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If you are ambitious and yearning for that next promotion, it is important that you develop your own formula for success. If you are like many middle managers you have probably attended quite a few lectures and seminars about self-improvement and how to write about career goals.
Many of these courses were devised by people who created their own formula and successfully applied them. They have noted down what they did, said, and how they responded to negative situations. Then they created a ‘one size fits all’ approach, packaged it up, and sold it to hopefuls like you.
Many of these courses teach managers like you how to write about career goals in various ways. There might be a lot of videos, podcasts, and workshop material wrapped around the main premise of self-improvement.
Are these courses a waste of money or do the work? Yes, they do work to a degree. Remember, we are all different and are working in different environments. Your career success is reliant on what you do, but also on what others do, including your co-workers and your boss. So, there is bound to be something in each workshop you do that you can use in the workplace.
If you have attended a lot of seminars and workshops, and gotten nowhere it’s time to reassess and discover your own formula for success. Whatever you do, don’t give up. You might feel exhausted and confused. How could it be that with so many hours invested in self-improvement, you are still stuck when it comes to being an effective manager? Don’t let doubts creep in. Don’t give in to feelings that you aren’t good enough or that you’ve reached the highest point in your career, and that you’ll never be promoted.
You’ve got this far in your career because you have the skills and talents needed by your company. You also have experience, you are resourceful, and you are good at managing people.
What other positives can you bring to the table? Make a list of all the things that you do have to offer. You can’t be someone else, so why not concentrate on what you have to offer and use them to your advantage?
The reason you haven’t been promoted yet comes down to aspects of your managerial style that need improving.
You have been trying to emulate the success stories that you were taught about in all those seminars. You have been trying to adopt habits and procedures that worked well for someone else, but don’t really suit your personality and style.
What obstacles are getting in your way? Where can you improve?
You need to identify and overcome all obstacles which are stopping you succeed. To do this you will have to be honest with yourself, and realize that change must begin with who you are and not who you think you should be.
A well-rounded manager is someone who sees failures and rejections as a way to improve and grow. It is a matter of finding balance between the different priorities. A well-rounded manager always finds the balance between company procedures, team morale, and the company’s bottom line.
Becoming a well-rounded manager is about developing something that’s already inside you, and reshaping it in such a way that the next promotion opportunity is yours.
The road to success is never short or easy. It can takes years to get that job you desire. However, if you don’t start now it will never happen. Continue to work on your self-improvement, and do those workshops and seminars, but always see the information offered as a way to improve who you are now, not to change you into someone you are not.
And always remember:
There is no doubt that getting rejected for a promotion is no game. It is truly frustrating and devastating. If you spent a lot of time last year preparing those career goals of a manager you’ve been researching and dreaming about, then it makes sense that failure can make you second guess yourself. In truth, it puts a big dent in your confidence, and this may affect your chances of a promotion.
Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen this year.
Don’t let any setbacks derail the career goals of a manager and while you can’t change what has happened in the past there are four things you can do this year to ensure that your future career takes off like no other.
Before we look at the four essential points on how to handle promotional setbacks imagine yourself this time next year sitting in the highly-prized corner office; your career, your confidence, and your future all heading towards your ultimate goal. Those setbacks are just a dim memory of the past.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Imaging your success is one thing; turning it into a reality is another. And this how to get started:
When you are ushered into your boss’s office and given the news you didn’t get the promotion your first response might be to ask why, and that’s only natural. You work hard and you are dedicated to the success of your company. You prepared your application well, and frankly, you believe you deserve the promotion. But, your boss didn’t.
So, why you’d like to know why you were rejected, now is not the time to ask. Your boss might be expecting an adverse reaction from you (see point 2 below). They will be expecting you to be angry and disappointed. This means that your boss will be on the defensive and may sugar-coat the answer. This is not good for either of you.
You need the truth, and your boss needs time. Wait a few days or a week and make an appointment to discuss where you went wrong. Make a list of questions beforehand, note the answers and make sure you become the person who is ready for that next promotion.
If you have experienced rejection in the workplace you will know there is a whole range of emotions you go through. Rejection usually leaves us feeling angry and disappointed. It can also lead to frustration and some pretty poor behavior.
Whatever you do remain in control of your emotions. Don’t storm out of your boss’s office, and slam the door behind you. This is an irrational behavior and your boss will not think kindly about you. They will also believe that they made the right decision and that you weren’t ready.
When you do receive the bad news, block those negative feelings and think towards the next promotion. Remember there is something in this experience that you can learn from and use to your advantage next time.
