We all want to feel inspired and confident in our pursuits. Problem is, we often don't.

So we turn to our favorite bloggers or gurus or self-help authors to feast on the advice they offer. Sometimes it works; we get a much-needed boost.

But sometimes we overindulge. We end up with the opposite of what we wanted from all of that personal development awesomeness. We get loaded down with a sense of helplessness.

Have you ever experienced this? (Surely, I can't be the only one.)

That's why I've shared my approach for climbing out of that muck—and for staying inspired after you do. Check out my guest post on Dumb Little Man: "How to Overcome Self-Help Fatigue and Make Inspiration Stick."

I recently wrote about an example of how one school is taking a stand against the rising costs of today's post-secondary education through tuition freezes. I am happy to see more evidence piling up that affordable education and greater financial support is becoming a rule rather than an exception.

Over this past weekend, Lincoln Technical Institute gave five mothers what was probably one of the best Mother's Day presents of their lives: assurance that their children will have the financial means to attend vocational school and pursue their career goals in the automotive field.

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Long gone are the times when job searching involved sitting down with a newspaper and stack of resumes and envelopes. These days, job hunting is more likely to include a lot of time spent searching online, exploring job boards, and tweaking your LinkedIn profile.

So, how can you navigate the ever-changing landscape of online job searching?

I'm very glad you asked!

To start, you can check out my recent guest post, "How One Word Could Wreck Your Job Search," on Joshua Waldman's Career Enlightenment blog, which contains information on relevant tools and offers helpful job search tips.

Enjoy, and happy job hunting!

During a time when tuition seems to be continually rising, and students and recent graduates alike are drowning in education-related debt, I read something today that was like a breath of fresh air.

Strayer University has taken proactive action through a new initiative that goes against the grain of today's financial climate in the education sector.

The school has announced that it will implement a tuition freeze for its entire current student body. And that's not all. Strayer University has also promised no tuition increases for 2014. Plus, it will be offering discounted tuition rates for all new undergraduates in 2014 through The Strayer University Graduation Fund, which will provide 25 percent off the total cost of a degree program.

The fund will automatically apply to all new students who enroll in the summer term for 2014. A selection of current students who have proven themselves to be high achievers in their programs will also be offered this discount.

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Maybe I'm just feeling old for my years, but I've definitely thought about how amazing it would be to retire. I mean, what could be better than saying "Goodbye!" to alarm clocks and commuting and saying "Hello!" to gardening, recreational reading, and extended vacations? Not that I'm in a rush to reach retirement age. (I have a career that I love.) But during these overly tired, parenting-small-children times, it really does sound like a dream some days.

Recently, I've heard about another aspect of retirement that makes it sound even more delightful. Stemming from a number of factors, including poor-performing retirement investments and longer life expectancies, many retired (or soon-to-be-retired) individuals are opting to return to the workforce—but with more than just the bottom line in mind.

According to a recent article from USA Today, complete retirement is becoming the road less traveled for many Baby Boomers. Instead, a large number of individuals are choosing to pursue "encore careers," which are described by Encore.org (a non-profit organization that promotes and provides resources in this area) as later-in-life careers that combine helping others, doing what you're passionate about, and earning a paycheck.

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As a white, heterosexual woman, it seems that today’s society has the deck stacked two-thirds in my favor. I’ve never had to deal with persecution or unfair prejudice based on the color of my skin or my sexual preference. Being female, I am bound to experience some inequality in my lifetime, but I don’t carry around a distinct sense that I am at a disadvantage simply for existing as I was meant to. I was born this way, and I don’t expect to receive more or less than anyone else based on how I look, what my anatomy consists of, or who I am attracted to. No one should be made to feel “less than” because of who they are. Sadly, this concept is still just an ideal. The reality is that prejudice still infects our daily lives, and some of us will experience the impact of inequality more profoundly than others.

After spending two years unsuccessfully searching for work in an industry with which she has 10 years of experience, Yolanda Spivey returned to school to complete her degree. Even with credentials added to her resume, she found herself “quite shocked” by the fact that she received no responses from potential employers on Monster.com. It turns out that the job search website, which Yolanda had used successfully in the past, recently added a “diversity questionnaire” in which an applicant can declare their gender and race. Having listed herself as a Black female, Yolanda became concerned that one or both of these characteristics were affecting her chances of being taken seriously as a job candidate. So, she decided to do a little experimenting to see if her suspicions were correct.

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Portland, Maine lawmaker Ben Chipman is seeking to empower high school students from low-income households to pursue post-secondary education through bill
LD 962, “An Act to Increase Access to Higher Education.” If the bill is passed, students with a family income of less than $30,000 could have their state college tuition paid by the government. To be eligible for this “merit-based scholarship program,” students would need to graduate in the top 25 percent of their classes.

The cost of higher education has increasingly become a barrier to those who want to pursue post-secondary training but don’t have the resources to do so. Young people who face paying for school on their own may be hesitant to enter into a student loan, and find themselves eventually saddled with a debt that can vary from a little to a whole lot. For those who are already facing financial obstacles in their home lives, getting an education can seem like a goal that is beyond their grasp. Research and statistics have confirmed that socioeconomic status is indeed related to participation in post-secondary training, with rates of college enrollment sadly much lower amongst students of lower socioeconomic statuses.

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Due to the nature of my job as a copywriter for an education-related business, it's in my best interest to stay on top of education news.

But I have to admit: most days, just scanning the top headlines is enough to induce depression.

For example, some of the biggest stories right now are about South Dakota schools approving a law that allows school employees to carry guns, the city of Chicago's plan to close down more than 50 schools, Massachusetts middle-school children being denied lunch and forced to go hungry, and a massive cheating scandal in Atlanta, Georgia that resulted in 35 educators being indicted by a grand jury for falsifying student outcomes on standardized tests.

I could have chosen to write about any one of these issues and had plenty to say. However, in the face of all of this depressing news, I decided that, instead of starting my week by soaking my brain in negativity, I would sniff out some cheerier stories. After all, they do still exist. Today's mainstream media would rather shove doom and gloom in your face all day every day, but if you do a little digging, happy stories are waiting for you to discover them.

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Happy Friday! To celebrate the coming weekend, check out this video and just try not to dance a little (even head bobbing counts).

Forty-eight choir students called the Highland Trouveres created this eight-minute choreographed dance video in which they all boogie and lip-sync to a mash-up of today’s most popular songs. And they did it all in one take. I only wish my high school had been this awesome. I think the closest thing to choreography we did involved shuffling down the halls together during fire drills.

I work for a small business, and I love it. Honestly, after coming to work every day to a place where I know everybody's name (and the names of their spouses, kids, and pets), I couldn't imagine many things more painful than wasting away in a cubicle where I might not know the names of the people working on the other side of the room from me.

Over the years, I've discovered that this isn't the only benefit of working in a small-business setting, and I have just had the pleasure of guest posting about this very subject over at Brazen Life.

So if you're in the market for a new job—or are just curious about these perks—head on over and check out "6 Unexpected Benefits of Working for a Small Business."