Your career is your work. If you want to go up, you have to look up, not down.
Don’t wait for anyone to do it for you. You can do it. You are doing it right now. And you can do it in the future.
But to manage your career, you must first manage yourself- your values, your emotions, your dreams, and your goals.
You must prepare for what you want. According to Lukas Krause, ‘Prepare for the unexpected. Your plan should include contingencies in case something goes wrong.’ Yes, you need a plan. But things are not going to go according to your plan. But it is better to have a plan than not to have one. A bad plan is better than no plan.
‘When it comes to perform, trust your preparations and shine. Be present and focus on the moment. Don’t get ahead of yourself.’ Prepare. A good preparation leads to a good result. A bad preparation leads to a bad result. And your preparations are not going to help you if you don’t know why you are in the game, why you are playing. If you want to win, plan well, prepare well, and be there.
‘Be on alert for the signals of a situation when your tone is apt to become compromised.’ Don’t let that happen to you, to your career. Don’t give in to outside pressures. Focus on what matters to you. If what you are doing makes you feel good about yourself, about your future, about your life, then do more of it. But if you are not happy with what you are doing, if you are not happy with where you are, the only way forward is to start looking ahead. Don’t get stuck in a rut. Because you are not stuck.
‘The cornerstone to career advancement and professional success is projecting a professional presence consistently.’ Your career advancement is not going to happen by accident. You have got to work for it. You have got to face yourself. You have got to face those things that you have been running from. Because if you do not face your present, you won’t be able to manage your career. Your career growth depends on how you see yourself. If you see yourself as worthy of your career, that is the image that you are going to put out there. And people will judge you based on who you say you are. If you want people to see you differently, you have got to act differently.
‘Choose wisely how you communicate.’ Communication is not about what you say. It is not about when you say it. Communication is about how you say it. When you are with people, be there. Because communication is also about being present.
‘Tap into the wisdom of those who are more experienced than you, with a mentor. If you are stuck, reach out. Because people have done what you want to do. People have been to where you want to be. They know more than you. Not because they are better than you are, but because they have been there. They have done it. And they have made their own mistakes. Above all, we learn faster when we learn from other people.
‘Seek ways to engage with other departments (cross- train). No one is too big to learn from other people. When it comes to getting better at work, your colleagues are your best academic institutions. Why is that? Because they are different. They see the world differently. If you want to learn more at work, learn from your colleagues. To do that, you must ‘limit your ego to expand your horizon.’
‘A positive attitude is the backbone for a strong personal culture.’ Success comes from having a positive attitude. Failure, on the other hand, comes from having a negative attitude.
Because people like to be with those who make them feel good about themselves. People don’t want to have anything to do with a negative person.
If you are a positive person, you know that nothing is perfect, that your tomorrow is going to be better than your today.
But if you are a negative person, to you, there is no tomorrow. You don’t even think you can make it past today.
To a negative person, everything is a problem. But to a positive person, a problem is an opportunity to grow, to get better.
So if you want people to follow you, be a positive person.
‘Employees who thrive exemplify ownership through finding ways to get things done.’ Your way is not the only way. There are more ways to get one thing done. If you don’t know, ask others. If you are not convinced, ask even more. Don’t just settle for what is known. Take a leap of faith. Bet on yourself. When you bet on yourself, others will bet on you.
‘Employees who thrive exemplify ownership through never blaming external factors for underperformance.’ When it comes to your performance, just know that it is not going to be same every day. Take what you get and make it better. If you don’t blame other people for not reaching your point, you will get better.
Source
Lukas Krause (2018). The Business of You: A Guide to Finding, Managing, and Succeeding in Your Career
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