Author: signordal

15 Free Design Resources Filled with Freebies for Your Creative Projects

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Best Websites for Free Design Resources

Who doesn’t like a good freebie? Designers are no different than the rest of us, and there’s no shortage of free design resources to help jumpstart your next project. Whether you are in need of some cool free Photoshop brushes or vector files to enhance your design, it’s incredible how much is out there, just waiting to be used.

We’ve talked the best site for free fonts and now we have gathered 15 of the top free graphic design resources across the web. Maybe you need a business card template to advertise your new side hustle or a texture to insert into a photo manipulation project—whatever the purpose, it’s all here.

Looking for design freebies? Check out 15 of the best free design resources online.

Free Graphic Design Resources

365 PSD

As the name suggests, this website deals with all things Photoshop. Some of the free Photoshop resources on the site include vectors, patterns, shapes, and icons, as well as a wide selection of free and premium graphics.

Behance

Not just a platform to show off your portfolio, Behance is also filled with design freebies. A little digging will turn up free fonts, templates, and much more.

Brusheezy

Brusheezy specializes in free Photoshop brushes, as well as Photoshop textures, patterns, and graphics. All the resources are free to download, just double check the license to see if it’s available for personal or commercial use.

Design Bundles

Design Bundles has both premium and free content, with the giveaways mostly using a license that allows for commercial use. The selection includes SVGs, mockups, icons, templates, backgrounds, textures & royalty free images. There’s even a crafting area with embroidery, monogram, and scrapbooking elements. You can also sign up to receive a free goodie in your inbox daily.

DesignerMill

Since 2015 this website has specialized in free design resources, sorting its collection by application. Aside from free fonts and Photoshop goodies, you’ll find free items for Illustrator, Sketch, XD, and Principle.

design freebies online

Dribbble

Not just a great place to find a job as a designer or get inspiration for your next project, Dribbble has a nice archive of free design elements. If you do a little searching you’ll dig up free vectors and fonts from Free Goodies for Designers or free storyboard illustrations to make pitching your next project that much easier.

Freebiesbug

Freebiesbug specializes in free web design resources. They have everything from PSD files to help with app design or mockups to coding resources for developers.

Free Design Resources

Updated daily, Free Design Resources describes their extensive collection—they have over 12 million downloads—as “crafted with love from amazing artists and professional designers around the world.” You can also sign up and get freebies sent to you via email twice a week.

Free Pik

Specializing in graphic resources, Free Pik has a large library of vectors, PSDs, icons, and stock photos. It was founded in 2010 by a group of graphic designers and offers free resources for both personal and commercial use.

GraphicBurger

This large website for design freebies includes mockups, UI kits, icons, text effects, and backgrounds for commercial and personal use.

Graphics Fuel

Not just a place for free design resources, Graphics Fuel also has a large section of Photoshop tutorials and offers a premium membership for extended design elements.

Free Design Resources

Colordot by Hailpixel

Aren’t sure what color combination would work in your latest project? Colordot by Hailpixel, which is also an iPhone app, is a fun website that lets you visually pull together colors in multiple combinations quickly and share them

Pixeden

From pizza box or magazine mockups to retro vector illustrations, provides both free and premium design resources for print and web design.

Pixelbuddha

The freebies on Pixelbuddha range from icons and animations to sketches, effects, and textures. They also have a section of tutorials and interviews to keep you up to date on the latest design trends.

Subtle Patterns

It’s exactly what it sounds like, a library of free patterns for your graphic design needs. Created by Toptal, a freelance hiring platform, all patterns are under a Creative Commons license that allows for commercial usage.

Related Articles:

How to Make Your Own Free Embroidery Pattern (and Download Others for Free)

How to Take a Class From Harvard—and Over 800 Other Universities—for Free

8 of the Best Free Font Websites Offering Thousands of Stylish Typefaces

Best Free and Affordable Online Photoshop Tutorials for Photographers

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Theresa May’s Blue Monday

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Britain’s agreement to accept Ireland’s demands over Brexit and the border is an expression of its weakness: it can’t even bully little Ireland anymore. And this would have been bad enough for one day. But there was another humiliation in store. Having backed down, May was then peremptorily informed by her DUP coalition partner that she was not even allowed to back down. It is a scarcely credible position for a once great state to find itself in: its leader does not even have the power to conduct a dignified retreat.

