Intro from Jenny: One thing that has always been important to me is sharing a variety of career perspectives on this blog beyond my own personal choices. Not everyone wants to work nights and weekends on a side hustle or quit their job to become self-employed — nor should they feel the pressure to!

That’s what I love about Alexis Grant, today’s guest poster. Alexis advocates taking a career break to travel, which can sometimes feel as nerve-wracking to ask for as giving your two-weeks notice (perhaps moreso because you have more at stake if you don’t plan on leaving).

Alexis interviewed me for two US News & World Report articles when my book came out (Treat Your Career Like a Smart Phone and Can I afford to take a sabbatical?) and we’ve kept in close touch since. I’m thrilled to share her work here at LAC today for any of you contemplating how to take a travel break without completely uprooting your career.

How to Take a Career Break to Travel (by Alexis Grant)

Alexis Grant in Madagascar

When I left my job to backpack through Africa, friends and colleagues often said to me, “I wish I could take a trip like that.”

Yet they didn’t follow that phrase with when they planned to go or where they would visit. Instead, they almost always followed it with a sentence that started with “But.”

• BUT I can’t leave my job.
• BUT I don’t have the money.
• BUT I have a mortgage.

The truth is, we all have our own BUT. It wouldn’t be a BIG, HAIRY, SCARY GOAL, as Jenny calls it, if it didn’t include at least one. Without the BUT, it simply wouldn’t be a dream.

My BUT was my job. I was working as a reporter at one of the country’s largest newspapers, the Houston Chronicle. I got to write stories about flesh-eating bacteria and rodeo cowboys and Death Row. It was the job I’d wanted all through graduate school, and I knew other journalists my age who were stuck covering board meetings for the town weekly would take my place in a second. How could I leave that behind?

I made the jump because I feared my desire to travel might not last forever, that riding in a crowded bush taxi would lose its appeal as I got older. I worried that if I didn’t follow my travel whims in my twenties, I might never do it.

So after three years in the workforce, I headed to Africa, where I traveled through seven countries in six months – and then got a new job when I got back. I socked the hell out of my BUT. And yet, I totally get it when a wannabe traveler feels trapped by seemingly unbeatable obstacles.

That’s why I wrote How to Take a Career Break to Travel. Because no matter how many BUTs you have, it’s possible to overcome all of those obstacles if you really want to make travel a priority.

In fact, this applies to more than taking a career break. It applies to any dream: landing a new job, publishing a book, taking any part of your life to the next level.

So when you find that three-letter word stopping you in your tracks, ask yourself: How can you work around that BUT? Or how can you face that challenge head-on?

In my new guide, I break down several major BUTs that keep wannabe travelers from seeing the world.

Chances are, even if your dream isn’t backpacking through Africa or museum-hopping in Europe or buying an around-the-world plane ticket, these BUTs have still forced their way into the picture. In some way, they’re probably infringing upon your Big Dream.

BUT: Career
Common obstacle: But if I leave my job, I won’t be able to find one when I get back!
How to work around it: Use your trip to enhance your resume. Rather than bumming through Latin America, give yourself an objective, like learning Spanish or volunteering with a non-profit or growing an awesome travel blog. If you gain skills during your travels, you’ll be a more marketable, more desirable worker when you return home, one employers would be foolish not to hire.

BUT: Money
Common obstacle: A career break is so expensive!
How to work around it: If you travel frugally, it will probably cost less to live on the road than it does at home. But since you won’t have a full-time paycheck coming in, you’ll have to save money to make this work. This is probably more doable than you think. Rather than minimizing your expenses to squeeze out savings, focus on maximizing income through your Side Hustle.

BUT: Housing
Common obstacle: But I have a mortgage!
How to work around it: Rather than thinking of this as a dream-stopper, approach it as a challenge, and think outside the box. Could you sell your house without taking a big loss? Don’t get sucked into the old-school rule that you have to own a home if you’re an adult. Plenty of us rent housing instead to give ourselves the flexibility we crave. If you can’t sell, could you rent out the property during your career break? Becoming a landlord can be a hassle, but it can also bring in some nice cash.

These BUTs aren’t actually as powerful as they look. They may feel intimidating, but once you check them out up close, you’ll see they’re not nearly scary and hairy as they appear from afar. Here’s my trick for wading through the scary and hairy: divide and conquer. Break those BUTs down into manageable bits, and tackle them one by one.

This tactic can work even if your BUT is something entirely different than a career break. If what you want seems totally undoable, how can you chip away at that goal, little by little? How can you get it within your reach?