This might not be part of your game-plan, but being prepared for rejection can really help your chances of promotion in the future. All bosses are different, and how they deliver the bad news will never be the same. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t prepare what you are going to do or say.
As we discussed above, letting your feelings guide your behavior is not a good idea, so what can you do instead?
It’s important that your boss understands that you are willing to learn and change. Explain that you are shocked and disappointed, and that you will need time to review your options. Prepare at least three positive things that you like about your job and tell your boss these are the reasons that you have stayed with the company so far.
Always leave these situations on a positive note. It will help your boss think highly of you next time a promotion opportunity arises. As well, it is worth noting that you still have to work in the same place and that behaving in a positive way will make that much easier.
Being a good sports can be difficult in any situation, however, it is worth doing if you want to be promoted in the future. When you do find out who got the promotion make an effort to shake their hand, and congratulate them. Sure, you might not feel like it, but there are some good reasons for doing this.
One, you may now have to work under this person and you don’t need an enemy in the senior ranks. Instead, you need an ally and perhaps a friend who will help your chances of future promotions.
Two, you also don’t want your boss thinking badly of you. This will also harm your chances of promotion in the future if they believe you and not mature enough to handle a senior position.
Remember, the quicker you regain your composure and turn rejection into a positive, the quicker you are going to be ready for that next promotion opportunity.
And always remember:
There are many factors affecting career development that you have little control over. These might be the company’s willingness to expand or the repeated failure of projects that severely affect the company’s bottom line.
However, when it comes to you and how you are seen by others you have full control. I bet you are asking now, why does this matter? You do your job well and you are a valuable member of the team.
What you might not realize is that one of the most important factors affecting career development is how differently other people might see you. This may have a negative impact on your career advancement as different people see a different side of your “working” personality. If they do, they will judge your ability to take on senior management roles in different ways.
Let’s take a look at all the different kinds of people you work with. There will be those under you, people in your team, your colleagues at a similar management level in your company, and of course, your bosses, those at a senior level you aspire to join. Each one sees you differently from each other, as well as, from how you see yourself.
Confusing, isn’t it? Well, it’s also quite a normal thing because we behave differently towards others we are in a senior position to than those who are senior to us. We might be more serious looking down the corporate ladder, and more appeasing looking up. We might be more fun and share jokes with our colleagues, and be more emotionally supportive to those on our team. If you take all of the different sides to your personality it goes to make up you as a whole.
The important thing to note here is whether you are hiding the important aspects of yourself and hurting your chances of promotion in the process.
If you are at an impasse in your career then it might be time to take a look at how others perceive you. You might be frustrated by seeing others promoted over you. You may feel that you are not being valued and should perhaps find employment with another company. This can take time and a great deal of effort so make sure it is what you want. Or could you simply change how others see you and stay in a job you enjoy?
What you should do is identify the things that people see in you that are positive and worthwhile to the company. You could create a file that lists the people you work with, and what they know and understand about you.
The next step is to use that information to influence your own view of yourself. This will help you build a better picture of who you are, and more importantly, what you have to offer the company. This will help you influence and change how others see you.
Getting to know yourself will always prove to be tricky so you might want to enlist the help of someone you trust at work. They might be able to show you how to adjust your personal and professional approach to ensure that you are seen in the very best light by each and every person you work with.
Getting that promotion you deserve and climbing the corporate ladder may seem easier for some than others. You might feel like you are missing out, and that is simply not fair. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Taking control and power over where you want to go is about seeing yourself more clearly. Understanding what changes you need to make to succeed and implementing those changes are the first steps to developing a successful career in management.
And always remember:
This week, I’ll relate to the last two FAQs about the importance of change when it comes to managerial style - one of the most critical factors affecting career development. Before reading on, if you haven’t already, please have a look at my two previous posts in which I cover the other eight FAQs.
The need to change, improve, and advance in life is embodied in every one of us. But to achieve any kind of career development, we have to be committed to making change. Unfortunately just being aware of this is not enough. We have to change our habits.
We all know this when it comes to our health. We visit the doctor and following a discouraging result, find out that in order to get regain our health, we need to change our eating habits.
It’s the same with your career. If you want to climb the career ladder, you have to begin with the first rung - a habit. This will highly influence one of the most important factors affecting career development.
In this post, I’ll be dealing with the final two FAQs about habits:
1. I can’t seem to agree that my habits are all that bad. Should I be throwing some away?
2. People can’t really change their habits, can they?
Again, before reading on, if you haven’t seen my answers to the other eight FAQs, please do so now.