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Curious Cat Gets Kicked Out of Library But Gains Massive Fame on the Internet

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Max the Library Cat

Cats are notorious for going where they don’t belong. Whether that’s on top of a tall shelf or venturing outdoors, it seems that our furry friends can’t resist the allure of forbidden spaces. Max the cat is no different, but his curiosity didn’t kill him—it rocketed him to internet fame.

Once a wandering stray, Max was rescued by a woman named Connie Lipton in St. Paul, Minnesota. But despite finding a forever home, it didn’t stop him from wanting to explore the world beyond the family’s abode. Max’s human dad is a professor at Macalester College, and they live across the street from campus. As his dad would head to work, Max was eager to join him. While the couple resisted for a while, they eventually outfitted the feline with a collar and let him traverse the neighborhood.

Max made the most of his freedom. He traveled to campus and quickly inserted himself in the midst of the action—including being an adorable crasher to college events and watching students play frisbee. Max even learned a bit of Spanish when he stopped by the Spanish and Portuguese department. “We’ve had multiple calls because his phone number is on his tag,” Lipton told The Washington Post. “He’s a funny guy. He loves people. He loves to socialize—with groups.”

While most places welcome Max, the Macalester College library kindly requested that he stay out. Librarians were worried that he’d get locked in there overnight, and one of them is very allergic to feline dander. When Christopher Schommer, an employee at the library, returned from 12-week parental leave, he learned of Max’s reputation. One of his duties was creating signage, so he updated a previous sign with an easy-to-read message and a cartoon cat.

The poster struck a chord with library patrons and later, the internet at large. When a picture of the sign was posted on Reddit and Twitter, support poured out for the literary cat. “Max just wants to read!” one Redditor wrote. “Not only would I let Max in, I would have already had a miniature library card issued in his name and affixed to a fine collar,” another said.

The pleas and fan art in support of Max did little to sway the library staff. Although the curious kitty is still banned from the books, he’s got another obstacle to overcome; there is construction on campus, so his outdoor privileges are on hold. Max, understandably, is not happy, but a compromise was reached. He now walks on a leash with a harness which allows him to see his campus friends. But once the work is over, expect him to be back at the library, scheming ways to get among the stacks.

Meet Max the cat, a curious feline who loves to explore the nearby Macalester College.

Library Cat

He’s loved throughout campus… except for the library. Here he is caught on camera!

Library Cat

Max’s dream of being a library cat was dashed because the librarians are afraid of locking him in, and one is very allergic to feline dander.

Max the Cat

Librarian Christopher Schommer made this sign to spread the word. It quickly went viral, and people came out in support of Max being in the library.

People made “library cards” and adorable fan art.

In the end, the library didn’t budge, but Max enjoyed internet fame for a little while.

Library Cat

Unfortunately, there is now some construction on campus. Until it dies down, Max can only go outside with his human and this fashionable leash harness:

Max the Cat

Max the Cat: Instagram
h/t: [Love Meow]

All images via Max the Cat unless otherwise stated.

Related Articles:

Yoga Studio Invites Shelter Cats to Help Them Find a Home

Principal Joins Student in an Epic Yearbook Photo Featuring Cats and Lasers

Shared Table Where People Can Work and Cats Can Wander

Fascinating Comparison Shows How Cats See the World

The post Curious Cat Gets Kicked Out of Library But Gains Massive Fame on the Internet appeared first on My Modern Met.

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Radio Free Vermont

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What good can fiction do? Dust jacket patter says it can take us to new places and introduce us to voices we’d otherwise miss. Neuroscientists insist it can help us develop empathy. Kafka famously said it can take an ax to that frozen sea within us. All noble accomplishments, to be sure — but also abstracted, hard-to-quantify ones. (How much empathy? How many seas?) So what are the concrete things that a novel can accomplish? Can a work of fiction be a meaningful form of activism?

A handful of American novels have roughly answered in the affirmative. There’s no solid proof that Abraham Lincoln actually told Harriet Beecher Stowe, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!” upon meeting her, but that story, apocryphal or not, exists because Uncle Tom’s Cabin played a critical role in the abolitionist cause. The horrific stockyard scenes in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle helped tighten meat inspection regulations — though it didn’t foment an American socialist uprising, Sinclair’s true hope for the book. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath helped prompt congressional hearings on Dust Bowl migrant camps. Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, was a totemic work for the environmental movement and a direct inspiration for Earth First!, an infamous group of sand-in-the-gears radicals.

