Some professionals climb their career ladders in a flash while others take years, if not, decades to reach their goals. These successful individuals have the ability to become an integral part of an organization that they join within months, or if they choose, to launch a successful company of their own.
What is it that allows these individuals to be on the fast track to success? All of us would love to be able to do this, but what can we do to get there?
Clearing your Mental Block
Ask yourself this; which person would you like to be? The first type, that can take ownership over their career and strive for greater things, or the second type, that can often feel trapped on their current path and do not know how to change it.
If you would like to be the first type of professional, it all starts with truly taking the initiative. Many will feel the urge to take the initiative over their career, but do not know how. Others will begin to work very hard, but apply their time to the wrong things. If you are ready to take the initiative over your career, great! That is the first step toward achieving your overall goals. This will help you to bypass the block that nearly 90% of employees experience, all of which claim that they are unhappy with their jobs.
Once you have decided to take the initiative over your career, there are more steps that you need to take, which will allow you to move toward your goals.
Teaching Yourself to Learn
You have a choice in your current position. You can gain experience as it comes to you or you can choose to take your learning into your own hands and control what you spend your time getting better at.
In a typical career your employer will hire you based off of your resume and what you seem like you can do for the company. The average employee will then proceed to do the job that is asked of them, and as new tasks come in gain experience and skills based off of what they have to do. This causes the typical employee learning cycle to be a slow process.
The path to timely career success starts with you having the ability to learn quickly, and promptly apply your new skills and ingenuity. This means that the skills that you currently are learning at your job, and the rate in which you are learning them, will not cut it.
Create a process for yourself in which you learn skills that are useful for your profession and apply them so you can learn the ins and outs and begin growing at a much faster rate. In an article by J.D. Roth he outlines 4 ways that you can keep on learning in order to advance your career beyond the classroom. Constantly learning alone will set you apart and allow you to quickly advance your career.
Things that are very vital to learn are:
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The workings of company culture, and how to convey the right messages through yourself and your work
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Leadership and good people skills, whether you are a natural leader or not
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The technical skills for your industry and the ability to get your hands dirty
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The practical knowledge of business and what value you can create for any company that you work for
Teaching yourself to learn these things and quickly adapt them to unique situations, will allow you to achieve a prompt mastery under any circumstances you face. Note that these skills are very significant for both individuals that would like to start their own company and individuals that would like to quickly advance their career and earn more opportunities.
Being Proactive
As you are constantly learning new skills, they need to be applied in ways that will create value for your company and for your team. This means that you should always find new ways to do your job better and more effectively.
Do this and you will not only create opportunities for you to be able to advance your career, but you will also create more learning opportunities for yourself. As outlined in this post by the Young Entrepreneur Council, 8 Proactive Principles for Achieving Success, being proactive is one of the best ways to advance your career quickly.
Do not wait for opportunities to come to you. If you are aspiring to get a promotion in your company, talk to your higher ups and do the things that you need to do in order to advance. If working on a project of your own, step out of your comfort zone and take the necessary steps. If you are constantly pushing yourself to get better as well as do new things you will find success in areas that you may have never expected.
Not Staying Too Comfortable
Finding an occupation in which you enjoy the work that you do is very important, as is living your life in a way in which you are comfortable from a financial standpoint.
But when can being comfortable work against you?
Actually it is a simple formula. It is when your career ceases to grow at the rate that you want it to. If you hit this point, it simply means that you have become too comfortable, or, you have not been taking enough action to grow at the rate that you would like to. In this situation, assess things that you could do to make your career grow in the direction that you would like to go. These things could be:
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Getting a promotion or taking on different responsibilities at your current job
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Looking for a new job
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Starting your own project
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Seeking additional education
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Seeking a new career mentor
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Making a slight career path change
There is a big difference between the person that has been doing the same job for the last 5 years and someone who got the same position and got promoted quickly. The person that got promoted, is being proactive and has learned how to do their job so well that grew out of it and moved on to bigger and better things.
When assessing your career, be sure to ask yourself what things that you could be doing in order to advance your career at the pace in which you deserve.