My favorite tool for getting goals within my reach is one you might use already: the to-do list. 

You probably have to-do lists for your apartment (do laundry, fix the television, throw out the expired milk). And maybe for your job search, if you’re looking for a new job, or for your wedding, if you’re preparing to get hitched. We create to-do lists (and litter our desks with Post-Its) because they help us get that big thing accomplished.

So why not have a to-do list for your Big, Hairy, Scary Goal?

Get it all down on paper (or Evernote or Google Docs or whatever note-taking tool you prefer):

• What tasks stand between you and this goal?
• Can you break down those tasks even further, creating a to-do list of totally doable mini-tasks? (Hint: the Google spreadsheets Jenny’s mastered work super well for this.)

Rather than writing off those BUTs as impossible to overcome, break them down – divide and conquer – and be creative about answering the “how.” Before you know it, your Big, Hairy, Scary Goal will be more achievable than you thought.

What BUT gets in the way of your Big Dream – and how can you conquer it?

***

Alexis Grant is a journalist, social media strategist and author of the eguide, How to Take a Career Break to Travel. She is writing a travel memoir about backpacking solo through Africa and serves as managing editor of BrazenCareerist. If you liked this post, sign-up for her newsletter, which will help you take that Big Leap you’ve been waiting on. Follow Alexis on Twitter @AlexisGrant.

One of the struggles I hear most often from new readers is that they have a gnawing feeling of bordom when they think about their future. Many are a few years into their career and know it’s time for a change, but have no clue where to start. They feel directionless, foggy and tentative. The age-old “follow your passions” advice is not helpful for those who don’t even know what their passions are.

Enter today’s guest post from Therese Schwenkler;Therese writes for the young & confused at TheUnlost.com, proving that good advice doesn’t have to be boring or uncool. Her mission: to bring more & better direction to today’s mainstream. Find out why she’s getting naked for 3,737 people or Take Therese’s hilarious happiness quiz here. Therese tweets at @tschwenkler. 

You want to find your life’s calling— the work that you’re deeply, madly, insanely passionate about. 

You’re sick of staring out the window and watching the clock. You’re sick of that listless feeling in your soul and that dragging feeling in your step. You just can’t get the thought out of your head that there’s got to be more than this.

But there’s one big, fat problem standing in your way: you haven’t a clue what your passion might be.

A few years ago I was faced with the very same problem.  I made a ton of mistakes before I finally realized that there’s a better way to figure things out— a method that, for some odd reason, isn’t talked about a whole lot.

Almost every passionate person I’ve met has used this method, whether knowingly or unknowingly, with great success in discovering their life’s path. It’s in fact quite simple: rather than trying to jump straight to the endpoint, these people allow their passions to organically evolve.

In other words, they don’t try to decide upfront what it is that they should end up doing. Instead, they kindle many small fires, allowing those that spark their interest to naturally progress until they evolve into full-fledged, passionate pursuits.

Let me show you what I mean by this and why it can be so effective. In three simple steps, I’ll break this method down for you and show you exactly how to do it. I’ll also weave in examples from my own story—i.e., how I went from being an unfocused and passionless college student to finding a pursuit that I’m desperately, madly, passionately in love with (and strangely enough, my pursuit does not involve stalking Brad Pitt).

How to Allow Your Passion to Organically Evolve — by Therese Schwenkler

1. Try lots and lots and lots of stuff. Sometimes finding your passion is like shopping for jeans: you’ve got to try on a lot of pairs before you find the right ones. Why? Because no matter how much you window shop, you often can’t (& won’t) know beforehand which pair will actually fit your sexy a**. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

Jeans aside, this is exactly why you’re likely to fail if you try to choose a pursuit upfront without having prior exposure— for example, by declaring “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a graphic designer” without truly having been exposed to these pursuits. Again, you can’t always know beforehand whether or not something will interest you.

On the flip side, there are certain things that you might normally have disregarded from the get-go, but that you might actually end up enjoying if you gave them a chance.

So here’s my advice: unless you’re absolutely positive that you’ll hate something, throw out all your preconceived notions and just try it. It won’t kill you at all; in fact, exploration is an essential piece of the organic method.