All of those novels, critics agree, are unified by the impact they had. But critics generally agree on another thing, too: They’re not especially well written. Exhortations to do things, or earnestly trained spotlights upon a political problem, tend to grate against the matters of careful style and characterization that make for good fiction. Calls to action tend to involve emotional appeals alongside the sober presentation of evidence. That translates to melodrama and reportage — twin daggers to the heart of a novel.

So while it’s a criticism to say that Bill McKibben’s debut novel, Radio Free Vermont, is not a very good work of fiction, it’s also a way to say that it’s a novel that’s part of a long lineage. McKibben is a longtime environmental writer and activist who’s written a stack of nonfiction books sounding warnings about climate and the influence of money and government upon it; along with Al Gore and Naomi Klein, he’s threaded the needle of stating the seriousness of the stakes without being a panic-stricken catastrophist. The very existence of Radio Free Vermont reveals how passionate he is about his cause — he’d write an epic poem in iambic tetrameter on CO2 levels if he thought it’d help get his message over. But he’s also cognizant of how gently he needs to tread. The plot of his novel involves a Vermont secessionist movement stoked by computer hacking and vandalism (in one scene a Walmart is flooded with sewage). But its center is an avuncular seventy-two-year-old radio host named Vern Barclay, who agitates for radical action with avuncular calm. “The towns where we knew each other and looked out for each other weren’t working so well anymore,” he laments on-air, explaining how he got religion on secession.

Vern is assisted in his mission by a young hacker with an encyclopedic knowledge of ’60s Soul and R&B; a fellow old-timer who trains wealthy out-of-towners to respect (and escape) the perils of the state’s wilderness; and an Iraq vet and former Olympic biathlete Vern once trained. Together, the foursome concoct a series of antics ostensibly designed to promote the secessionist cause but, like the encrappening of the Walmart, mostly manifest themselves as anti-corporate counterprogramming. A Coors truck is waylaid and its contents replaced by local microbrews. Vern hacks a Starbucks PA and talks up locally owned coffee shops. Said biathlete goes off-script during the dedication of a sports arena/concert venue to lament how as a soldier “I felt like I was protecting bigness — big oil and big companies who made big money running those wars.” And, also, that “Nickelback really sucks.”

Within such actions, we are meant to believe, are borne the seeds of revolution. (I wrote “C’mon!” a lot in the margins.) To be fair, McKibben means to keep his story light — it’s brief and subtitled A Fable of Resistance. But even by that standard, the story is vapor-thin: Nefarious federals from central casting chase down Vern’s cohort, there is much talk about the fate of Social Security benefits in the sovereign nation of Vermont, and its final plot twist is reminiscent of ’80s teen dramedies where the school principal is revealed saying something super-duper-mean that got caught on tape. Even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in his blurb for the book, can’t bring himself to wholeheartedly board this train. (“I hope no one secedes, but I also hope . . . “)

Radio Free Vermont‘s flaws reveal just how pronounced the problem of writing an activist novel in the twenty-first century is. How do you write an optimistic, progressive novel in a literary culture steeped in dystopia, where the prevailing mood is failure and collapse? McKibben has not been alone in this struggle — the non-dystopian activist novel has had a rough road in recent years. It is either too much a function of the politics of the moment, which gives it a short shelf life. (Consider Frederic C. Rich’s 2013 novel, Christian Nation, which imagined a Sarah Palin presidency.) Or it re-litigates the past, which blunts its impact. (Sunil Yapa’s 2016 novel, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, which revisits the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, is a prominent recent example.) As evidence of what stokes activism, and what activism demands, they’re effective enough works. But as stories about people, with a longer view of the errors of history and their aftereffects, they face the same struggles McKibben does.

One seemingly obvious influence on Radio Free Vermont suggests a way forward, though. The novel’s setup strongly evokes The Monkey Wrench Gang, which also involves a quartet of law-flouting radicals who protest the power structure but are mindful not to put anybody in harm’s way. Abbey’s radicals travel across Utah and Arizona pulling out survey stakes, breaking bulldozers, and blowing up (empty) bridges in the name of slowing down the advance of progress and the rough soles of developers’ boots. Story-wise, it’s full of the kind of hokum that’d make Mark Twain blush — impossible escapes, bad puns, sexist banter.

