Michelle L. Casto, M.Ed. There are seven stages in a romantic relationship: avoidance, meeting, dating, breaking up, establishing exclusivity, commitment, and keeping love you find. Each of these stages vary in length and intensity. At each stage, there are thoughts and feelings telling you what to do and when to do it. You need to learn to listen to your intuition in each stage, so that you can make smart decisions. It is important to note that breaking up stage can happen at any time within other stages; i.e., at any time you or other person decides to exit relationship for whatever reason. In all seven stages, you always have these choices:

1. Continue moving forward 2. Stagnate 3. Slow down or go backwards 4. Exit

By taking notice of signals from your head and heart, you will be better able to interpret what your intuition is telling you. At each stage, consider, “What am I thinking and feeling?” Are you receiving conflicting messages? Is your head saying one thing and your heart another? This is often case, particularly in romantic relationships. What happens is there is an agreement error, a contrast between your thoughts and your feelings. This is perfectly normal. Just remember that you have your very own internal system of checks and balances. This system was designed to keep you safe. For moment, it is temporarily out of order, probably due to stimulation overload. So, before making any decision at this time, go somewhere quiet’ answers will come with reflection and focus. Once answer comes, you should act quickly so you do not have time to doubt your decision. You should never feel trapped or unable to choose what is right for you. If at any time you do feel this way, then that is a good sign that something is not right with relationship. You then need to examine what it is that is holding you back. If it turns out to be other person, you are probably better off leaving relationship. A smart way to make important stage decisions is to mutually agree on what to do next. After all, “if it is meant to be, it will be,” so you may as well start out making important decisions together. Couples who have good relationships know that it takes time to build their love. They make a conscious effort to progress slowly and purposefully through each stage, enjoying process, while allowing their love to develop naturally. Communicating with each other is essential to this process. You should be open and honest about your concerns and fears, so that you can trust that everything has been said and understood by both parties. Even if you find that things aren’t what you would have hoped for, at least you know what is going on and then you can work on making it better.

A career is sum total of all of your work-related contributions to society in a lifetime. This includes time and effort spent to provide goods, services, or benefit to others. A career includes paid, un-paid, volunteer, part-time, and full-time positions. Your career includes many life roles you may not think of: student, homemaker, babysitter, office worker, doctor, lawyer, etc. A career encompasses all roles you play and duties you perform. You may have many jobs or positions that make up your career, but you only have one overall career. There are various career options in modern world of work: Self-Employed, Organization Employed, or Project-Employed. By definition, career development is interaction of psychological, sociological, economic, physical and chance factors that shape sequence of jobs, occupations, or positions a person may engage in throughout his or her lifetime. Career development is an ongoing process that includes aspects of planning and strategizing your career based on information about your self, world of work, match between them, and action you will take to create your life’s work. Formal career development occurs in high schools, colleges and universities, adult education programs, business and industry, military, community and government agencies, trade and technical schools. Consider all places you have developed your career with either academic or work experience. Where can you go next and what can you do to further develop your career? You have power to create what you want, whether you wish to be self-employed, change career fields entirely, hold a certain kind of position, or volunteer your time. Smart career development requires you to be self-reflective, resourceful, motivated, flexible, and able to keep your skills and competencies up-to-date.