Let’s begin...
Not at all. Some habits are helpful in some situations and others are helpful in other situations. Take Eddy, a successful mid-career marketing manager whose gift of the gab had certainly contributed to his success. On the other hand, Eddy was also known as a conversational bulldozer. Anyone at a meeting with Eddy knew that they’d succeed at getting in one, maybe two sentences before Eddy would interrupt them and bulldoze them down, taking over the conversation. One day after a quarterly meeting and plenty of bulldozing, Eddy’s assistant, Jenny, decided to confront him about his constant interruptions. Eddy was both shocked and offended, telling Jenny that he had no idea what she was talking about. Surprised by Eddy’s response, Jenny was sure that Eddy was trying to cover up for his behavior so that he could continue with business as usual. While Jenny had a right to confront Eddy, it is obvious that Eddy’s bulldozing habit was just that - a habit - something that he wasn’t aware of. At his boss’s urging, when Eddy came in to consult with me, we talked about identifying and controlling his bulldozing habit so that it could be “brought out” only when helpful.
And now on to the second question...
It’s difficult, but don’t despair. Otherwise, there would be no reason to try. I’ll illustrate with a 2005 experiment that was carried out by Professor Ann Graybiel MIT. Armed with chocolate as an incentive, Graybiel taught rats to run through a maze. Once they learned the path, Graybiel removed the chocolate. Interestingly enough, the rats “forgot” the path and no longer ran through the maze. Once Graybiel returned the chocolate, the rats miraculously remembered the path. The conclusion of this experiment was that old habits actually never die. They just need to be triggered and they become active again. This is a valuable finding, as it can give us all hope in improving ourselves. But as the experiment illustrated, in absence of a trigger, improvement can go down the drain.
For example, we’re all familiar with the couch potatoes (maybe ourselves?) who commit to exercising twice a week and end up never even beginning. It’s not all about laziness. It’s really a very difficult process for them to get going, especially in the absence of a trigger. And when they finally do begin, it’s extremely easy for them to find themselves back on the couch. And they’ll have all of the excuses in the world as to why it’s not a good time or day or month for exercise. So finding a trigger, such as envisioning yourself in that corner office, is really important.
Making yourself aware of the need to work on your habits is critical when trying to begin any change. I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to consider some of the habits you need to change to ensure future success. In my next series of posts, I’ll be helping you identify the most important habits you need to change.
And always remember:
This week, I’d like to continue answering two more questions that I brought up in my previous post, Identify Habits that are Harming your Career. In that post, I addressed some of the most popular issues managers like you encounter when you realize that you have to make some serious changes in your habits in order to move up the corporate development career path. Getting promoted at work requires you not only to keep developing what they know but also realizing that what might have gotten you to where you are so far could be what is holding you back from your true corporate development career path. This is where the real work comes in. If you haven’t done so, look back at Identify Habits that are Harming your Career before you read on.
In this post, I’m going to address the following questions:
1. What does it mean that habits control us? I mean, didn’t we create these habits? Don’t we control them?
2. Up until now, I’ve been pretty successful. How did some of my habits suddenly become undesirable?
So let’s tackle the first one:
I mean, didn’t we create these habits? Don’t we control them?
It’s not that habits are some evil force, making us do things we don’t want to do. However, their power can influence the way we perceive things. Think of the countless times you’ve put things down and then a few minutes later couldn’t recall where. Most of us blame “senior moments,” but the (fairly) good news is that the lack of recollection has to do with how powerful habits are. I’ll illustrate this with a true story. When I come home from work, I generally put my cellphone at my place on the kitchen table. The other day, as I was opening the front door in the evening, my husband called out my name from our study, as he wanted my help with some reports he was reviewing. With my coat still on and cellphone in hand, I went straight to our study to assist him. Apparently, somewhere along the way, I must have put down my cellphone when I pointed to some figures on his laptop. Later, after dinner, when I looked for my cellphone on our kitchen table, it wasn’t there - where it always was! I had no idea where the phone could be. Perhaps I had left it at the office. I called a co-worker who was still at work. No luck. Maybe it was in my car. I checked. Nope. Was I going crazy? Well, what was actually happening was that my habit of always putting the phone on the kitchen table was so strong that my brain simply ignored that I had put the phone down in the study. To put it simply, because I had gone against my usual habit, my brain didn’t register this memory - so there was no mental record. No wonder I couldn’t find my phone. But at least I wasn’t crazy! So you can see, the power of habit is so strong that it can even alter our view of reality.
