Can you think back on a time of real growth and advancement, be it in your career, in your own business, or anywhere else? More than likely, you had to abandon your comfort zone for advancement or growth to happen in your career. Yes, you can make progress by doing what you have always done. But it will be slow and more importantly, by staying within your comfort zone, you are limiting your potential growth. It is when you abandon your comfort zone, try something new, take a bit of a risk, and allow for job and professional growth that you start to see substantial changes for the better.
Staying in Your Comfort Zone
Let us say you goal is to expand your professional credentials and get the attention of your employer’s Management by getting out and speaking in front of a larger audience. What you have done so far, and what feels comfortable is authoring articles, thought pieces and reports with your analysis and opinions on existing ideas. And then you have shared them in your department, and maybe broader in your organization’s newsletter. Yes, some readers will find you. Yes, if you multiply your efforts, publishing more posts, articles or more reports and sharing more often across all your company’s publications, you will see some growth in stature and engagement.
But you are staying in your comfort zone. And comfort really is not about comfort. It is fear that holds you back from going after real growth. That is what holds you back from getting what you want out of life and career.
Abandon Your Comfort Zone
What if instead, you used the time you would have spent drafting another article or two per week and publishing them in your company newsletter, you took the time to write a post for a trade or industry publication with a bigger reach. What if you sat down and recorded an informational and useful video that you can then share online? And of course share via several social media outlets. What if you used the time to set up your own industry trends blog and continually send it to new members of online groups like LinkedIn. If those things are new to you, that may seem like a pretty scary proposition. But getting uncomfortable and doing it anyway can have some huge rewards.
Consequences of Abandoning Your Comfort Zone
Writing and submitting a guest post to industry blogs can give you a lot of added exposure by allowing you to get in front of a different and expanded audience. It also gives you the chance to start a relationship with others in your industry outside your company or city. That may lead to all sorts of other collaborations or opportunities.
Recording a series of videos gives you the opportunity to reach a completely different audience. There are plenty of people who prefer video content to written posts and articles. There are people who spend time each day watching YouTube videos who would never otherwise. stumble across you and your written material and ideas.
These ideas can sound like a scary proposition, but once you abandon your comfort zone and attempt something new it and find something that works well for you, you could get a steady stream of recognition and new contacts outside your organization that could lead to speaking engagements and possibly job offers. These could occur for you without any added work.
Another Advantage to Abandon Your Comfort Zone
There is something else I want to mention just in case I do not have you convinced yet that getting out of your comfort zone is something you should be doing regularly. You will not stay uncomfortable for awfully long. After recording those first few videos or submitting a couple of articles to industry publications you start to get comfortable with the processes. Before you know it, they become second nature and yet another tool in your virtual tool belt.
Next Steps
To overcome your fears in the workplace, you need to understand why you have them and then practice facing them so you can live a career and life of growth plus true fulfilment. Once that happens, you know it is time to explore some other strategies and ideas to expand your reach, grow your career and even further abandon your comfort zone.
Flexicrew Assists Employers and Candidates
Employers, if you need assistance finding individuals who possess greater productivity qualities, contact one of our recruitment professionals Today.
Employees, If you are a looking for the ideal employer who cares about diligent workers like you, give us a call. We may be able to direct you to a workplace that ideally fits and recognizes your strengths.
Many workplaces must deal with naysayers. This article offers 6 tips handling naysayers in your workplace. Accomplishing your work goals can already be daunting and challenging. Naysayers only make your job that much more difficult. You do not need their pessimism, nor do you have to deal with it. Do not let negativity or workplace naysayers be your kryptonite. If you can relate to this, we have some suggestions below to overcome naysayers and their negativity.
6 Tips Handling Naysayers in Your Workplace
We recommend 6 tips handling naysayers in your company so you can move past them to make your job easier, more satisfying and help avoid distractions:
Create distance from negative coworkers
Build yourself a support system
Do not justify your actions
Do not discuss your plans around negative coworkers
Turn naysayers’ doubts into motivation
Use alone time to reflect on your goals and your actions create
1. Distance from Negative Coworkers
T is tohe first of 6 tips handling naysayers put space between those Negative Nellies and your work assignments whenever you can, . Continually hearing, or worse, paying attention to naysayers’ doubts will eventually become roadblocks or challenges to your goals. So keep perennially negative personnel at arm’s length. If you cannot distance yourself from a naysayer, have an honest conversation with them. Explain that you don’t require their support, but you not welcome their discouragement is. Be polite but firm!
