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Vital Ingredients for Your Brilliant Career
Two polls last year on this website really demonstrate that people do want brilliant careers but they feel lost as to how to go about it.
In August 2003 the poll question was “What is your number one aim in your career over the next two years?” and 20% said they would change employers to advance their careers. Only 15% of the respondents said that they would stay in the same company but actively seek promotion.
Another poll on this website (July 2003) asked if people felt as if they were using their full potential and only 10% said that they were regularly at the edge of their potential and growing their skills. This means 90% felt they were not being challenged!
People inherently do want brilliant careers – promotions, salary increases, respect and recognition and also a challenging environment where they can learn and gain personal growth. However, most people don’t know what to do to achieve this.
All of us know a number of people who keep moving jobs because they want to better themselves and to find that brilliant career. Most of these people never get there. They just keep moving from job to job, organisation to organisation and never quite realise that the grass is never greener on the other side.
What are they missing?
2 vital ingredients:
- A career goal
- The need to make personal change
A Career Goal
How will you know when you have reached the summit and have a brilliant career? What will it feel like? What will it look like? What will you be doing? Where will you be living? You need to have a goal that you can visualise and get excited about. Its there inside you, you just need to get it out there and feel it.
Personal Change
That’s not enough. Many people have goals but then move around and never quite fulfil their ambition. That’s because they didn’t appreciate that to move towards your career you need to make personal change. Yes, you need to look at yourself and ask yourself what you need to adjust about yourself to harness the potential you have. A little fine tuning here and there can make a huge difference.
For example I had someone who worked for me who transformed his career by simply buying a diary which meant he was becoming more organised which led to him having greater control of his work. We all noticed how in control of his work he was, so he was given more interesting and challenging work which got him noticed and led to a promotion. He wouldn’t have achieved any of that without realising that he needed to get organised – he made personal change.
To get on at work you can’t just be amazingly good or clever at your job. It’s far more than that. It's about how you behave at work, who you talk to, how you carry yourself, the confidence you exude, the attitude and mindset you have towards yourself and your career. When you transform yourself in this way your career will just take off.
Module 2 of my course works with you to make that personal transformation and Module 6 gives you my top 30 tips on what you can do now at work to make a difference. Before I highlight my 5 steps to getting ready for a great career I want to leave you with this to think about.
Most people get promoted because they are in the right place at the right time – I know I have.
However, this isn’t luck.
These people have prepared themselves for success through having a career strategy, through making change and through focussing on their goals. When people are prepared the opportunities for success just keep coming their way. Other people have the same opportunities but they seem to miss them. Why? Because they weren’t looking – they weren’t prepared.
The fact that you reading this means you are on the right path. Go on, go out, get prepared and get ready for that career success. Your brilliant career is out there – you just need to make the change and grab it.