And now for the second question:
Certain habits might have gotten you to where you are on the career ladder, yet at some point, they have stopped you from developing. I’ll illustrate with another story. Usually, my daughter takes the school bus to school. But a few months ago, she had to bring in quite a few supplies for a school project, so she asked me to drive her to school and of course I agreed. After my frantic morning routine of getting dressed, gulping down a cup of coffee and gathering my briefcase, we got into the car to head for her school. Or so I had intended. As I switched into the lane leading to the highway, my daughter yelled out, “Mom, where are you going? I’m going to be late for school!” Pretty confused, I slammed on the brakes and realized that I was driving towards my office. It seemed that my habit of driving to work had overtaken my intention to take my daughter to school. I made a u-turn and luckily got her to school on time. My habit of following a certain route to work had served me well - until this particular day. If we are conscious of our habits, then we become aware of when they are helpful and when they are not.
Next week, I’ll be addressing two more important questions about habits:
1. I can’t seem to agree that my habits are all that bad. Should I be throwing some away?
2. People can’t really change their habits, can they?
Good luck!
And always remember:
Reducing harmful habits sounds like a good game plan for any day - especially as an indicator of how to measure success at work. But you still probably have some questions. Here are the most popular ones I’ve received over the last 35 years:
1. What does it really mean to reduce habits?
2. What do my habits have to do with getting promoted?
3. What does it mean that habits control us? I mean, didn’t we create these habits? Don’t we control them?
4. Up until now, I’ve been pretty successful. How did some of my habits suddenly become undesirable?
5. I can’t seem to agree that my habits are all that bad. Should I be throwing some away?
6. People can’t really change their habits, can they?
In this post, I’ll answer the first two questions, and in future posts, I’ll answer the others, giving you a good idea of how to measure success at work.
After you identify the habits that are leading you to nowhere career-wise, the natural course of action is to change them. The way to do this is not to completely delete them - going cold turkey never works. Instead, you want to reduce them bit by bit. Two things happen in this case. First, your harmful habits begin to play less and less of a role in your managerial style. Secondly, you’ll see that hidden habits you didn’t even know about will begin to emerge. And it’s these hidden habits that will put you on your road to success. To find out what you need to begin reducing, read my post called Identify Habits that are Harming your Career.
We might think that we’re not getting promoted because of an unfair boss, a badly-run company, or just plain bad luck. These factors might play some role, but my experience shows that a manager’s undesirable habits are their largest stumbling blocks to getting a promotion. I even have a name for these: “overgrown habits”. Overgrown habits are much like the weeds that take over a garden, not only hiding all of the productive habits but also preventing them from growing. I’ll give you an example: A manager who habitually interrupts his or her co-workers will never develop the listening skills required of a more senior manager. This undesirable habit will leave the manager with little chance of being considered for promotion.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my responses to these critical questions.
As I’ve promised, I’ll answer the other questions in future posts.
Good luck with working on your own habits!
And always remember:
You know it by now. You’re the result of your habits.
But what you might not realize is that while certain habits might have gotten you to where you are on the career ladder, at some point, they have actually stopped your climb, despite your having aimed your best towards professional development goals for managers.
I’ll illustrate this with a story from my own everyday life. Usually, my daughter takes the school bus to school. But a few months ago, she had to bring in quite a few supplies for a school project, so she asked me to drive her to school, and of course I agreed. After my frantic morning routine of getting dressed, gulping down a cup of coffee and gathering my briefcase, we got into the car to head for her school. Or so I had intended.
As I switched into the lane leading to the highway, my daughter yelled out, “Mom, where are you going? I’m going to be late for school!” Pretty confused, I slammed on the brakes and realized that I was driving towards my office. It seemed that my habit of driving to work had overtaken my intention to take my daughter to school. I made a u-turn and luckily got her to school on time. My habit of following a certain route to work had served me well - until this particular day. If you are conscious of your habits (unlike I was), then you become aware of when they are helpful and when they are not.
I’m sure you can recall a version of this story in your own life. Now let’s see how it all works.
Studies show that about 40% of your daily decisions are made automatically - without a second thought, so to speak. This allows the other 60% of your brain to take in and process new information. In order to maintain this ratio, your brain is constantly identifying repeated behaviors and turning them into automatic habits, through your brain’s natural compression mechanism. With this mechanism in place, you can actually learn to compress your unhelpful habits - allowing room for your potential habits to be discovered and developed. This should be a significant part of the professional development goals for managers.