2. Build Yourself a Support System
Once you have deflected or ignored the negative opinions or treatment, assemble a support group. Surround yourself with positive associates that share and believe in your goals. That will allow you to map out and go after the goals and results you want without the negativity. Positive associates who support you will act as reassurance on the path you are taking. And they will help pick you up when times are tough. Listen to their constructive criticism and suggestions that move ‘the ball forward.’
3. Do Not Justify Your Actions
You do not need to justify yourself, your goals, or the path you take to anyone – particularly not negative personnel. Every employee is different. No two workers approach assignments the same in the same manner nor achieve their goals in the same ways. If someone questions you, simply say, “This is what I choose.”
4. Don’t Discuss Your Plans Around Negative Coworkers
Another one of the 6 tips handling naysayers is more subtle. Some fellow worker may disparage your approach but never seems to contribute a positive alternative. Don’t give him or her ammunition. Avoid talking about your plans around him, and if he tries to bring it up, take the discussion in a different direction.
5. Turn Naysayers’ Doubts into Motivation
If a coworker doubts you, use their doubt as motivation. Maybe that means promising yourself that you’ll prove him or her wrong. Either way, do not let the uncertainty of others weigh you down. Most likely, what they think doesn’t really make a difference.
6. Use Alone Time to Reflect on Your Goals and Actions
Maintaining your direction and motivating yourself to achieve your goals can sometimes be a solitary path. Give yourself downtime to reflect on your goals in solitude, how far you have come, and reaffirm your plan of action. Step aside, take a break from your project and just think it through. This quiet time will also let you form new ideas and keep you motivated.
Summary
Unfortunately, naysayers are everywhere in every workplace, in all types of business small or large. They may even be on your team, your supervisor, or maybe even your friend group. This does not mean that you must work within the parameters of their negative beliefs or attitudes. You can overcome or avoid their negativity and crush your goals with persistent drive, commitment and belief you will achieve desired results.
Follow the above 6 tips handling naysayers to reach your objectives and achieve your most productive results possible.
Flexicrew Support
Employers, if you need assistance finding individuals who possess greater productivity qualities, contact one of our recruitment professionals Today.
Employees, If you are a looking for the ideal employer who cares about diligent workers like you, give us a call. We may be able to direct you to a workplace that ideally fits and recognizes your strengths.
When you control your career strategically, you make it easier for yourself to accomplish your long-term goals and make effective job decisions along the way. The problem is, it can be hard to know what you need to do to direct your more strategic career path and navigate the expected ups and downs.
3 Ways to Control Your Career Strategically
If you struggle with the idea that you could possibly control your career strategically, read below for three ways you can learn to more strategically operate on your career path.
1. Have a Strategic Plan for Your Career
It isn’t enough to decide you want to have a more strategic career. You have to create a strategy to follow. It can be difficult to follow your thoughts and dreams when they are just in your head, so it’s better to write this strategic plan down. This will help you to have a narrower focus and to plan out better how to deal with certain decisions when they arrive.
For example, if you wish to hold a higher position at your job, write that down, then write what you can do to help you get there.
2. Plan Ahead for Change
If you are following a strategic plan, it can be harrowing when something in your career changes and the plan doesn’t fit anymore. But this is okay. The only way to adequately deal with change is by embracing it so you can deal with it more quickly and get back on the path you were on before.
It’s best if you prepare for possible changes in advance. While you can’t prepare for everything, this is a strategy that will help keep you on top of your goals even when the unexpected happens. Carefully examine and adjust your actions to attain your career goals while adapting to the ever-changing work environment.
3. Be More Confident In Yourself
When it comes to control career strategically, you will find that it is vitally important to be confident in yourself and your work performance and . It will take confidence and belief in yourself to stick to your strategy when people may disagree with you or you experience times of hardship. You must conquer and control your habits tendencies that can undermine efforts
If self-confidence is something you struggle with, you should employ different tactics to help boost it. Some good ways to help your self-confidence are positive self-talk, practicing gratitude, and changing your posture when you sit and walk.
Conclusion
If you have decided that you want to embrace a more strategic career, it’s time to create a plan to prepare for change. It would be best if you also worked on your self-confidence, so you can stick to your strategic plan even when unforeseen circumstances come your way.
Self-limiting beliefs derail your career. Yes, indeed. Self-limiting beliefs can alter your thoughts and ideas at any moment and can affect the way you work. It is important to recognize that we keep thinking the same thoughts over and over again. We do this until they become so ingrained in our subconscious mind that we are not aware of them. Yet, we can alter these false beliefs, like any other habit. This is excellent news! By doing this internal work, you will alter your work performance and productivity for the better as a result.
