Tag Archives: Lifestyle

Musings

Helpful Tip For Boosting Employee Performance And Loyalty

Boosting employee performance might not seem like a big deal if you’re a Freelance writer, but once you’ve leveled up to hiring outside help to build your empire, you really need to learn this trick!
This blog post comes curtesy of TikTok. No, really! I saw something on there this morning that I wanted to scream from the rooftops. Or at least shove under the nose of every corporate manager. Here it is…

"Nothing will destroy a great employee faster, than watching an employer tolerate or reward the bad ones."

Here is my amazing tip for Boosting Employee Performance and Loyalty

I’ve been a work-from-home mom for so many years, I forgot how stressful a corporate job can be. But it doesn’t have to feel that way! It seems like there is a lot of pressure on employees to meet goals and follow strict guidelines, but there is very little reward offered for reaching those goals and even less positive encouragement.

A lot of employees are driven to meet goals through fear. Fear of getting written up. Fear of not getting the promotion. Fear of getting fired. After a while, they start to associate the job with fear and dread. It becomes a negative thing. I don’t know about you, but if I’m in a constant state of fear and dread, I’m not going to be functioning at my best.

Do you want to know how to draw out the best in your employees? Use the carrot and throw away the stick!

I need to give a shout out to Ashley here, who really made this difference in managing styles so clear to me.
She isn’t the kind of supervisor who sits down with you and starts pointing out all the areas you need to improve.
Instead, she talks to you like a human being.

Use a Carrot not the Stick
Use a Carrot and throw away the Stick

“How are you doing?”
“How can I help?”
“What areas are you working on improving this month?”
And when she sees you making those improvements she is right there with the encouragement and the cheers. She’s recognizing your wins, patting you on the back, and encouraging you to keep reaching for greater wins.

That’s how you get the best work out of your employees!  Turn the workplace into a positive place. Help them become better and celebrate their achievements.
If they’re struggling in an area, brainstorm some ideas for helping them improve, but in a way that makes them feel supported and not chastised. If they struggle with attendance, offer an hour of PTO for every month that they have a perfect attendance. If they struggle with keeping their lunch breaks to a time limit, offer a free lunch voucher for every month they stay within time.
Start challenging your employees to do better in a positive way and they will forward that positive energy into coworkers as well as your customers.

CelesteHall.com

Writing Tips

5 Helpful Facts About Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome isn’t something your family doctor can cure. It is a psychological phenomenon in which a person doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments. They may even have a fear of being exposed as a fraud. It happens to self-published authors all the time and has even shut done careers which might have achieved golden futures.

If you find yourself asking, “What gives me a right to call myself a writer?” or “Why would anyone buy my books, I’m a nobody!”, you’re probably suffering from a touch of imposter syndrome. The truth is, every famous artist had to start at the beginning, just like you. You’ll never know how great you might be if you don’t try.

Help for Imposter Syndrome
Help For Imposter Syndrome

5 Helpful Facts About Imposter Syndrome

You Are Worthy

One of the best ways to overcome imposter syndrome is to recognize why you’re feeling that way. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Finishing a book takes hours, weeks, months, and even years of hard work! If you’re a copywriter or a content marketer, you’ve put hours into researching, struggling over the headline and hooks. Every word that goes onto the page is sweated over, reconsidered, checked for spelling, grammar, and understanding.
Writing is hard. It takes time. If you’ve put time and effort into your writing, you deserve to be recognized for that work.

We All Struggle Sometimes

If you struggle to see your own value, talking about it can help. Every new author I’ve talked to has gone through a bout of Imposter Syndrome from time to time. None of us are immune and it isn’t a condition restricted to authors. Talking about it can help, as Neil Gaiman (author of The Sandman and American Gods) confirms when he wrote:

“And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.”

