We can all afford to remove things from our lives that aren’t doing us any good. We make excuses for keeping these things around – we’re too busy, it takes too much time, we don’t know how, we’re scared, we’re not ready for change, etc.

The intensity of how these non-useful things affect our lives varies. If it’s something as simple as needing to clean up clutter in our house, that sits more toward the “annoyance, but not life threatening” end of the spectrum. But think about the more serious issues that could be doing harm in your life, such as a toxic relationship or unhealthy eating habits. Those issues are more toward the severe end of the spectrum and should not be ignored.

I wanted to talk about the topic of removing things that no longer belong in our lives because an experience I had the other day reminded me of two important factors that contribute to taking that important step forward:

If you’ve already graduated from college, what is the best thing you did that helped you succeed in your first full time job? I bet if you did an internship during college, that would be your answer (providing you had a positive internship experience). It’s definitely my answer. Classroom teaching can only do so much. Getting real work experience with a company takes things to a whole new level.

I actually had positive and negative experiences with internships in college. I did one with a nonprofit called Girls on the Run that was absolutely awesome, and I got some great experience. I was also part of CMU’s on-campus, student-run PR firm called PR Central, and I got great real world experience providing PR services to local companies.

Unfortunately, the one PR agency internship I did during college was a complete disaster. My boss was awful (both as a person and PR professional), and she barely let me and the other interns do any real PR work. Several other incidents happened that I won’t get into, but basically I learned to always trust my gut and pay attention to red flags because if I had, I would have never accepted the internship offer.

It’s called “bittersweet change” for a reason. If you dissect the first word in the phrase, you’ll find there’s a combination of negative and positive, with the negative leading and positive following. We recognize change as bittersweet when we know something good or new will ultimately follow something difficult and challenging. I’ve learned that change is all about perseverance, and that is particularly true with this type of change.

I’ve gone through two experiences recently that 100% fall into the category of bittersweet change – the death of my grandmother and stepping out of a role for an organization I’ve dedicated myself (and much of my free time) to for the past three years. Let me explain how both of these changes are bittersweet and how through my experience with them, I better understand how to handle similar changes in the future (and hopefully you will, too).

Are you the type of person who asks for help the minute you need it? Or, do you always do everything possible to figure things out on your own before you dare ask for someone to help you? Maybe you’re like me and you’re somewhere in between. I’m not too stubborn to ask for help when I know I need it, but I also like to do some digging before I reach out to someone else. I won’t lie – my impatience gets the best of me sometimes and I ask before I’ve put in enough effort on my own, but I’m working on not doing that!

There really is no perfect answer that works for everyone when it comes to knowing when to seek help, or what the best method is for approaching someone when you need help. However, as I’ve been paying closer attention to how people approach me for help, I think there are three important things everyone should do before any type of help is requested.

Do your own research – This should be a given, but unfortunately people think it’s OK to put the onus on someone else rather than investing time to find the information or answer. Maybe you won’t find the entire answer, but if you do some digging and come to the person you’re asking for help with at least some information, it shows initiative. And frankly, if you don’t know the person very well and you’re asking for help without doing some searching on your own, you immediately come off as lazy.

Taking time to figure out the answer on your own is really important for professional growth, as well. What is your boss going to think if you’re the person who always asks questions without at least making an attempt to answer them yourself first? Managers should never condemn smart questions, but jumping to questions before trying to problem solve on your own will not get you far in your career, or in life.

Think of specific questions – Rather than asking broad and very general questions (e.g. “How can I get a really great job like yours?”), come to the person you’re reaching out to with very specific questions. Recently, I’ve had a few PR students ask me very broad questions similar to my example. I could spend an hour talking about this, and I could write a novel of an email trying to explain this. Depending on the situation and timing, make it as easy as possible for the person you’re requesting help from to provide you with valuable answers. It’s going to take me longer to put my thoughts together around a broad question, but I can think of an answer more quickly the more specific you get. 

This is from the Essential Elements “oldie, yet still a goodie” archives, originally published on October 3, 2010.

The same thing frequently happens to me on Sunday nights. As I’m finishing up tasks that needed to get done over the weekend and planning for the upcoming week, the anxiety starts to set it. Anxiety about what I didn’t get accomplished during the weekend. Anxiety about the week to come and everything on my to-do list. Anxiety about having anxiety.