5 Steps to Shift Your Limiting Beliefs About Your Performance for Good
Don’t let your self-limiting beliefs derail your career. How are you your own worst enemy? We limit ourselves so much. We live in our heads and we create all these ways to prevent getting anything accomplished. Even though deep down we know we’re good enough, and how much we’re fully capable of getting things done.
Let’s look at 5 steps that will shift your limiting beliefs for good and don’t let self-limiting beliefs derail your career.
1. Stop
Wait a minute; what were you thinking? If a thought feels off about something, it’s time to stop and examine this idea much closer. Is this perhaps a self-limiting belief?
2. Think About What You’re Saying
Where is the inaccuracy in this thought? You’ve already figured out there’s something wrong with it, or you wouldn’t be going through this process. This means something about it is not ringing true. When you understand where the “invention” is, it becomes easier to know how to counter it.
3. Look for the Proof
Is there any proof this self-limiting thought is true? Let’s examine the part you feel is not correct. Here’s where you need to take a step back from the situation if you can and look very impartially at what’s going on. Is any grain of truth in what you’re thinking?
4. Take Control
If what you were thinking is misinformation, it’s relatively easy to counter the false aspects of the belief with the truth. But what if this thought was at least partially true? You start by reminding yourself this isn’t always the case. For example, you might be thinking you are always late for work. Maybe you’re, in fact, behind-schedule sometimes. To perform this step, you would need to recall various instances when you were on time. By countering the partial truth, you are taking control of the situation. And you are not allowing the self-limiting beliefs derail your career or to have any sway over you.
5. Get Help
Sometimes it can be challenging for you alone to remove self-limiting beliefs that derail your career. In these instances, you will benefit to talk to a co-worker, a supervisor, or even a counselor, to help you see the reality. There is nothing wrong with getting help, especially from someone who is in a position to be impartial.
Remember
Your mind is a collection of thought patterns that you can alter at any time, if you comprehend that they are essentially habits. You may think about them as mental routines, as they are habituated notions that we think about over and over again until they become ingrained in our subconscious mind. Changing any bad thinking habits is feasible, and with this deeper internal work, your external world will adjust because you will be addressing the root of the issue.
Beliefs are simply thought patterns that are unique to you and you can alter them at any moment. By recognizing this, you can change your habits. On the one hand, we keep certain thoughts and stories in our subconscious mind over and over again until they are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware of them. But, the great news is that you will see your external world change as a result of doing this inner work because you will get to the heart of the problem.
Summary
Self-limiting beliefs don’t have to control your job performance. Your wrong subconscious beliefs about your work performance shouldn’t derail your career. So, by examining your thoughts, especially those that seem to hold back your work performance, you will find it much easier to move forward toward your career goals. That will allow you to strive for and realize the success you deserve.
You’ve probably paid a penalty when you ran the risks of defying workplace rules in the past. It may have been a rule your boss made to keep you on-track and you learned a lesson from breaking it.
There are risks to every company rule you choose to break. But you may be the type who loves to defy them. Adrenaline rushes from rule breaking become addictive to some people.
If you don’t agree with certain rules of your work environment and plan to break them – maybe in your personal workspace, consider these five risks involved:
The risk of alienating people you need or feel more comfortable having work with you in your job
Think carefully about risks of defying workplace rules that can alienate you from the very people who could benefit you and whom you require. For example, if you go against your company culture or unwritten rules, you may cause workforce concern. Weigh the benefits and then act accordingly.
Lose your job
Some rule-breaking may result in the loss of your job or position in a company. For instance, when you insist that you can work from home and get more done. This may alienate other coworkers who commute to and from work each day. You may also miss out on valuable one-on-one time with your boss or others important to your job.
Expressing your opinion
Standing up for your values can be a risk that gives you great satisfaction and can boost your self-esteem. It may also alienate you from a close coworker – or group of peers. Beware of the consequences of your words and then do the right thing.
Unqualified for the job you’re in
It’s possible you landed your position by promising that you are a fast learner and meet all expectations required of you. At some point, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of work or learning process that you didn’t expect. Know what you’re getting into before leaping into a job you’re not qualified for.
Not taking yourself seriously
This rule needs to strike an equal balance. It doesn’t pay when you take yourself too seriously. You run the risk of other staff members perceiving you as pompous and a “know it all.” You must find the balance between being serious at times that require it and having fun at appropriate times. But if you don’t, other workers or those you supervise may never see you as the authority figure you want to be.
Summary
Risks of defying workplace rules can have a negative impact on some areas of your job or even in your entire career that you may not expect. Study the pros and cons of a rule before you decide to break it and then act in your best interest.
