Are you where you want to be in your career? Is it giving you the satisfaction and enjoyment you want? Have you achieved the level of career success you feel is right for you?
If not, what is going on and what can you do about it?
It’s good to reflect on what’s working in your career, and what’s getting in the way. You don’t have to wait for happiness to appear once you’re successful, you can expect it in all your jobs. And to be honest it’s really a prerequisite for meaningful career success anyway.
The research suggests that to be successful you need to be happy with what you are doing. So the first thing to check is your happiness level. Is your job making you happy and, if not, what is missing or not working?
Next …
Do A Career Success Audit
Answer honestly to truly understand what’s going on:
- Am I visible enough? Do the senior team know who I am? Am I talking about my achievements regularly, or do I let others take the credit. Do I seek or avoid opportunities to be ‘seen’?
- Am I proactive? Do I seek out chances to learn new skills? Have I pushed my manager for opportunities to do something new?
- Do I have a strong personal brand? What would others in the organisation say about me? How do I make others feel when they work with me?
- Am I someone who delivers? Do I get things done and meet my objectives? Do I procrastinate?
- What is my leadership style? How does this fit with the culture of the organisation?
- Am I a strategy, big picture kind of person or do I prefer operational, hands on type of work?
- How motivated am I towards the next logical step in my career? Do I want to do it, or do I feel I should do it?
Now you should have a clearer picture of what’s going on. And where you could increase your enjoyment at work, position yourself for a promotion or be clearer about how to perform better at interview.
3 Things To Boost Your Career Success
Work out your communication style
Everyone has different ways of communicating. We all have preferences about how we like to give and receive information. Reflect on your preferences – what annoys you about how someone presents information to you? Do you like short, focused, bite-size info, or prefer lots of detail? Would you like planned times for discussions, or prefer spontaneous, creative get togethers? Do you like to include feelings and emotions or prefer facts and evidence? Are you able to communicate most effectively in writing or verbally?
Once you understand your own style then you can start to notice other people’s. For example, if your boss starts to glaze over and becomes impatient when you talk about feelings driving a decision then maybe s/he prefers fact based information to support your feelings/intuition.
Tailoring your style to adapt to others around you can make you more effective at achieving your objective. And can make sure your voice is heard. You can still retain your own style and preferences. But becoming skilled at matching other people’s communication needs will be so useful in your career.
Develop A Problem Solving Attitude
Consider your attitude to problems. Do you see them as a challenge or do you get deflated by them? Being solution focused and resilient is definitely a skill that will serve you well in all your jobs. If you already tick this box, then see if you can cultivate it in other team members. If you think this is an area you could develop further then some mindset work is required….
Develop Your Own PR Plan
It’s not just celebrities that need a PR plan, we can all benefit from being strategic about our profile at work. Think about what you want to achieve – being seen as an expert, getting promotion, being more visible, or being more comfortable with the spotlight.
Then identify what could be in your own plan. Ideas could include:
- look for speaking opportunities – internally and externally (conferences, networking events, pitches, etc.)
- volunteer to make a presentation to Senior Management on your area of work or progress of a project
- author reports that will be read within the business
- contribute to the Company website – write a blog or share some news or be the ‘face’ of your team/department
- attend networking events and start connecting with people who could be useful in your career
- get used to talking about your achievements and start dropping them into conversations with other people
- make more effort to go and talk to colleagues/peers rather than always emailing
Being proactive in getting more satisfaction in your career, will not only boost your success and happiness, it will also give you a sense of autonomy and ownership over your career. This should be the best year for your career.
If you need help with the Career Success Audit or working out what to do next, do get in touch for a FREE no obligation clarity call with me.