For example, you could do any of the following:

• Attend local events in the community or on college campuses
• Keep an eye out for people in your social networks or in your community who are doing cool things, then ask to meet up with them and talk about their experiences
• Talk to your friends, acquaintances, or professors (or ex professors) about their pursuits and ask if they know of any interesting projects or events that you might want to participate in
• Take a class, attend a workshop, or read books and blogs to learn more
• Ask to shadow someone at their job or pursuit
• Anything else you can possibly think of

2. Implement the “spark test.” Each time you try something new, ask yourself if it sparked your interest in any way. If your answer is no, then you can cross it off your list. But if the answer is yes, then…

3. Follow up. This is perhaps the most important step in this method and it’s where 99% of people fall short— in fact, I ignored this step for years at my own peril. I had found several things that passed the “spark test” such as writing, marketing and psychology, but I never followed up with any action, and as a result my newfound interests led me absolutely nowhere. If you pay attention to just one thing today, let it be this: discovering an interest will do you absolutely NO good unless you follow up.

This simply means is that once something sparks your interest, you should actively pursue (or create) opportunities that will expand upon these interests. This could include any of the following:

• Offer to contribute to a related organization in some way. Can you help organize an event or add something to a project or (fill in the blank) here?
• If you encounter an interesting company or an interesting individual, offer to work for free, allowing the potential for paid work down the road
• Start your own project or team up with someone to create a new endeavor
• Anything else you can possibly think of

In my own case, I began following up on my sparked interests in several ways:

• I started my blog, The Unlost, which spins timeless wisdom and advice in a way that appeals to young people.
• I volunteered to write a weekly column for the Boise State University newspaper and I began contributing guest posts to sites like Jenny’s.
• I’m scared sh*tless of public speaking, but I’m submitting a talk for a local event and could end up speaking in front of 500+ people next month.

Each of these pursuits builds upon one or several of my sparks, and I can’t even pretend to know where they’ll end up leading me.

Therein lies the beauty of the organic method: the more that you follow up on even the smallest of sparks, the more they begin to grow into promising new opportunities— opportunities that you couldn’t have possibly dreamt of or conceived from the get-go.

So go on, start kindling some fires and watch as your spark grows into an insanely intriguing, wildly passionate, absolutely unstoppable pursuit.

Got questions? Comments? A story of your own? Lemme know in the comments— I wanna hear it all.

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Discover Your Career Calling Retreat in Bali with Adrian Klaphaak

Speaking of finding your passion and career calling, my great friend and very first coach, Adrian Klaphaak (the awesome guy quoted on the cover of my book!) is hosting a Discover Your Career Calling Retreat in Bali in December. Adrian is my go-to guy for career coaching; in fact, when new clients reach out to me specifically for career guidance, I often end up referring them to him if my slots are full.

This opportunity won’t be for everyone, but I couldn’t resist passing it along in the event that it’s right for some of you — Bali is at the top of my travel life list — I’d be there in a heartbeat if I could!

More about the Bali retreat (in Adrian’s words):

This is a transformational retreat for people that want to make a career change into an entirely new career and/or rejuvenate their existing career with meaning and purpose. If your work is feeling stagnant and you know it’s time for a change, this retreat will help you find your calling and re-inspire your career.

Our career coaching process blends your quest for meaning with the practical need to get results and build a successful career. This retreat will guide you through a process of discovering your gifts, passions, values, and purpose and how to translate the uniqueness of who you are into a concrete direction in your career.

In addition to guiding you through our career coaching exercises, activities and assessments, we will draw on the fresh perspective and soulfulness of Bali by incorporating cultural activities, walks through the rice fields, and little adventures throughout the week.

Logistics: The retreat will be held in the beautiful town of Ubud on the Island of Bali, Indonesia from Sunday December 11th – Friday December 16th 2011.

Early Registration Discount: Register by October 21st and receive a BIG discount. Space is limited. More information is available at http://www.APathThatFits.com/Bali.

Happy Friday, everyone! Your responses to yesterday’s prompt (what life skill has been most important to your success?) have been brilliant — I’d highly suggest going back and reading through them for some great personal development inspiration!

It’s been a challenge blogging every day this week — but there was something refreshing about making it part of my daily routine without the procrastination that usually sets in from “What day should I post? What should I write about? Is my draft ready yet?”

Before I share our last giveaways (plural!), a few more links to my thoughts around the web:

• Business Insider: Contribution to the “In the Start-up World, Nothing Goes According to Plan” series
• Productive Flourishing: Video and thoughts on How to Host a Creative Day of Genius
• Tanya Geisler: Video interview on Finding Your Thing (part of a broader series) — Tanya’s warmth radiates right through the screen!
• Think Traffic (from earlier in the week): From Blog to Book: the Nitty Gritty Pros, Cons and Considerations

A recap on what I’m up to this week: September is one of the big months for book publishing, and as a thank you for being such great readers I’ve got some awesome books to share with all of you! I’ll post an entry each day this week (bear with me, email subscribers!) and you’ll have until Friday at 6pm ET to enter to win a copy of each book by answering that post’s question prompt. I’ll choose the winners via Random.org early next week.