We will explain how defying workplacerules – 5 pluses in the following article that represent the benefits that resulting from your decision.
Breaking the rules in certain cases can open up the doors to a number of career benefits. But it can also cause you significant issues. Especially if you violate OSHA , federal, state or local laws. A business cannot survive without creating and enforcing a set of rules and regulations. And frankly, the company will establish rules with the intent to benefit the business. Many have the intent of eliminating workforce problems before they occur.
Author, Lewis Upton, once said, “I’m a free soul, not a soul who will be contained by rules that were made by people who want to control others.”
There comes a time when becomes necessary to break a rule. You may do that simply to break the control others may exert over you. Or it may be time to take personal control over how you act in a certain work situation. That will set you free to replace them with your own more advantageous rules. Consider this: rules that restrict more than they enable ought to be broken.
Defying Workplacerules – 5 Pluses
Defying workplacerules – 5 perks are described below:
The “Work from 9 to 5” Rule
When you break this rule you can get ahead quickly by garnering more time for yourself and working more efficiently. Many workers in this environment are realizing the perks that technology now provides them when they are setting their own hours and taking time for themselves.
Not working 9 until 5 every day doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard to accomplish your goals and intentions.
In fact, you may work harder – spend long days and nights – in reaching the goals and intentions you have for yourself. But, setting your own hours can help you work on your own terms and not those set by others. You’ll do a much better job and finish projects much more efficiently.
Always Meet Your Goals and Expectations
You may change your mind along the way – it’s as simple as that. You can become newly enthused about a project or goal if you let the old ones go.
What Other People Think is Important
Letting go of the fear of people judging you can be very freeing. What kept you down and from reaching new heights in your life plan is replaced with a new zest for life and enthusiasm to take advantage of every opportunity.
Mistakes Are a Bad Thing
You can get tons of benefits from making mistakes. It’s never fun to admit you’re wrong, but when you learn lessons from those mistakes, the benefits are many and you’ll likely never make that mistake again.
Your Boss is Always Right
When you realize that your boss has a different work and career history when rules meant something different than they do today, you can justify breaking the “boss is always right rule.” The major perk you can get from breaking this rule is to free yourself to make your own decisions and plot your own career path.
Defying Workplacerules – 5 Pluses also Has Minuses
Although there are pluses from breaking rules (many of which are obsolete), beware of breaking rules established to help you in career development.
There are risks to every rule you choose to break and you may be the type of employee who loves to break them. Adrenaline rushes from rule breaking becomes addictive to some employees (if they don’t get caught or punished).
If you don’t agree with certain rules of your work environment you may be planning to break them. Realize there are risks involved. We will discuss some of the negatives and risks in a separate post in about a week.
Should you actively enhance your attitude in a new job for greater success? There are many reasons why you should actively enhance your attitude in a new job. The most obvious ones are to feel better about yourself, improve your work performance and become a valued employee while coming up to speed faster.
Other reasons are probably not as obvious to you. Although, they’re pretty obvious to your mental and physical health.
Let’s talk about some of the reasons why you should actively enhance your attitude in a new job and how that will influence everything that goes on in that new job.
Improve Your Mental Health
Your mental wellness affects your thoughts, feelings, and behavior toward co-workers and your supervisor. It helps reduce stress, as well as helps you cope with challenges and setbacks of a new workplace with all new relationships and processes.
Having strong mental health doesn’t mean the absence of anxiety, fears, and worries. Going through difficult times is a natural part of living.
Yet, when you’re in good shape mentally and emotionally, you bounce back faster. You have the tools needed to face all these things head-on with confidence and resilience.
Being resilient means you stay flexible and focused when work throws you a curveball. You have confidence in your abilities to deal with whatever the new environment has in store.
Additional Benefits When You Actively Enhance Your Attitude in a New Job
Here are some extra perks that come when you actively enhance your attitude in a new job and boost your mental wellbeing and improve your attitude:
Your sense of contentment grows with your new job in general (little buyer’s remorse)
You maintain a big dose of self-esteem and confidence that you can accomplish your new responsibilities
Opportunities present themselves that you feel you can achieve to help your new employer
You enjoy working and can laugh at yourself when you have a mishap
Balance work and play
You easily build healthy relationships with associates who can help you ‘learn the ropes.’
Brush Up on Your Social Skills
We’re social creatures. We thrive when we feel connected to others.
This doesn’t mean we have to be surrounded by other personnel all throughout every day. Clearly you will need alone-time to achieve some assignments. It just means that our brains crave companionship in varying degrees.