And yet, the driving force of Abbey’s outrage — the wellspring of his activism — is also evident on the page, because he’s never more careful in his prose than when he’s writing about the environment that’s in peril. “The clouds passed, in phrases and paragraphs, like incomprehensible messages of troubling import, overhead across the forested ridges,” he writes in the book. “Above the unscaled cliffs, beyond the uninhabited fields of lonely mesas, followed by their faithful shadows flowing with effortless adaptation over each crack, crevice, crease and crag on the wrinkled skin of the Utahn earth.”

Which is to say, we know what these people are blowing up a bridge for. That kind of breather never arrives in Radio Free Vermont, and as such McKibben can’t clear a fictional path to move us to upend a trashcan in a Costco. More often, the vista that Vern contemplates is a drier political scene. “The U.S. has worked, not perfectly but perfectly well, for a very long time,” he muses. “Trump, true. But we survived Nixon. And Warren Harding. What kind of stunt was it to insist that he’d figured out some better future?” The activist novel will last as long as writers are willing imagine that better future. But it’s also a clumsy, difficult genre that transcends itself, if it ever does, when the novelist places us not just in our current predicament but in the just and fair place we imagine we might someday be.

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Michael Flynn: What We Know, What Mueller Knows

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In the efforts to figure out how much damage Flynn’s plea will do to Trump and other senior administration officials, most observers seem to have overlooked one of the few available metrics on the Mueller investigation: the size of his team. While the numbers have fluctuated, Mueller has somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen prosecutors. Thus far, we’ve seen official notice of what just half of them have been up to. Robert Mueller has put only a few of his cards on the table.

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5 Things You Need To Know About Shared Web Hosting

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With technology evolving, customers have more options than ever before. They are surrounded by streams of brands- millions of them. People are agog over searching things they want over the internet, so if you do not exist online, you are probably losing a multitude of your potential customers.

Having a website is a must!

Whether you own a large corporation or a small cafe, you will need an influential web presence where your customers can connect with you, discover about your business, and eventually buy your products online. Taken together, an appealing, user-friendly, and informative website can magnetize new customers and prospects.

Businesses that still don’t have a website may be considered as outdated or even unreliable. Obviously, you wouldn’t want your business to have the same impression.

Since a majority of small and big businesses get their own website, they need to choose between different hosting solutions at some point. If your website does not attract much traffic and you have a tight budget, then shared web hosting service is the best option for you.

The Most Affordable Hosting Option

web host

Shared hosting is the most classic and widely chosen hosting plan across the globe. The key reason is its affordability as you don’t have to burn holes in your wallet.

Shared hosting is more like sharing an apartment where you share different facilities, like parking lot, kitchen, internet provider, and so on. When it comes to hosting, you have to share your resources with other hosting mates, like CPU time, memory, data, and disk space.

The Drawbacks

Shared hosting comes with some drawbacks. Potential website instability is one of them.

Take note that your website will be sharing server CPU resources with different other websites. When any of the websites sharing your server experiences an upsurge in traffic, your site might load slowly.

More Things to Consider

Hosting providers offer different plans for shared hosting. They may ask you to pay monthly, quarterly or yearly depending on your chosen plan.

Apart from payment options, you also have to be clear about the features you should be able to get from your plan. Storing files on the server is essential and so is the volume of data transfers and storage limits. If the basic features aren’t enough, you can always get an upgrade but be prepared to pay more.

Many shared hosting providers offer unlimited monthly data transfers to their customers. This may not be a catch, but you have to be sure that there are no hidden prices involved and that your definition of unlimited is same as theirs.

Now comes the OS. Check if you need Windows servers or Linux servers. Most common OS available for servers is Linux, but there are some web hosts that will allow you to choose between Linux or Windows hosting. For server-side apps that require Windows, let’s say SQL Server or a customized software coded in .NET, then Windows hosting will be the right option.

Make sure that your prospective web host offers a user-friendly control panel to streamline server administration and website management. Rather than typing a command line manually, the user can click the icons they recognize.

Another thing is customer support. You need to be certain that your host offers responsive 24/7 customer support. Some useful tools are forums, tutorials, and knowledge bases, but there’s nothing like having a human at your disposal.

customer support

See Also: 5 Effective Ways To Sound More Human Over A Customer Support Live Chat

Hosting For Bloggers

WordPress hosting is an effective and affordable solution, just like shared web hosting. This sort of hosting is the best solution for people planning to create a website powered by WordPress CMS (content management system), but don’t want to be troubled with things like updating CMS and the apps. Managed WordPress plans is mostly comprised of security features aimed at protecting CMS from layabouts.