You Deserve Success

When we’re struggling with imposter syndrome, we have a tendency to brush off our successes. It’s important for you to accept positive feedback and see yourself in a more positive light.
Accomplishments don’t have to feel big to have a big impact on your view of yourself. Reward yourself for the little things too. Give yourself a mental pat on the back for publishing your paper, your book, or your most recent article, even if nobody is reading it. Then start working on the next one!

Nobody is Perfect

Don’t lower your standards, but make sure that you aren’t setting the bar so high that you can’t reach it. Do the best that you can do and then do it some more. Keep an open mind, and keep learning along the way, and you will ultimately be moving toward the success that you’re seeking.

We All Make Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes, it’s important to be gentle with yourself, especially as a writer. I have opened up books belonging to the top selling authors on the market and found typos. It happens to everyone! Forgive yourself for mistakes. Make those little changes along the way and just keep moving forward. Don’t let a bad review or a mistake stop your progress.

CelesteHall.com

Musings, Writing Tips

Slide Into Their DMs Without Being Creepy

Do you want to know how to slide into their DMs without being creepy? With how much time I’ve been spending on TikTok lately, this topic was bound to come up sooner or later!
All my spicy content creator friends will agree that we have probably seen or heard it all when it comes to creepy DMs that fly in out of the blue. For whatever reason, there are always a few fans who think that spicy content creators would appreciate unrequested, not-safe-for-work photographs or comments.
Please don’t be one of those people!

Don't Be Creepy!
Don’t Be Creepy!

How To Slide Into Their DMs Without Being Creepy

Keep it Simple

Realize that we are probably answering your DMs during a quick break or down time between projects. Most content creators work ten to twelve hours a day, including weekends, to keep up with all the demands on our time. We probably don’t have time to read a twenty-page declaration of your love.
Keep it short, sweet, and safe for work!
You can mention similar interests based on their recent post on social media or their website bio. Maybe ask a question or share a thought about something they’ve writing.

Be Thoughtful

The best way to keep a conversation going is to talk about interests you might have in common but keep this to topics that might come up in a job interview.
For example, if you both love reading spicy romance novels, do NOT go asking them about their favorite positions, or anything else that might be inappropriate for a job interview.
Instead, ask them who their favorite authors are. Or something which might gain a few laughs, like whether they prefer covers that have the top portion of the head chopped off so you can imagine what they hero or heroine looks like.
This is a real thing! Go look at some covers and see what I mean!
Topics like this can inspire some fun conversations. These are the types of conversations that create friendships which can later become something more.

Use Spellcheck

If you frequently have people on Facebook correcting your grammar or spelling, it would probably help if you typed everything out in a word document first and checked it for grammar or spelling errors.
This is especially true of the person you’re talking to is an author or content creator. Most of us have years of training in reading, writing, and editing English.
There are people out there who are physically or mentally triggered by a text or DM that is riddled with errors.

Be Available

When you reach out to anyone online, whether it is through a dating app, social media, or their personal website or blog, you are stepping up for more than just a conversation.
You have probably spent at least a few minutes, hours, or even days researching them to see if they’re someone you’d like to have a conversation with. Then, once you’ve sent that DM, you’re giving that person an opportunity to spend at least an equal amount of time researching if you’re someone they would like to talk to.
This means you need to give them something to research.
If you don’t have a completed profile, I can almost guarantee that you’ll never get a response.
A profile with just a picture and a name is the equivalent of a face leering at us from a windowless van. To put it bluntly, you look like you are hiding something.
The more you appear to be hiding, the more you’ll look like you might kidnap and “unalive” someone if they get too close. Making yourself more available online can be hard, but if you want to connect with people, you’ll have to try.

Creepy White Van
A Blank Profile Page = Creepy White Van Vibes
What are you hiding???

