You’ll have heard of “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying”, the famous 1940s spoof book by Dale Carnegie. In practice, in the 21st century, success is something you need to work at. You also need to understand your own goals.
You can use your current job as the starting point for your success without new resume writing for finding new job. Why not use it as a promotional option, a way of expanding your skill set, or a base for exploring your career options?
How you do a job has a lot to do with whether you succeed or not.
How to succeed in a job, your way
The best way to succeed is through your own initiatives:
Motivation matters. Focus on your own goals. Don’t get lost in a boring, unproductive wasteland of frustration and disappointments. Why should you? You can use any job to further your goals and aspirations. Some of the world’s richest and most successful people came from the hard grind, low wage jobs and garages of their environments.
Avoid the office warfare. Office politics can be very nasty. Friendships and working relationships can be destroyed. Don’t get involved in damaging, destructive situations. Stay neutral to dodge the bullets from both sides.
Keep your work moving and keep your work standards high. Never mind waiting for performance reviews; set some performance goals for yourself. You’ll be surprised how well you can manage yourself. You’ll also discover that you can do a very good job when you raise the bar for yourself.
Network, network, and network. Keeping in mind the issues of office politics, do some productive networking in the workplace. You can create some great, truly positive relationships. These are real relationships, valuable in their own right as good personal and professional associations.
Defining success in a job
If how to succeed in a job without your resume editing for the applying a new job is important, “navigating” your success is also critical. Success needs to be defined. What are your aspirations? Where do you want to go in your career?
Goal setting can be extremely productive as a brainstorming exercise. This is a subject you need to consider carefully. Never mind the clichés; what do you want to do with your career and your personal goals? What are your real drivers?
This is leading to one basic equation:
- Your job can become the means to meet your goals.
- All you need to do is make it happen.
- Success in your job will deliver the means for achieving your big picture of success.
Happiness and success
You can also use a very reliable DIY measure of success to keep yourself on track to your goals. Happiness in your job is a very good, and most importantly, reliable, indicator. This is “how to succeed in a job” in practice. You can already guess at a few of your own “How to Succeed at Your Job” options. You know what to do and how to do it.
So – Crank up your job to kickstart your career and get going! You’ll love it!