Some managed WordPress hosts restrict certain plugins. Therefore, if your website demands certain plugins, then you might have to search for other hosting options. Please note that only WordPress CMS can run on managed WordPress hosting.

See Also: How to Choose a Web Host for Your Website

 

To wrap up

Selecting the right hosting option is no rocket-science; it truly depends upon your unique needs and budget. Most of the time shared web hosting is more than enough to cover your hosting needs as it is affordable, practical, and uncomplicated.

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Take a walk through a winter wonderland at Yellowstone National…

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Take a walk through a winter wonderland at Yellowstone National Park. While it looks a light coating of snow at Tangled Creek, the landscape is covered in hoar frost, which forms when water vapor freezes quickly creating delicate, feather-like crystals. Photo by Jacob W. Frank, National Park Service.

5 Simple Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution

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It’s almost a brand new year and with that comes the inevitable New Year’s resolutions.

Maybe you want to lose weight and/or get in shape. Maybe you want to quit smoking. Perhaps you wish to do something more creative, like starting a daily journal, finishing a novel or learning a new language.

You eagerly set all those things in January and by February, all your efforts are gone- if they even last that long.

Why is it so difficult to make a resolution that works?

Why Resolutions Fail

Most resolutions fail not because you lack good intentions but because if you truly wanted to make a lasting change in your life, you wouldn’t have to wait for a special day to do it. You’d already be taking steps to attain your goal and you wouldn’t allow one setback to derail or defeat the other steps you’d already taken to achieve that goal.

That is exactly the practice you need to follow should you really wish to bring lasting changes to your life.

So, instead of thinking of a New Year’s resolution as an all-or-nothing proposition where one slip-up derails your entire effort, create a mindset that any and all progress toward your goal is worthy of reward. Rather than focusing on the negatives, focus on the progress you have made.

What You Can Do Instead of Making a New Year’s Resolution

Here are some alternatives to the traditional New Year’s resolution and how they will truly help you change your life for the better.

Make a Bucket List for the New Year

bucket list

Everyone’s heard of lifelong bucket lists. However, when we think of bucket lists, we often think in very vague terms, like “Someday, I’d like to skydive/hike the Grand Canyon, run a marathon and visit Paris.”

Instead, why not make a bucket list for the year?

Making a list of things you want to do rather than setting one virtually unattainable goal is far more enjoyable. Plus, looking forward to checking items off your list makes you encouraged to tackle the necessary steps you need to take.

For example, one of your bucket list items for the year is to learn Spanish. To check this item off your list, you’ll need to set aside weekly, or better yet, daily time to practice it. If one of your bucket list items is to run a 10k marathon, you’ll have to make a weekly training schedule to check that item off of your annual bucket list.

Focus on the Process and Make It Enjoyable

We’re all familiar with the cliché that Rome wasn’t built in one day. And as with all clichés, there is a glimmer of truth to that statement.

When setting a long-term goal, such as quitting smoking or losing weight, it’s vital to celebrate every step of the journey to keep you motivated.

Ask yourself questions about what you would like to achieve.

Perhaps your goal is to fit back into the size 10 jeans you wore in high school. Then, make a list of some of the behaviors you can change to achieve your goal.

Set it out on a weekly basis and congratulate yourself for every positive action taken. You can try eating fast food no more than once a week or commit to exercise at least 10 to 15 minutes per day.

Instead of beating yourself up when you slip up, try congratulating yourself each time you do well. Celebrate making it through a week of workouts with a nice, long bubble bath or by buying yourself a small gift.

By making the process something you can enjoy and celebrate, you’ll be well on your way to making lasting life changes.

Set Mini Goals and Take Small Steps Daily

Perhaps one of your bucket list items for the year is to finish a novel. This takes time and as every writer knows, you can’t count on just waiting for the moment inspiration strikes to start writing.

Instead, set a goal of writing one to two pages per day. Hold yourself accountable. You can make a pact with a family member or friend to discuss your daily goals. Then, check back with them at the end of each day to evaluate and celebrate your progress.