At this point, you might be wondering if you have any unhelpful habits that need compressing. The answer is an unequivocal “yes.” I’ll explain.
As you already know, automatic habits are wonderful for getting things done quickly and efficiently, not requiring a minute’s thought. The downside, however, is when they take charge in situations in which they shouldn’t (like in my story above). Now let’s take a business example.
As a middle manager, you might be appreciated for knowing every detail of every project, poised to make quick and efficient decisions, thus driving projects ahead at the speed of light. However, what happens when moving up in the ranks of your company requires releasing some control and nurturing a team to take on responsibilities? Your natural instinct is to take over and decide for them, while what you really need to do is develop the ability to let your team come up with decisions, even if it means they might struggle a bit. As you can see, here you must hold back on your habit for quick, accurate decisionmaking and allow room for a less developed habit, nurturing your team. This is the process of “growing” as a manager, which will lead you to future career success.
One word of warning: there are many programs out there that claim to have isolated the most needed habits for you to take on easily and painlessly. The sad result of such programs is that like everything else forced on you, you’ll probably drop such “cookie-cutter” habits as soon as you can (think of some of the fad diets out there). On the other hand, if you concentrate on discovering and developing your own innate habits, you’ll be working on something that comes naturally to you - and therefore much more likely to stick and serve you for years to come.
And always remember:
Middle management is the time when your career can either soar north or plummet south. Unfortunately, for most middle managers, plummeting is the default. It’s not because they’re not talented or lack the ability to soar, an example of how to measure success at work. It’s actually because the flight path was never planned very well.
Up until this point in your career, you might’ve taken careful baby steps - from entry level to team leader and finally to middle manager, honing in on whatever background you’d come to your company with. Of course, this path has served you well so far as a respected middle manager. This is a reasonable indicator of how to measure success at work.
But what’s the next step? At this stage in your career, planning this next step requires a complete change in mindset. Many successful middle managers decide they want to vye for the most senior position in their discipline. For example, a mid-level marketing manager might set the goal of becoming the chief marketing officer. Naturally, they might begin to meticulously plan their climb towards this position, rung by rung up the corporate ladder. The rationale here is that each rung would be a “realistic” move as the years go by. And, if they’re lucky, they’ll reach CMO status one day. If not, they’ll be left by the wayside along with the majority of frustrated middle managers.
So how can you make sure you don’t become a middle management castaway? The first thing you need to do is think big. Solid career planning that leads to real results requires that you take the time to think out-of-the-box when it comes to your ultimate career dream. Taking the mid-level marketing manager as an example, trying out “what if” scenarios is key. For instance, what if you envisioned yourself as CEO or in another C-suite role? Would a series of short term, step-by-step plans to move up the ranks in marketing necessarily make sense? Of course not. To be a CEO, you would need to acquire experience in nearly every other discipline in the company. But if you limit yourself to in-the-box planning limited to the next rung on your career ladder, you’ll miss the big picture...and find yourself stopped in your tracks.
Only after taking the time to think big can you then start to see the multiple paths available to you to achieve your ultimate goal. And once you’ve identified these paths, you can then begin to choose one to plan your next step.
When you’ve chosen a path, formulate goals that will allow you to stick to it. Don’t make what I call the gym membership mistake and commit to seven workouts a week. Instead, aim for two days and then build up gradually. For instance, if you know you want to learn about the financial side of your company, attempting to gorge on every financial report in sight is unrealistic. Sure, just like the gym, you’ll start out with great intentions and full of energy. But then, little by little, the stack of reports will start gathering dust and you’ll blame yourself for failing to live up to your own expectations.
A much more productive plan would be to munch on a couple of reports for a given amount of time and then to increase any intake as time permits. The important thing is that once you have your overall vision in place (and not just your next short term move), accomplishing your vision bit by bit will lead to real progress.
To summarize:
1.Give yourself some time to work out your ultimate goal, leaving “realistic” short-term goals aside.
2.Make a plan towards accomplishing this goal, acknowledging that there are mutliple paths.
3.Begin one or two steps towards the goal, increasing these steps as you are able.
Good luck and don’t forget to dream!
And always remember:
New beginnings always bring new opportunities - but it’s up to us to decide whether to make these opportunites our own - an important part of career goals for managers. Unfortunately, from my experience, very few of us take full advantage of new opportunities. This is usually attributed to what people mistakenly call a “realistic” view of such opportunites. They incorrectly overestimate the gap between where they are and where they could be. So they decide it’s not realistic to go for the opportunity - better to stay put.