Giveaway #1: Blind Spots by Alexandra Levit

Alexandra Levit is one of the pioneers of the after-college book market — I remember reading her first book, They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, and thinking “Wow — if I could only have half of her success as an author and speaker in this market I would be thrilled.” Alex has been gracious and generous with her time since I first reached out almost two years ago, before I had an agent, a book deal, or even a book.

Her latest (SIXTH!) book is called Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success. From the book website:

Don’t let blind spots push you off the path to career success – especially in today’s pared-down, back-to-basics business world, where the rules have radically changed.

In Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success, Alexandra Levit reveals what’s different about the post-recession world and dispels popular business and career myths – like “any visibility is good visibility” and “do what you love and the money will follow” – that were never true to begin with.

The job market is more competitive than ever, and you can’t afford to waste time. Throw away the myths and learn the timely – and timeless – truths that will send you to the top speedily and safely, making the most of your journey along the way.

Giveaway #2: Life After College by Me!

Okay, okay, I sort of cheated — but it’s been a long time since I gave away my *own* book and I was inspired by all these others to send one of you a copy!

While we’re at it, I have this silly thing with round numbers…

I currently have 74 Amazon reviews (huge thanks to those 74!) — if you’re feeling generous and you’ve read my book, would one of you take a gander at being review #75?

My original goal was 100 within launch week, and even though that passed — I’m hoping to get there by the end of the year Thank you SO much to everyone who already left reviews — sometimes I read through them when I’m having a rough day. It means so much to me to know how my book has impacted people — a result I often fantasized about but never knew would come to fruition in such a beautiful, out-of-this-world way.

To enter to win a copy of either of these books (they will go to two separate winners), answer the following question in the comments:

What are three features of your ideal day?
I know this isn’t directly related to the books — but it’s one of my favorite questions

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I like getting to say hello to you every day

Today I’m excited for two reasons:

I have a guest post up on one of my all time favorite blogs, Think Traffic by Corbett Barr. The post is called From Blogging to Published Book: The Nitty Gritty Pros, Cons and Considerations. I detail numbers and experiences behind my book publishing process to help other bloggers assess whether it’s worth it for them.

SF Blogger Meet-up: Corbett, Jenny, Charlie Hoehn, Leo Babauta and Lewis Howes

Corbett is someone I have looked up to for a long time for his blog- and business-building prowess, and had the great fortune of meeting him in Portland earlier this year (and at a SF Blogger meet-up we co-hosted upon returning). Corbett’s new assistant, Caleb Wojcik, is an awesome go-getter who attended my Seattle book tour stop — and has since quit his job to work with Corbett, moved and gotten married!

Second, today’s book giveaway is for The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business that Works for You from the lovely Adelaide Lancaster (and her co-author Amy Adams). I met Adelaide at the Book Breakthrough NYC conference in July and we immediately hit it off. She and her co-author have created a co-working space in NYC for female entrepreneurs, and focus on helping small business owners create a business that works for their own lifestyle goals — with the notion that not everyone has to be the next Google. I’ve included their book trailer and an interview with Adelaide below.

A recap on what I’m up to this week: September is one of the big months for book publishing, and as a thank you for being such great readers I’ve got some awesome books to share with all of you! I’ll post an entry each day this week (bear with me, email subscribers!) and you’ll have until Friday at 6pm ET to enter to win a copy of each book by answering that post’s question prompt. I’ll choose the winners via Random.org early next week.

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The Big Enough Company — Interview with Adelaide Lancaster

Adelaide Lancaster is an entrepreneur, speaker and co-author of The Big Enough Company (Portfolio/Penguin). She is also the co-founder of In Good Company Workplaces, a first-of-its-kind community, learning center and co-working space for women entrepreneurs in New York City. She is a contributor to The Huffington Post, and a columnist for The Daily Muse and The Hired Guns. She lives in Philadelphia, PA with her husband and daughter.

What was your first brush with entrepreneurship? 