Yes, you can always call or text as relationship builders. They certainly have their place and time in our busy, hectic lives.
Still, nothing beats the mood-boosting power of sitting down at lunch with teammates or even workers from other parts of the new company. That quality face-to-face time is priceless.
You sit, you talk, and you listen — pretty basic right? But for your brain, it’s revolutionary!
Here’s why: studies show that our brains are wired for connectivity. Certain areas of our brains light up when we do spend some time with a teammate or volunteering to work on a group project that could use some extra assistance.
Not only that, but the brain rewards us for being socially outgoing. It does so by signaling the release of two happy hormones, oxytocin, and serotonin. So, by being out with your boss, colleagues, or friends, you’re actively seeking ways to improve your attitude.
You should also make the most of those fleeting encounters you have with strangers each day. Make a point of looking your neighbor in the eye as you wish them a good day. Same goes for a receptionist or security guard or COVID-19 tester.
Look up from what you’re doing and take a couple of seconds to thank the barista or the cashier. You can even add a smile to go with it.
Despite taking mere seconds out of your day, those little acts of interaction or pleasantry are terrific mood boosters. They’ll do wonders for your day and theirs!
Remain Fit
The link between the mind and body is complementary. When you take care of your physical health, you’re nourishing your mental well-being.
Anytime you exercise for at least 20 minutes, your brain releases endorphins. These are one of the four happy chemicals that help stabilize your attitude and boost energy levels.
Regular physical activity also has a big impact on your memory and concentration. Plus, it relieves stress and promotes better sleep.
The trick is to find an activity you like and do it several times a week. Take a short walk over lunch hour, cycle to work, throw a Frisbee with your dog—the point is to enjoy what you’re doing.
Better still, find a group of contacts and be active in a group. This will hold you accountable, boost your motivation, and improve your attitude.
Regulate Stress Levels
Almost everyone on the planet knows by now that stress is a major problem. It affects our mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
We also know that stress can’t be avoided, especially in this busy day and age. However, certain stress management strategies can help regulate stress in your life.
These tactics allow you to cope with work’s ups and downs. They allow you to improve your attitude, feel good about yourself and perform better.
Here are some things you can do to reduce your stress:
Enhance the quality of your sleep
Eat mood-enhancing foods, such as fresh fruits, fatty fish, nuts, avocados, and beans
Make time for yourself and do something you enjoy. I used to take a short drive alongside the Pacific when an assignment had me stressed out. That always worked for me
Find somewhere to sit at a local park and soak in some sunshine
Laugh more
Flexicrew Support
You may have heard the expression, “Hire for attitude. Train for skills.” Many of our trained Account Managers will explain that employers don’t believe they can teach ‘Go-Get=Em’ attitude, but someone with the right attitude will quickly develop the aptitude on the job. Talk to one of Flexicrew’s professional recruiters and take advantage of their broad experience or just get some feedback on your current work situation. Call us Today.
Every leadership success story comes from creating an on-target action plan for career success. It is harder to achieve success from simply going at it and hoping for the best. This is because you might encounter snags along the way and don’t have any ways to overcome them.
It is baffling why some succeed and some fail in their careers. Sometimes it may even seem unfair. You may know friends and family who are fantastic people, act appropriately, have good education, have good jobs, and generally perform well on the job. But somehow they still wallow in difficulty.
Then there are those who always achieve so much success and yet do not have high merits. They have minimal education, poor attitude about themselves and other people, may be dishonest and unethical, and even involved in a cycle of breakups and new partners. In these cases, the actual defining factor is the strength of one’s desire to get ahead. Despite their lack of virtues, knowledge and appreciation, these people often got ahead in the success race.
This is also why many good and honest workers you know are struggling to pay their bills. If the desire is strong enough to achieve the goals, why still many do not?
Desire vs Work
The sad answer is there is only desire, but no work. Oftentimes many dream big but do not hustle and put in the work. They do not stay up late at night developing new solutions to their problems. Nor do they not work 16 hours a day closing a sale. Work hard to ensure the prospects they approach turn into qualified leads? Nope! They do not learn all that they possibly can about their industry and markets. They do not work to get around the right sources of influence, or to associate with those people who can help them to achieve their goals. While they are sitting there dreaming, some are getting off their seats and working.
So, what are the steps to develop an action plan to career success that will work effectively and take you to the finish line strongly?
Here are the major points to keep in mind in building an action plan to career success:
Step 1: Develop The Right Action Plan to Success For You
Some people are very detail-oriented and are able to closely follow an intricate plan to the letter. Others are more effective when they see the bigger picture first and then frame out the small steps that lead to the final goal.