Write Your Goals Down and Use Checklists

new year resolution goals

Another great way to keep yourself accountable with your resolutions or goals is to write them down. Writing your goals helps make them more concrete and specific.

For example, to lose weight is a vague and amorphous goal. “To lose one pound per week” breaks it down so you’ll have a more concrete path to success.

Also, use checklists to keep yourself on track.

Each Sunday, for example, sit down and write a list of actions you can take that week that can help you achieve your goal.

You can write down your workout schedule for the week. As you write down the schedule, include check boxes next to the routines. As you accomplish and check off each routine, you get instant visual validation that you are on track.

Make Goals That Are Attainable and Measurable

Experts agree that the best goals have certain characteristics. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). These SMART goals are empowering because they focus on goals you can obtain and offer a specific time frame for completion.

See Also: How to Set Personal SMART Goals To Succeed

For example, you wish to run a half marathon this year.

To create a SMART goal, many trainers would recommend that you make a training schedule on a calendar you see daily, such as a large wall calendar. By seeing the number of miles you have completed, you’ll be able to measure your progress.

The problem with traditional New Year’s resolutions is they focus on your setbacks instead of celebrating the progress you’ve accomplished. So, for this year, create resolutions that will celebrate you.

See Also: 5 Habits to Make The New Year Your Best Year Yet

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3 Top Job Industries That Are Flying Under Your Radar

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When your job search feels stalled, it’s time to make a change to your strategy. So many top job industries are emerging, providing opportunities for you to pursue one of your passions.

Your job search strategy should have more structure than just randomly sending your documents to dozens of job openings every week. Reflect on what industries align with your interests and focus on those.

Let’s take a look at the most exciting job industries you can start with.

Outdoor Recreation

outdoor recreation

More people are spending time and money on experiencing the great outdoors. In fact, according to an April 2017 report from the Outdoor Industry Association, the outdoor recreation industry creates $887 billion in consumer spending and employs 7.6 million Americans.

If you love taking hikes, camping, and seeking adventures in your local parks, this is the perfect industry for you. There are several awesome companies to choose from.

For example, Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is perfect if you’re into outdoor gear. They continue to be recognized as a top employer. Every year since 1998, they earned a spot in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, which is based on anonymous employee feedback.

Additionally, they ranked second in Glassdoor’s 2016 list for Top 20 Employer Benefits and Perks. Employees enjoy discounts, retirement plans, community involvement, two days of additional PTO for outside activities, healthcare, and a positive culture that shares a passion for the outdoors.

To make the most of your job search, learn how to show your enthusiasm to potential employers. Niche industries are especially competitive because there are fewer opportunities and a lot of passionate people who want to work there.

Just this year, my company, JobsInSports, conducted a survey of employers. They said one of the best ways you can express enthusiasm for your industry is by writing a tailored cover letter. Also, one in four employers says sharing industry experience during your interview is crucial to demonstrating enthusiasm.

To put it simply, gain experience as you look for jobs within a niche industry like outdoor recreation. Search for internships and volunteer opportunities if you’re struggling to get entry-level work. As you work, think about how you are going to write about your learning experiences and how you can share them in your cover letter.

See Also: 5 Tips To Making Your Resume Cover Letter Stand Out

Sports

The world of sports is huge and it’s only going to get bigger. According to a 2016 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the sports industry will be valued at $75 billion by 2020.

However, this doesn’t just include the major sports, like football, baseball, and basketball. Soccer is becoming more popular in North America and esports shows no signs of slowing. In fact, a 2017 report from Newzoo found that there are 191 million esports enthusiasts worldwide and just the esports industry alone generated $696 million in revenue.

The best part about the sports industry is that you have plenty of opportunities within each sport. Depending on your interests, you can find the perfect employer.

For soccer fans, look at MLS. Baseball enthusiasts thrive when they work in MLB. For those interested in sports media, ESPN still stands as one of the best employers.

Another exciting world within the industry is sports technology. Companies like Hudl and SeatGeek are among the best employers. They offer exciting growth opportunities and great benefits.

The best way to stand out in sports involves two key factors: networking and building an online presence.

Employers noted that the top ways candidates stand out to them include joining professional organizations, commenting on industry discussion boards, sharing industry content through social media, and engaging with relevant industry groups through networks like LinkedIn and Facebook.

