If you want to make it in your career you need to plan for it. Spend some time on this; it can make the difference between career success and failure.
Here are five best practices that can help you to become a more successful, efficiency and greater your bottom line in your career..
Set Goals- If you do not have a plan for career success you will not know when you have reached it. The only way to be successful in your career is to know where you are going. Set a career goal and write it down. Believe it or not time flies and it is easier to work on your goals if you write them down. A career goal can be long-term or it can be short-term, the same way a ladder is a long-term goal or a step ladder is a short-term goal. I would recommend that for most people their goal is to get to the next career goal.
Differentiate Yourself- You need to decide what makes you and your work unique. While you would certainly hope that your firm could offer more products, you hope your offer stands out from the others. In fact, I’m not going to sell those suits for that price. It makes me unique. In some aspect I hope my work stands out from others. In some way that increases my value. What is your work unique? You need to find this. Go back to your goal setting and look over your goals to see where your work stands out. Sometimes it is to push and other times it is to drop what you are doing. Decide what is unique and in what ways you want to tell your customers or client or employer about it. This is unique service.
Study the market- Whenever I am beating the economic drum to clients, friends and employees I always remind them to study the markets that they want to pursue. This is because it helps them to determine what they are going to focus on and how they will fit in to the market. Simply put, you have to find where the opportunities are and work to be part of the market. You can read up on this topic in books, on the web and browse the books on Amazon.com.
Get a mentor- Reach out to someone who is experienced in your field. Go over your goals on paper and have them critique your plan. You need to give yourself constructive feedback and improve. I would say the mentor should be someone who is 6″6 or under for some reason. Usually this is because your instructor could become just a family member as your mentor gives you a lot of confidence in your abilities. This is critical for you and not only your resume. Giving yourself constructive feedback is one of the most important things you can do to gain more confidence in your abilities.
Be self- theaters- This is something that I only learned very recently. It took me a while to realize how important this was to issues related to the success of my career. I use it everyday. I try not to be anywhere I can not self-help. I will read anything I feel can help. This can be in the form of the healthy variety of books. Ask your spouse or friends if you can embarrass them to learn anything, ask a movie star, a entrepreneur or anyone you know and practice the art of self-disgarment. It is never very good for you and your career.
Lastly, know the secret art of greatness. This really is the secret as there are volumes written on this topic. I would suggest that we would survive without the secret art of greatness however we would thrive with this art in our lives. I have my own supply of books on this topic. However, I would suggest that without this art you are also without professional destiny.