I never set up a lemonade stand or sold things door to door. But I have always believed in my ability to make things happen. Even when I was younger I had a hard time taking no for an answer. I often joke that my first brushes with entrepreneurship were actually my (successful) attempts to bend the rules in high school and college. For example, despite extremely rigid rules at my boarding school, I managed to arrange legally getting 20 kids signed out to the same town in North Carolina for the weekend and chartered a bus to get us there. The school was annoyed but we weren’t technically breaking any rules.

These escapades, which clearly involved exploiting loopholes in the rules, made me responsible for establishing three new rules between my high school and college handbooks. So I guess I was quite enterprising, although it admittedly wasn’t for the best reasons – at least at that age!

What inspired you to start In Good Company, and how did you find the resources (time, money, energy) to do it?

My partner and I already had a consulting practice working with entrepreneurs to start or build their businesses. We heard the same complaints over and over again from our clients. They were isolated. Many worked from home and spent much of their time by themselves, except when they were with clients. They also had pretty small networks as many of their former colleagues still held traditional 9-5 jobs.

Aside from being lonely, this isolation had a huge impact on their businesses. Our networks give us access to ideas, resources, suggestions, feedback, inspiration, motivation, etc. We could tell that our clients needed more of all of this. They also experienced some logistical challenges by not having an office. They didn’t have a professional place to meet clients and they also had pretty weak boundaries between their work and home lives.

We began to imagine a place where our clients could work when they needed to. Since we knew most of them didn’t need full-time offices, we were instead crafting a shared workspace solution (which has grown over time to include full-time space as well). Our thought was that having a physical location would also serve as a home base for a larger community and network. In Good Company would be the place for women entrepreneurs to work, meet, and learn.

Some people didn’t get it – it was in the days before coworking had become main stream, but most people did. We scaled back our practice to make time for the startup mode. We also held lots of focus groups to get feedback and also to cultivate the community. It was a fairly capital intensive business to start so we did raise money, in addition to invest a lot ourselves.

What has been your biggest failure-turned-success or blessing-in-disguise story (in life or business)?

When it came time to graduate from my Counseling Psychology program at Columbia I couldn’t find the kind of job that I was looking for. I wanted to be a career counselor for women who were deciding what direction to take their career. Since I couldn’t find the job I wanted, I decided to create it and started my own career counseling practice.

However, I was still ambivalent about my choice. I felt like I needed a backup plan. I decided to also apply to the PhD program at my graduate school, thinking I could do my practice in conjunction with getting my PhD and then have even more credibility, choices, and experience once the program was over. It seemed like a great plan until I didn’t get in. At first I was devastated but it turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise. Because I wasn’t tied up in a PhD program I plunged myself completely into entrepreneurship, building my practice and learning everything I could about small business.

That practice evolved over a number of years and through several iterations to later become the business I have today. I love being an entrepreneur and love the opportunities it affords me. I have the ability to create work that is meaningful and rewarding on my own terms.

The truth is that today I do much less counseling and consulting work. Instead I spend a lot of time doing things I enjoy just as much and often more such as determining the strategic direction for my business, cultivating our brand through social media, writing content for our blog and my columnist positions, designing programming and curriculum for each season, managing the operational (finances, billing, bookkeeping) side of the business, networking, and making myself available to our members for brainstorming etc.

I love the variety and I love that our business is always evolving. I know that had I done my PhD I’d still be an entrepreneur but I probably would have made choices that resulted in a much more traditional counseling practice, which I know would be much less rewarding for me.

If you could give the Life After College community one piece of encouragement or career advice, what would it be? 

Two pieces, I can’t help myself!

You need to take small steps to get almost anywhere. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by your own big plans, dreams, and ideas! But nothing happens overnight and don’t underestimate the amount of work that goes into every success story you know. No matter who you are or what you want, the path is likely going to involved small, incremental changes. Embrace it, let it help pace you, and keep moving!

Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know something. As a new entrepreneur I remember believing that it was my job to know everything, especially when it came to my business. While I was always grateful for the good ideas that others gave me, but I would also think self consciously, “I should have thought of that.” I also believed, foolishly, that it was important to have clear and resolute answers and to never say “I don’t know.” Boy, was I foolish.

I learned that entrepreneurship is all about being a work in progress. You spend more time deciding where you want to go next then you do arriving there. It turns out that pretending to know everything comes a tremendous cost. Not only does it make the business of being an entrepreneur much harder than it needs to be, it also cuts you off from the most valuable resource you have – the ideas and experiences of others. Thankfully, I wised up and started to listen – carefully.

What are a few fun items on your life checklist?