When you meet people and publicly engage with sports groups online, potential employers will see you’re passionate. They will also see what your expertise is if you’re sharing ideas and starting discussions.

Wellness

spa and wellness

The wellness industry includes nutrition, alternative medicine, beauty products, the spa industry, fitness, and wellness tourism. With more people interested in self-care, this industry is booming.

As a 2017 report from The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) found, the U.S. generates $202.2 billion of the annual $563.2 billion global market. In other words, there are several opportunities awaiting you.

Our survey found that employers think the most important aspects you should know about a potential employer are core values, the vision, their products/services, and their mission statement. When you want to work for wellness companies, start researching them.

See Also: 5 Best Ways to Use Technology To Land Your Dream Job

Not only will you gain a clear understanding of their role in the market, but you’ll also see how you align with their culture and how you can provide value to their mission. Then, you can tailor your resume and cover letter to clearly indicate why you’re the best fit for them.

How are you focusing your job search strategy in niche industries?

The post 3 Top Job Industries That Are Flying Under Your Radar appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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5 Quick Steps to Change Any Behavior

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You’re reading 5 Quick Steps to Change Any Behavior, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

As a zoologist by training, I developed the Emotional Mastery techniques found in my new book Change from Within from studying wild animals. Out of this research, and the main way this work differs from other self-help philosophies, is that I don’t believe our thoughts control our behavior. Our belief systems, often unconsciously, are our true behavioral dictators. Our thoughts (like our words) are good indicators of our beliefs, but if you just focus on changing how you think without addressing the underlying beliefs, your efforts will only be a surface “band aid” solution, and the unhealthy behavior will eventually reassert itself.

If you want a genuine long-term fix for unhealthy behaviors, you have to change the underlying beliefs that are triggering your actions. Thankfully we have a built-in guidance system for uncovering our belief systems. How we feel. Our emotional body is like a weather vane for all of our beliefs. Change how you FEEL and you will change how you behave.

Unfortunately, we spend years in school being taught to think and never one lesson in how to feel, which leaves us at a disadvantage when it comes to empowering ourselves emotionally. The following steps will show you how to flex your emotional muscles so you can start to see long term results, and change from the inside out.

Here are 5 quick steps to transform any unhealthy behavior by changing the underlying emotional hooks:

1. Start by paying attention to how you feel. Before, during and after the behavior, what was your emotional state? If this is an old pattern, you will probably struggle to stay conscious of how you feel before or during, but afterwards think back on your actions. How does it make you feel? Write it down.

2. Go below the “surface” emotions you wrote down, to identify the underlying insecurity. For example, say you feel like an idiot or are embarrassed by your behavior, the root insecurity might be “I feel like a loser” or “I feel I’m not good enough”. To get the most out of this process dig deep and be brutally honest about your insecurities.

3. Say out loud “I accept I feel … “ and name the insecurities from step 2. Contrary to what you may think, acceptance doesn’t make things worse; it’s simply the honest acknowledgment of where you are at. In order for this Emotional Mastery process to work, we have to be in true acceptance. (Refusing to accept how we feel is like walking into the emergency room and refusing to tell the doctors where it hurts, but still expecting them to make us better.)

4. Look for the gifts or wisdom of feeling this insecurity. As I say in workshops “every negative emotion has something positive to teach us”. If you’re really struggling with this step, how are you a better person for knowing how it feels to experience this? Hint: are you more compassionate? Understanding? Patient?

5. Stop beating yourself up for your behavior and start thanking this part of you for trying to make you a better person. This disempowering behavior is actually teaching you to be more compassionate, understanding, patient, etc. Once we see it as a gift instead of a curse, we get into appreciation, one of the highest vibrational states we hold.

Congratulations! You’ve just transformed the emotion attached to your unhealthy behavior from self-abuse to appreciation, aka self-love. There are two schools of motivation: one of abuse and one of encouragement (another aspect of self-love). Which one do you think gets healthy, long-term results? Only after processing the underlying emotional hook of the insecurity into a positive, can we then “pre-pave” an empowering and healthy course of action. In your mind’s eye now visualize how you wish you’d behaved instead. Get really specific and pay attention to how you would feel as you played out this new behavior. When a similar situation arises in the future (and it will) you can then start practicing your empowering, healthy new action.

If you want to understand and practice this transformational process in more detail, read Change from Within: A Journal of Exercise and Meditations to Transform, Empower, and Reconnect.

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