Each of us is unique and motivated by different factors. You’ve got to develop an action plan to career success that is right for you and fits you. Some plans will not be as intricate as others, but we all must have a plan, along with goals in that plan, to move us forward. If you are a free spirit, don’t tell yourself you are going to spend two hours a day with a book and a journal. It probably won’t happen. And you will just get discouraged. Whatever your personality, your strengths and your weaknesses, develop the plan around them. This is not a one-plan-fits-all proposition.
If you’re detail-oriented, it’s best to map out the small steps in your action plan to career success with utmost focus. This means being very clear on what you want to achieve daily, weekly or monthly. For example, the first small step to achieving your ideal weight is to cut out 1 serving of sweetened drinks by the end of Week 1.
For those who like to see the bigger picture first, it helps if you imagine how it will be if you’re, say, 20 pounds lighter. You may be able to get out of bed easier, your energy level will rise, and you will fit into those clothes that you yearn to wear. Then, map out what you need to do in order to achieve that.
Step 2: Allocate The Time For Your Action Plan to Career Success
This is crucial in your planning, because you’ll be clearer on when you should commit to achieving your goals. In this case, let’s use the weight-loss goal.
It might be alternating aerobics and weight training every other weekend. Or it could t be running 30 minutes each morning or swimming after work. Alternatively it could be in the car listening to weight loss motivational podcasts on your way to work, or possibly meeting your coach once a week to set your workout plan and to check on your progress.
Whatever it is, be specific on the where, when and how to do it, and actually do it. In your step-by-step plan, put down points that represents small achievable goals that you can accomplish in a short time. They should be specific because if you straightaway put down a major goal, you may think it’s too big to achieve.
The next crucial element in achieving your goals in your action plan to career success is not starting to work on it, but to keep going at it. Discipline is important and really comes into play here. Take those steps every day, which will close the gap to your goals.
Step 3: Keep A Record
Two words that will help you a lot: Take Notes. In all seriousness, don’t trust your memory. It’s much better and workable when you write it down. And write it in a single place so it’s easier for you to remind yourself where you’re heading and what success you have already achieved. You will find that this step will help you tremendously in the long run.
Record everything! Be it the ideas and inspiration or reminders and failures that you have gone through. This helps carry you from where you are to where you want to be. Write down the ideas that you get from outside sources that impact you most. Complement them with your own ideas that further suit your style. Do a brainstorm session with yourself on what you want and how you want to do it. And finally, record all your desires and ambitions, and put it where you’ll read them daily so you remind and motivate yourself consistently.
Your journals are a gathering place for all the valuable information that you will find. If you come across something that you think will help you achieve, for example, promotion, power, allies, productivity, influence or uniqueness, do not delay. Write it down. Strengthen your reflection and motivation by using the information you gather and put it where it will be recorded permanently
Step 4: Reflect on Where You Are and Where You Want To Be
Next step is to make the time for reflection. This is where you spend some time to go back over, to study again the things you’ve learned and the things you’ve done each day. This can also be called ‘running the tapes again.’ This is done so the day locks firmly in your memory and serves as a tool for motivation and keeps you going.
As you go through it, spend time reflecting on its personal significance. What you can do is take a few minutes at the end of each day before you retire, and go back over what happened. Review your achievements for the day. Pay extra attention to who you talked to, who you saw, what they said, what happened and how you reacted.
Another way is to take a longer time at the end of the week to reflect on the week’s activities and achievements. It also pays to periodically stop, step back and look at what you’re doing. That helps you see if your actions served to push you to your goal or otherwise. Then tweak it a bit so you are kept on track with your action plan to success. Take a half day at the end of the month and a weekend at the end of the year so that you’ve got it, so that it never disappears That ensures the past is even more valuable and will serve your future well
Step 5: Set Clear and Achievable Goals
Remember that your action plan to success is the roadmap that shows the way to your goals. That means it is always an essential tool that helps you to succeed. Setting goals is also an invaluable skill to learn.
Why?
Because it can change your career for the better, and does it in the fastest way. Mastering this unique process can have a powerful effect on your life, too. If you have a set of clearly defined goals, it can surprisingly be a powerful indication of your potential! If you don’t have them yet, better to frame them out immediately so you have a lucid view of your future and dreams. Set your own goals clearly as soon as possible. Because it is the greatest influence on your future and the greatest force that will pull you in the direction that they want to go. It all boils down to this: If you plan and design your goals well, your future will be very bright.
Step 6: Act on It!
