Healing comes from remembering our inherent worth; it’s independent of what we have or do, and what the other person thinks of us, has, or does. And it’s remembering that the person opposite us also has inherent worth just for who they are. Any time we move into less-than or better-than thinking in comparison to another person, WE ARE THE ONES who are in Self-Esteem Failure.

Next Action Step: Make a conscious effort to see the loving essence not only in yourself, but in others. And if you catch yourself hopping onto the one-up, one-down seesaw, then make a conscious effort to get straight off. You have value and inherent worth just for who you are.

- Julie-Ann Tathem

The advice written by Julie-Ann Tathem, Tathem LLC is opinion based and for entertainment and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be in place of a consultation with a health, tax, legal or other professional.

Q: I work on a small team of five people. Lately, it seems like nobody’s taking their lunch break. If anything, they’ll eat their lunch at their cubicles while answering emails and working on assignments. I try to live a healthy lifestyle and I want to take my lunch breaks without other team members judging me. What’s the best way to take my lunch breaks and not be looked down upon by my colleagues?

Working through lunch is sometimes a must; deadlines, colleagues out sick, you’ve just returned from vacation and work has piled up, etc. But unless it’s reasons such as meeting a deadline for a project or there’s no one to cover the phones, then I would encourage you to take a lunch break on a regular basis. Peer pressure to conform may not be the winning strategy for your work productivity either. People need breaks to recharge and perform at their best.

Take a look at some of my strategies below:

Take the Lead From the Europeans

During my career in Wall Street, I worked with many European nationals. The firms were global and employed people from around the world. It became quite noticeable at lunch how many Europeans routinely left the office to enjoy their lunch away from their desk, while many other nationalities, particularly the Americans, stayed at their desk working through the lunch hour. It was never a reflection on a lack of dedication to their job or hard work; my European colleagues were very hard working. But it’s as though they knew how to enjoy life; they knew about work/life balance and there was never any guilt or question about what other people think. It was simply lunchtime and they were going to lunch. From a cultural perspective, many couldn’t understand why people didn’t take a lunch break to recharge.

The Art of Appearing Busier Than You Are 

It’s a rare few people I’ve met who are able to stay focused on work day in, day out, and do nothing but productive, meaningful work where they produce results without taking a break. If they’re in cubicles, are you sure they aren’t surfing the Web or catching up on Facebook replies from their smartphones during their lunch? Perhaps doing some errands like paying bills online or making some quick phone calls home?
All too often, I think a lot of people look as though they’re busier and more productive than they really are. Human beings need to take a break and recharge on a regular basis. You may be able to work through lunch at a fast pace for short periods of time, but after a while it becomes counterproductive, where work ends up taking longer to complete than it would have if you were rested.