I bet many of you reading this are nodding along in agreement. Even when we’re fortunate enough to be doing everything that we love (which should always be the case, but sadly isn’t for everyone), it’s nearly impossible to avoid feeling the pressure that comes along with commitment and responsibility.

Here’s a quote from Seth Godin I’ve saved that I want to share with you as you’re kicking off another week:

“Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.”

Kind of puts anxiety into perspective, doesn’t it? I intentionally keep this on my to-do list in Evernote so that I’m reminded to take a step back and chill the heck out every time I look at that list and start feeling anxious.

Consider doing something similar. Write this quote on a Post-it note and put it on your desk or computer. Or, if this quote doesn’t do much for you, find a similar one and refer to it when you’re feeling overwhelmed. When stress and anxiety levels soar, subtle reminders that help us keep our cool can make a world of difference.

Do you do anything particular when you’re feeling anxious or stressed? Are there any quotes/words of advice similar to Seth’s that you carry with you?

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Agree or disagree with this statement: Learning never stops.

Hopefully you agree, because even if you’ve mastered something, you can always learn more, or work on learning something related to what it is that you’ve mastered.

I love soaking up as much information as I possibly can, especially related to the work I do, so I’m constantly reading articles, blog posts and books related to PR/marketing and social media. As much as I’ve learned thanks to all the reading I do, I started to realize that I may be doing a serious disservice to myself by only reading material related to my career. Reading about things of interest to you that are completely unrelated to what you do can oftentimes spawn creativity, as well as ideas related to your work.

Just as I made the decision to add more reading into my life that did not relate to my career, I read this post from Gini Dietrich about how reading fiction helps your career. It makes so much sense, doesn’t it?

I did some research on the best books for 2011, and thanks to a list NPR compiled, I settled on The Illumination. I just finished reading it (highly recommend it!), and while I can’t give you any evidence just yet as to show how it strengthened my career, I can tell you it was a welcome respite from my typical daily reading. It was also a good way to slow my brain down at night and tire myself out with some reading material that didn’t make my head spin with ideas for work. As much as I love when that happens, it not exactly a good idea to read that type of content before bed.

As someone who helps clients with various online and social media initiatives, I’ve done my fair share of research and outreach to bloggers and social media enthusiasts (and let me tell you, when done right, it’s a tedious process!). So when I have the chance to be on the receiving end of fun opportunities, it’s a nice change up.

Thanks to a recommendation from my metro Detroit pal Bryan Willmert, I had the opportunity to test drive a 2012 Acura MDX from Suburban Acura as part of the Social Test Drive series. Bryan had previously participated in the test drive, and he was then able to recommend others who he thought would be interested.

I picked up the car on a Thursday evening and returned it the following Monday during lunch. I will not even try to admit that I’m a car enthusiast (though I developed a love for sports cars thanks to my dad owning a 1979 and 2002 Firebird Trans Am), but I was in love with this car at the end of my test drive experience. Check out the video for more on the cool features.

For companies that want to get social media enthusiasts using and talking about their cool products and services, here are some lessons you can learn from how Zac Holmes, online marketing manager at Suburban Ford of Waterford, is conducting this program to make it a success:

• Don’t create stringent rules. It drives me crazy when I hear from reporters and bloggers that PR people reaching out to them give them rules related to how they should share reviews about products and services. No, that’s not how it works. Every person’s community and social activity is different. Let them do what works for them. Zac was very clear that the point of this program was to have people share their experiences with the vehicles through social media, but he didn’t make me commit to a certain number of tweets, photos, Facebook posts, videos, etc. That was an immediate appeal.

• Zac interacted with me and the people responding to my content throughout the process. It showed he was paying close attention to the reactions I was receiving, and he continued making the brand part of the conversation without overdoing it, or worse, being pushy and “sales-ish.”

• Zac created his own content through the Suburban online channels. He created a short video to encourage people to follow along with my #socialtestdrive tweets throughout the weekend and shared it on different networks. While it’s good to rely on the people you’re reaching out to in these situations to create interesting content, as the marketing person behind the effort, you have to be doing the same to reach the communities you’ve built online.

• He’s letting the drivers recommend who participates next as a “pass on the good fortune” sort of deal. I like this because it shows the brand is open to letting the public shape the path of this program. However, you have to also be careful if you let go of too much control. Where I could see this backfiring is if people recommend friends who want the experience but really aren’t that active in the online space. Zac and I didn’t discuss this, but he should have some participant criteria as a fall back plan just in case the next recommended participants don’t exactly fit the bill.

