Define what you feel success is to you.
Is it a step up from assistant manager to manager? Or are you looking to go all the way to the top as the CEO?
There’s no right or wrong answer, whether it is to go up in the ranks or to have a better work-life balance.
Your success can mean a lot of things.
Below is a guide to help you step up your career game by addressing the importance of personal growth, having a mentor, and being proactive in the workplace, amongst other things.
Personal Growth
Before even considering advancing in your career, you should first think about how you want to grow on a personal level.
Exercising self-discipline naturally leads to other aspects of your life, including one’s career.
Personal development is often underrated as personal experiences can provide you with many ideas for projects in the workplace.
Self-coaching is a forward-thinking approach to consider. It helps to build your character and self-esteem, which carries on in your career.
Learn to Earn
Another fantastic method of self-growth to step up your career game is to learn while you earn.
Going back to school can further help realign you to a more structured life where you learn new skills for success.
It shows that you are committed to learning new things, value self-improvement, and quickly adapt to different environments.
Improving Your Soft Skills
If you want to advance further in your career, improving your soft skills is an excellent place to start.
Soft skills are rarely included in any job description because these skills are innate and refer primarily to your personality.
Soft skills are so critical that if it comes down to two candidates with equal qualifications, the one with the right personality, attitude and manner will most likely get the job.
Your personal behavior is a good measurement of self-control.
Networking
Not only do you get to meet new people from different backgrounds and careers, but it’s also an opportunity to land the job you want faster, giving you a competitive edge to advance in your career.
Networking within your workplace highlights your drive to succeed in your career as you look to interact with your managers and colleagues and gain the necessary resources for your career development.
Networking helps establish long-term, meaningful, and valuable professional relationships where you can also learn from peers.
It can take place anywhere and enables you to build on your soft skills and keep ahead of the curve in the latest trends in your current field of work.
Networking can also be the place where you can find partners, clients, and even mentors.
Find A Mentor
Finding yourself a mentor is an excellent way of keeping you focused as you advance in your career.
A mentor becomes your professional best friend who has been in your position and can provide you with advice to help increase your prospects on the career ladder.
With previous experience, turning to a mentor for guidance will not only open you up to fresh perspectives and different avenues to success, but they give you insight and wisdom.
Mentors come with experience that every professional should have in their toolbox.
It is not always necessary to go networking to find a mentor. Look at your managers in your current employment and seek advice from them.
Being in the organization for years will allow them to impart wisdom on the ins and outs of your workplace.
Comfort Zone
It is incredibly comforting to stay in the same position if you know how to do the job well. Sadly many do this because it gives one security.
Breaking out of your comfort zone will allow you to advance in your career.
Break the ice by speaking out in meetings and expressing your ideas to help improve a particular project.
Learning to communicate effectively will enhance your soft skills and make you appear confident in the workplace.
This will lead to further opportunities because we leader emerges when you talk more and varying tones and body language.
A leader is always out of their comfort zone.
Their non-verbal communication, such as postures, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, and smile, is the winning ticket to stepping up their career game.
And so can you.
More Responsibility
By stepping out of your comfort zone, asking for more responsibility can highlight your commitment and seriousness to a job.
It is pretty easy to slip through the radar and hope that your manager will remember that you exist and give you more responsibility.
However, it is better to actively seek this as you may not be the only one rooting for a promotion.
A promotion comes long after extra responsibility.
If you are already doing the job above your current job specification, you are more likely to be considered.
Asking to be included in new projects or volunteering to take on additional tasks will allow you to exercise your leadership skills.
Performance Reviews
Any feedback is good feedback, even if it is not what you want to hear.
It is the perfect opportunity to address what you need to work on and improve for the following review.
A performance review, if executed well, will allow you and your supervisor to work towards defining goals.
The Right People
Surround yourself with the right people that can help to elevate you spiritually, emotionally and possess a good work ethic.
The company you keep rubs off on you.
You could choose to be intimidated, or you could choose to see them as an inspiration by surrounding yourself with driven and better people than you.
It is down to your mindset on how you want to advance in your career.
Working with people who are relentless in their work and proactive in their personal and work life, there is no reason you cannot cultivate this into your life.
Surrounding yourself with tenacious workers for companions means they are likely to encourage you to do the same and push you to be the best you can be.
Be A Team Player
A good team player is not the one that also points out the problem but helps find the solution.
This is also the best way to get the right kind of attention as a budding leader who can develop valuable ideas to help the team.
You can also be a team player but taking the load off the supervisor’s shoulders, especially when they get overburdened with every problem their team faces.
Doing this puts you in the right light as a helpful team player and budding leader.
Take Your Time
Around the new year, many set resolutions to advance in their career but fall short when they cram it all in a small window.
It is okay to take your time and relish in each goal attained.
Research conducted at Stanford University tells us that multitasking can kill your performance in tasks and is counterproductive.
If you set many goals at the same time, you are highly unlikely to complete any effectively.
Practice your task management all the time, from your personal activities to your professional tasks, is an incredible habit to have.
Conclusion
Rome wasn’t built in a day, so take your time building your career by setting realistic goals for yourself.
If you plan too many goals in too short a time, you will be left feeling like you have not achieved anything. And that is so frustrating!
A mentor or a relentless co-worker is a great company to have as they will keep you on track to be the best version of yourself.
Do you have a Mentor already?