So what still holds you back from your success? You have a very strong desire to do it already, and you have already created a plan that will take you there.
The next step?
Take action! Here’s the thing: successful people aren’t necessarily smarter than others; they just work the plan to the letter, they follow through on the plan and ensure the plan serves them to reach greater heights.
The best time to act on your action plan to career success is when your emotions are strong. There’s a little thing called The Law of Diminishing Intent. This essentially means your desires diminish over time. But, if you don’t act immediately after having the desire, your goals are harder to achieve. Act when the idea strikes you, when the emotion is high, but if we delay and we don’t translate that into action fairly soon, the intention starts to diminish, and a month from now its cold and a year from now it can’t be found. This is where discipline comes to play – work the action plan to career success when the idea is strong, clear and powerful. You must capture the emotion and put it into disciplined activities and translate it into strong unrelenting action.
Make 2022 the best year yet with SMARTER goals for you or your team.
Get SMARTER Goals
HR professionals should have an important objective in mind: make 2022 the best year it can be.
It should be simple to do, right? Work teams can meet and brainstorm on various activities for goal setting.
But unfortunately, the amount of effort needed to achieve a goal can be much more than you think. It can feel daunting and even overpowering. Also. teams could instead end up identifying various random objectives. Or worse, with nothing concrete or doable. Or. they may not even be aligned with the company’s vision for the business.
Frankly, to make it your best year possible, it’s not enough to just have a list of any old goals. You need the right objectives, the actions that will get you there, and, most of all, the consistency that forms these actionable steps into habits everyone can follow.
To do all these, you need SMARTER goals.
Why Are SMARTER Goals Important?
SMART, and its more comprehensive variant, SMARTER, are acronyms. You will learn more about what they stand for shortly.
Michael Hyatt, a best-selling author, developed the concept. To what purpose? As a means to make goals a reality by making them into actionable and measurable steps. In other words, a repeatable process. With consistency and practice, you can make these steps into habits.
To understand the importance of SMARTER, you only have to look the number of people who make, but fail to keep New Year’s resolutions. People start off each year brimming with hope and a “can-do” attitude. Here’s the issue, though: by the time February comes around, more than half of them can no longer stick to their list of resolutions and a Franklin Covey survey found only 23% keep their resolutions.
Why?
There are myriad excuses, but they can be summarized into 1 significant reason: They didn’t plan well when it comes to their goals.
Using the SMARTER definition and approach, here are seven goals that may apply to you. They will certainly play a part in making 2022 your great year.
We also provided some SMARTER goals examples to make each point clearer:
Your Career Success through the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Project
S.M.A.R.T.E.R is an acronym that stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound
Evaluation
Readjust
Your Career Success with Project S.M.A.R.T.E.R.
Here’s a detailed elaboration of this approach and the 7 steps involved:
1. Specific
Your goal should be specific and crystal clear and identify exactly what you want to achieve. You should be able to know what success looks like here. The more specific you can get, the better. A good tip here is to ask yourself the 5 W questions below:
What do I want to accomplish?
Why is this goal important?
Who is involved?
Where is it located?
Which resources or limits are involved?
2. Measurable
Useful goals you set for yourself or your team should be measurable and let you quantify the result. This is so you can track your progress and performance properly. Being able to see progress is a great motivator – it gets you excited knowing that you are on your way to success. Not only that, this helps your focus. Also you want to ensure you are placing your energy behind goals that result in the best returns. To help clarify a goal that is measurable, here is an example:
BAD: I will clean up our candidate database.
GOOD: I will review all the candidates in the file from A to F all next week and discard any that are over 6 months old.
3. Achievable
A successful goals should be one that is realistic and achievable. A goal with no action is wishful thinking. But lying to yourself and aiming for a goal that is beyond your abilities will only result in failure to reach that goal. That being said – this is not an excuse for you to be complacent here. You should set goals that will stretch your abilities but also remain possible for you to achieve.
Also, you should consider factors that will affect the achievability of the goal, like financial and time constraints. A goal example would be:
BAD: I want to be more consistent with recruiting.
GOOD: Spend two hours every morning calling candidates who applied to our Indeed ad.
4. Relevant and Realistic
Your goal should be relevant. It should matter to you, and in line with your priorities and beliefs. And also be aligned with other company goals and vision. This step keeps you from focusing on the wrong things. Many HR professionals fail to achieve their goals because the goals are not consistent with reality. Most HR personnel don’t have a problem setting big goals. Experts recommend making your goals realistic, putting them in writing, and keeping track of your progress.