I asked Zac a few specific questions about the program that may help if you plan to do something similar in the future:

• What’s the story behind the program? There was a customer from our Subaru store who had some mechanical issues with his leased Subaru. Subaru was giving him a hard time, so he took to Twitter (and his 10K followers) about his issues with Subaru, and in effect, Suburban. Our Internet manager for the entire company saw his situation and started fighting for him. Suburban took on Subaru and got his engine replaced by Subaru. The manager realized that if we can harness that same kind of resonance for our brands in a real and positive way, it would be extremely effective. So far [with this program] it has. 

• How are you measuring success with this program? Honestly, we don’t really know yet. We are watching how #SocialTestDrive is trending and what kind of feedback we are seeing from the bloggers and the people following them. It’s an evolving process.

• What successes have you had so far? We have seen a few sales, but we have only been running this program for less than two months.

• What recommendations would you give to another company that wants to reach out to bloggers and social media enthusiasts to test out a product? Find someone (or many someones) with reach into different groups and influence and let people be honest. Blocking, deleting and arguing with people’s opinions is fake and will get you nowhere. Instead, these negative remarks give an opportunity for dialogue, something oddly missing from a business to customer relationship. Hand it off and see what people think! (Love this answer – take note, marketers!)

I will not get on my measurement soapbox, and I know many companies starting out for the first time with a program like this often don’t put solid metrics into place. But one piece of advice I’ll give to Zac and anyone else doing anything in the social space is to clearly define how you will measure and prove results. Please. Just do it. You’ll thank me later.

Do you think this is a smart move for the Suburban team? What other advice do you have to make outreach programs to bloggers and social media enthusiasts successful?

I’ve been part of the Help a PR Pro Out (HAPPO) team for awhile now, and I get a ton of value from my involvement in the organization. I use social media every day for personal and professional reasons, so being part of an organization that helps connect job seekers and employers through social media has been very rewarding.

Arik Hanson, Minnesota PR pro and HAPPO co-founder, started a new initiative last year called The HAPPO Report, a weekly e-newsletter that’s sent to more than 250 PR pros/communicators across the Twin Cities. It includes relevant jobs, upcoming events, posts from the last week and a featured job seeker each week.

Thanks to Arik’s support, The HAPPO Michigan Report will launch very soon and will contain the same content (but specific to Michigan, of course). If all goes as planned, the first e-newsletter will go out before the end of February. It will be biweekly and will hit your inbox on Wednesdays.

Sound like something that’s worthy of adding yet another e-newsletter to your inbox (c’mon, you know you want to!)? You can subscribe now. If you have an available communications position, are hosting an event and want to share it in The HAPPO Report once it launches or would like to be a featured job seeker, feel free to contact me.

If you want to know what else the HAPPO team has in the works for 2012, Arik shares the future of HAPPO and what you can do to help in this recent post.

Before I get too far into this post, I want you to understand the distinctions between these two definitions:

Confidence – Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance

Arrogance – Offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

See the difference? I’ll assume you do. Now make sure you don’t show arrogance when you’re meaning to show confidence. On to the post…

I’ve been noticing something in my life a lot more lately that has helped contribute to success. Once I started paying closer attention to this trend and noticing how it influences outcomes, I knew I needed to share it so others could hopefully replicate the process.

I’ve noticed that when combining strategy with confidence, the chances of success increase dramatically. Will the result always be positive each and every time you combine strategy with confidence? More than likely not. But I’ve experienced successful results enough times to make me believe the chances of getting a win rather than a fail with this combo is highly likely.

** I just switched my domain over to nikkilittle.com, so if the logo is still missing when you read this, please overlook it! It will be back soon. And I lost all social shares on my posts. Boo-hoo! But big thanks to the Don, Hubert Sawyers, for making the switch.

It’s almost the end of the year, which means many people are thinking about how they can improve their lives in the coming year. The gym is always jam packed around this time of year, and people are talking and posting online about their goals and resolutions.

Last year, I wrote about what to keep in mind when setting New Year’s Resolutions, and I actually think setting resolutions and/or goals is better than doing nothing to improve whatever it is you need to work on in your life in the coming year. But this year, I’ve decided to change things up.

Rather than setting resolutions or goals, I created a bucket list. Starting now and moving forward every new year, I plan to work on achieving what is on that bucket list. I may add or delete items before the turn of each new year as my life changes, but that’s OK.