Finally, Be Respectful

Always, always, always treat people with respect and kindness.
Your life isn’t all sunshine and happiness, and neither is theirs. They might be going through some things and just not have time or the emotional strength to answer back to every message they get.
We never really know what’s going on in someone else’s life, just like they don’t know what’s going on in your life.
So be kind and be respectful.
If they don’t follow you back, that’s their choice. Don’t start spamming messages to change their mind or you’re guaranteed to get blocked and probably reported.
The same is true if they don’t respond to messages.
If you really want to show your support, make thoughtful comments on their posts and just be available for a later conversation. Once they see that you’re respectful and friendly, they may start replying to your comments and future DMs.
If they don’t, that’s okay too, you’re learning skills that will make you more valuable to the next person.

CelesteHall.com

Writing Tips

My 3 Best Tips for Writing Restaurant Reviews

Writing restaurant reviews can be fun!
Have you discovered the most amazing new restaurant and want to leave them an equally amazing review? Maybe you’re traveling and you want to help your fellow travelers discover that charming little gem of a diner you happened to stumble across.
There are a lot of reasons you might want to leave a review, but it won’t help anyone if it doesn’t grab attention and get bumped up by people who appreciate your suggestion.

Writing Restaurant Reviews
Writing Restaurant Reviews

My 3 Best Tips for Writing Restaurant Reviews

1. Give Them a Good Appetizer

Let your readers know right away if the review will be worth reading. Think of one descriptive word which might encompass your entire visit. Something like “amazing” might be a little too vague, but “delicious!” or “authentic!” are great words.
Now use that word to write your title, or the first line of your review if the review site doesn’t support titles. “Wow! This is real authentic Japanese ramen!”

2. Give Them a Little Background

In one or two lines, give them a little background on how you ended up in this restaurant. You might want to include whether you were in a group or on a date with your special person or even what time of day or night you visited.
“My boyfriend and I just got in from a long flight and didn’t know the area very well. This place was open late, so we didn’t have high expectations, but boy were we surprised!”

3. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Here’s where you will describe the food, the service, and the atmosphere or feel of the place. Make sure you’re not just saying that the food was great, but that you describe why. Give an example of why the service was good or bad. Describe notable things about the decoration or the atmosphere inside.
“I had the Shoyu Ramen, and it came in a large bowl, absolutely loaded with toppings. The broth was richly seasoned, the meat was tender and delicious, and the noodles were perfectly cooked, not mushy or clumped together. The waitress was so sweet and kept our glasses full the entire meal, we never had to ask for anything. I loved the traditional Japanese décor and the warm, welcoming ‘irasshaimase!’ as we entered. This was such a memorable experience. I highly recommend you visit!”

The goal is to keep the review brief but still cover all the important details in a way that people can relate to. The meat was tender, not chewy. The noodles were cooked well, not mushy. The waitress was attentive.
Think of things that matter to you when you’re dining out and that will give you an idea of what people want to know, but don’t get too longwinded because nobody has time to read an entire novel of a review when they’re hungry.  

Bonus Tips:


Take pictures! Almost everyone has a camera on their phone now. Take a few snapshots of your meals and the restaurant.

Japanese Ramen Shop
The best Japanese Ramen Shop I’ve ever visited!

Also, be fair, we’ve all had to suffer through that new waitress who is just learning the job and bungles up the drink order. You can mention that the waitress mixed up your drink order but remember that by the time your review is read, she will likely have skilled up. Don’t let her mistake influence what you tell others, they may get a totally different version of her.

Writing something like, “Worst Restaurant Ever” might make you feel a little better in the moment, but it doesn’t offer anyone any insight as to why. It really speaks more about your temper than it does the restaurant. If you need to leave a bad review warning people off, give your reasons why. If you want an example, ask me about a restaurant I visited in Nazca, Peru and the wretched days which followed. 🤢

Lastly, check your spelling and grammar! If you’re in doubt, copy and paste the whole review into a Word doc and run an editing check on it. If your review is full of spelling or grammatical errors, people might skip past your reviews or misunderstand it completely.

CelesteHall.com