5. Time-Bound
Every goal you set should have a specific deadline – this gives you something to work towards. However, aiming to hit a goal in 5 to 7 years is not considered a proper deadline. Sure, it contains a time element – but it’s not specific enough.
Your plan to reach a goal in 5 years will be quite different from your plan to reach a goal within 7 years.
Setting a more specific date for your goals allows you to develop a clearer plan to achieve it. This also prevents you from letting other everyday matters take priority over your goals. If you don’t set a deadline for your goals you won’t be able to measure milestones or how close you are to achieving your goal. Look at these examples:
BAD: I am going to rewrite our company Employee Handbook.
GOOD: I will write an updated draft, edit and finalize our Employee Handbook by June 30th.
6. Evaluate
The only way to be better is to learn from past experiences, mistakes, and successes.. Over time, things happen and goals change. Look over your goals from time to time and evaluate them ; check if they need changing to fit your current situation. Constant evaluation of you goals is essential for you to reach your goals. Be sure to congratulate yourself on the small wins. After all, you accomplished them and that should fuel your motivation.
7. Revise
Upon evaluation, if you find that your goals need readjusting, revise them accordingly.
The most important thing to do is to make revisions to your goals where you see opportunities for growth. This will also help you stay focused.
Even if you are confident with how things are going, there’s always room for improvement. Take this opportunity to analyze your performance or that of your team and make changes where needed!
Finally
Stating your goals in the SMARTER way can make them easy to understand. What is measurable can be improved and compared, and the SMARTER methodology helps HR leaders align their critical decisions to the overall company goal.
Expediting Your Career Success – a Necessary Blueprint
Consider your career success as a worklife journey. To embark on a major journey, you should first have a real idea of your destination.
This way, you’ll be able to plan adequately for your journey – directions, mode of transport, estimated costs, time, etc.
Skip that, and you’d end up wandering aimlessly. Or find yourself lost somewhere in middle of Timbuktu. Sure, you’re on a journey alright…but where?
Similarly, when it comes to planning for your career success, you will need a “destination” and a “roadmap”. That would be a clear vision of what you want, and specific goals to help you on your way to achieve your idea of success.
Creating A Vision of Your Career Success
To be truly effective in your pursuit of career success, you should first be able to visualize your “destination” – a clear vision of where you want to be in the future. It’s what you desire, your passion, your purpose in doing something.
Creating a vision is important. That gives you direction, a compass to direct you in making the best decisions, and taking the right actions that will propel you towards success. It’s what gets you excited and motivated to push beyond your self-imposed boundaries. It’s what keeps you focused and on top of the game.
At the start, take some time to envision how you see your career in your ideal future. Reflect on your passions, core principles and values you live by, and your purpose in working.
Remember to define your vision – make sure your vision is specific and clear. That becomes your starting point – the very foundation you will be building on. It is the ideal you will be striving for, to get close to.
It should be something that is in line with your values and principles, as well as your view of the future. Simply coming up with a vague vision of wanting to be “promoted” or “get ahead in your career” is not enough; it should be something more solid, tangible, and specific.
Examples of Your Career Success and tie to Mentorship
An example here would be:
Get financially free by age 30.
To work only 30 hours a week.
Become a healthier individual – both mentally and physically.
You can also think of the people in your company or in your industry that you admire and look up to – the kind of characteristics or habits you wish to emulate yourself. In fact, you can even ask them to be your mentor, to help you think things through on certain areas and advise you on what has worked for them.
Again, don’t restrain yourself too much when creating your own vision. Your vision is personal and unique – there is no right or wrong. It’s something that only you can decide for yourself, and this also is dependent on what you want to achieve in your career.
Remember, the point of creating a vision is to know your reason for doing something, and to help you be more focused and motivated.
Setting Your Goals for Your Career Success
But simply envisioning the future is not enough – that just reduces your vision to little more than a pleasant wish or dream.
Visions will remain unattainable when not coupled with goals. And this is where goals come in.
Goals are more specific and quantifiable targets – it’s the “roadmap” to your journey of career success. They act as benchmarks or milestones, aiding you in laying the path for the proper achievement of your vision. This also includes the tactics as well as strategies you use to work towards your vision.
To explain it simply, goals are a tool to help you take conscious steps each day to help you realize your vision of your career success.
Again, we have to emphasize here that a solid, clear vision first is important. The goals you set and work towards achieving should be in line with your vision. This keeps you focused on the big picture as to why you should complete your goals.
And a good approach to use when it comes to setting your work goals is the S.M.A.R.T.E.R approach to goal setting. We will review the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. approach to goal setting in the next article.
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