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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: Old School Skills, Salary Negotiation Don’ts, and Lies Happy People Don’t Buy

Topics: Negotiation

How can you tell a happy person from, well, everyone else? Often, it’s that they spend less time tracking what other people think, and more time paying attention to their own goals. This week’s roundup includes the false assumptions happy people don’t make, plus a post on why we should thank our high school teachers for those classes we hated, and tips on what to avoid when negotiating salary.

typewriter 

(Photo Credit: otacon/Flickr)

Jamie Lynn Neal at Journey to No Regrets: “You’ll Need This One Day”

Do You Know What You're Worth?

Even if you loved school as a kid, there were some classes you couldn’t stand. Inevitably, the teacher would try to persuade you to pay more attention by telling you that you’d be glad you did, later on. Sometimes, they were even right. Neal writes:

I can think of several classes where I thought just that. I’m about to age myself here, but one class that really sticks out in my mind that I thought was a total waste of time was computer class, more specifically typing.

…It’s funny now as I listen to the keys clicking away quickly thinking ‘I am only able to do this because of a class I absolutely hated.’

Something to think about, now that we’re adults … who are occasionally asked by our employers to learn skills we’d rather skip.

Dawn Rosenberg McKay at About.com’s Career Planning: Dos and Don’ts of Salary Negotiation

The No. 1 mistake in salary negotiation will always be not asking, but there are ways to go wrong even if you do speak up. Rosenberg McKay offers a few examples, including talking about how much money you need, not how much money you deserve:

When you are going through salary negotiations, don’t tell your boss (or future boss) that you need to make more money because your bills are high, your house was expensive, or your child is starting college. This information is irrelevant to him or her. The only time you can use your expenses to negotiate is if your job is being relocated to a region in which the cost of living is higher and your employer is not offering a salary that takes that into account.

Farnoosh Brock at Prolific Living: 9 Lies that Happy People Refuse to Believe

Do you know what happens when you believe something that is not true? It destroys the purity of your spirit. It takes away the richness of life and gives you dull colors and grey skies in exchange. It robs of your joy, your genius, your worthiness and you allow it to keep happening because you don’t even know the depth of damage.

Brock‘s list of lies we should all stop believing will probably resonate with you, even if you already feel like you’re pretty well sorted out. And if, like most of us, you could protect the purity of your spirit a little bit more, you’ll really appreciate it.

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Jen Hubley Luckwaldt
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