I have three that I’ve had for a really long time:

• I want to go on a hot air balloon ride over a really cool landscape.
• I want to own a little pet goat – and the country house to go along with it. (Right now I’m a city dweller)
• I love 70 degree weather. It makes me so happy. I have this idea for a 70 degree world tour. Either for retirement or as a sabbatical I’d love to take a year to travel to 10-12 locations that are seasonally 70 degrees. For example Iceland in July, Istanbul in June, Johannesburg in September.

***

To enter to win a copy of The Big Enough Company, answer the following question in the comments:

If you could start any company, what would it be and why?
What qualities would your ideal company have, and how would it fit your ideal lifestyle? 

Someone send me to blog detention. I’ve been meaning to write a summer “Hodge Podge” post for two weeks — but procrastinated instead, thereby missing the boat on several key announcements. Doh!

Speaking of which, I came up with a four-part reminder whenever I get stressed or start taking a doomsday view on my to-do list:

1. Nobody’s dying.
2. I’m not curing cancer.
3. Everyone can wait.
4. It will all get done.

Do you have a similar mantra to counter out-of-proportion overwhelm?

LAC Book summary featured on The Personal MBA

20 Something Blogger Summit: Conference Pass Giveaway

Location Rebel Case Study

For those of you who want to hear more about my decision to leave Google, I’m one of three featured Location Rebels for Sean Ogle’s new course. Although his program is now closed (sold out in less than an hour!) you can read my inaugural story here. Here’s an excerpt that I haven’t yet shared on this blog:

I’ve always prided myself on being an independent woman, but for a long time I felt like I could only go out on my own once I was in a stable, long-term relationship (ie when pigs fly, for those who know me well . I thought that would give me the safety net I needed in case I fell short on income one month or wasn’t able to pay my bills.

But I quickly realized that if I was going to do this, I had to be ready and willing to do it all on my own; not to put my dreams on hold for someone else or some uncertain future state. I also realized that I am rich in friends and family; people who want what’s best for me and are willing to provide support through the big transition.

Links I love:

• Julien Smith’s No one cares if you succeed or fail: why I walked 500 miles…barefoot
• The Email Game – makes responding quickly a game, and lets your correspondants know why they shouldn’t expect a long email…I’ve got to try this! (h/t Charlie Hoehn)
• Speaking of which, “save your friends from outdated email” with an Email Intervention
• Communicatrix - Advice to a Young Aspiring Writer
• Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology’s How to Lead a Life of Utter Mediocrity
• ChaChanna Simpson of Your Stellar Star’s What’s Holding You Back?
• Cordelia’s 27 reasons you might fail & 2 reasons why you WILL
• Scott Dinsmore’s 57 Living Legends Expose the Moment that Defined their Passion
• ….and many more on my shared Google Reader page

August Health Challenge

If at any point I get grumpy this month, blame it on the modified cleanse I’m starting. We’ve been having a great discussion on Google+, which began with my shameful confession about indulging in Panda Express and a Snickers bar at the airport on Sunday. New low. That’s it! I thought. Time for a change.

I’ve become too reliant on coffee, sugar and bad foods as a crutch for low energy (and boredom/procrastination), and they’re causing mood swings and an energy rollercoaster that I know can largely be avoided.

Here’s how I’ve crafted my personal challenge (I’m doing this with a friend for added accountability):

• 21 days no alcohol, refined sugar or caffeine
• Minimize significantly: wheat, beef, dairy, processed foods
• Exercise at least 20 min/day 5 days a week, with yoga at least once per week

How about you – any fun links, productivity or health tips to share for this month’s miscellaneum?

Editor’s Note: Before we jump in — for those curious about how the book is doing: sales have gone up and down, but the book is holding steady at #36 in Career Guides (after peaking at #11). I’ll post a more detailed update next week. As for Amazon reviews — we’re at 49 out of my goal of 100…halfway there! If you haven’t left your thoughts yet, please post a review when you get a chance Thank you all for an incredible launch!

This is a guest post from Jenny Foss (Jennys FTW!), the firecracker career maven behind JobJenny.com, a site that provides job-seekers with practical advice that is relevant to TODAY’S job market and technology. Jenny describes herself as “Your job search BFF and tough love expert on finding career passion.” She just launched her first ebook, To Whom It May Concern: Or, How to Stop Sucking at Your Job Search.

I’m excited to give Jenny the floor today because a lot has changed since I was last out there job-hunting, and these tips are relevant and incredibly helpful for anyone who uses Skype — not just job-seekers (they’ve been great reminders for me as I do book interviews, and are great tips for networking calls via Skype as well).