Others who understand the importance of career goals for managers realize that opportunities cannot be wasted. Yes, it takes work, but it’s not impossible. I hope you’re part of this second category of managers. It’s 2019 and you have a world of opportunities awaiting you. Here’s how to get going:
First, it’s important to understand that seizing new opportunities means making some changes of your own. To do this, you’ll have to take an inventory of your current habits to see which ones might help or hinder your journey towards new opportunities. For example, when making decisions, do you often seek advice from everyone in your department? Perhaps such a habit has caused you to miss out on time sensitive deals.
Once you’ve taken your habit inventory, follow these steps:
1. Identify the habits you need to change.
2. Reduce these habits so that you can control them. This means being able to take them out and put them away as needed. If you get this right, you’ll find that you’ve made room for desireable habits to take root and grow.
3. Nourish and monitor your desireable habits. With persistence, they will become second nature and lead you towards success.
With this plan, you’ll seize the right opportunities in 2019 and before you know it, it’ll will be your year of success. During 2019, I’ll explore some of the topics I’ve touch on in more detail in the following posts:
1. “Think big but start small: the #1 key to success”
2. “Identify habits that are harming your career”
3. “Reduce harmful habits: why and how?”
4. “Find your untapped potential: why and how?”
Look out for this special 2019 series.
And always remember:
This is the time of year, we focus more on family and loved ones than our career. After all, it’s not called the holiday season for nothing. In truth, spending time with our family helps us see the bigger picture of what we want and where we see ourselves in the future. It is also a great time to begin to reflect and learn how to measure success at work.
Sure, you have had a good year. You kept your team on track and fulfilled the requirements of each project presented to you. But is this enough? Are you where you thought you would be this time last year? What can you do now that will influence where you will be in one year’s time? Do you know how to measure success at work and get that promotion you deserve?
Nearly all of the wonderful inventions we rely on today started as dreams. Scientists dreamed of curing diseases, Inventors dreamed of cleaner ways of running cars, and peace-makers dreamed of a world without war.
What dreams do you have for your career? Daring to dream is very liberating, and allows us to begin to think “outside the box”, and to transcend the normal borders of our imagination.
If you dream of being promoted to a senior position and owning the corner office it might seem impossible now, but is it? If every idea that was once a dream was ignored where would the world be now? We’d still be reading by candle-light or waiting for news from a loved one to come via a written note or a telegram.
Remember, if you don’t have a dream you can make it come true. Allow yourself the freedom this holiday period to dream a little. It may take you to new and exciting heights.
So, now that your dreams are present it is time to make them a reality. You can do this by visualizing your success. Dreaming is one thing, but envisioning those ideas into a reality will help them come true. It will make the impossible seem real. In truth, if you can visualize something you can accomplish it.
Begin by visualizing yourself in a senior position. What does it look like? Where is your desk? What’s the view outside your window? Then visualize yourself in different situations in your new job. What’s it like to run a staff meeting? Give an important presentation? Determine a budget? The more you visualize, the sharper and more detailed the images will become.
Incorporate your other senses too. Visualizing is not just about what you can see. What would you hear as a senior manager? What would sitting in that corner office feel like? How good would your coffee or tea taste now that you have made your dreams a reality?
Do yourself a favor and buy a beautiful notebook or journal. Make sure you get just the right one for you so take your time when purchasing it. Why? Because now is the time to turn your dream into goals, and then reality.
When we put our dream job into words, we make it concrete so that we can set the goals needed to turn it into reality. You need to write down what exactly is your dream job. When do you want to begin it? And, what are some of the major steps you’ll need to accomplish before that job is yours?
You might need to do some retraining or upskilling. When and where can these be done? What other skills can you add to your repertoire to ensure that promotion is yours?
As the New Year looms ahead of you, now is the time to begin planning your future career. Start realizing your dream as you begin this new career path of yours.
Make time to create a detailed plan. This should include a breakdown of your overall dream job goal into smaller, more manageable “mini-goals.” And, a rough due date by which each of these mini-goals should be achieved.
Remain focused on your dreams, and don’t let life or disappointments stop you from achieving them. Those who are really successful don’t have backup plans. Instead, they keep their eyes on the ball and never waiver from their ultimate plan to make their dreams a reality.
I’d like to wish you a very joyous holiday season, filled with love, happiness, and peace for all.
Best wishes
Etika
P.S. And don’t forget.
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