Let\u2019s face it, many try to climb the career ladder, but few succeed.<\/p>\n
As the CEO of Lifehack, I\u2019ve seen a lot of employees trying to rise higher in their career, but unfortunately, the majority of them fail.<\/p>\n
What causes people to fail? In my experience, many of the people failing acted too aggressively \u2013 putting the bulk of their emphasis only on opportunities where they believed they could get promoted. On the other hand, some failures were too passive. They just did their jobs, while secretly hoping that they would get promoted one day. It rarely works like this.
\nAfter many years watching the winners and losers, it\u2019s clear to me that putting exclusive focus on climbing up the career ladder leads to failure. When a person\u2019s eyes are on the ultimate result only (to be at the \u2018highest point\u2019 in their career), they tend to neglect important things like: personal growth, skills development and cooperation with other people. Not only do they neglect these things, but they fail to realize that these things are actually essentials for rising high and attaining recognition.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent considerable time thinking about the fundamentals of career success, and it\u2019s my belief that you must practice the five steps below if you\u2019re to make your way up the career ladder.<\/p>\n
Do you know what your goals are? If not, you must take some time to identify them. Only once you precisely know what your goals are will you be able to see what it takes to get there.
\nDon\u2019t be overwhelmed by the size of your goals, but instead, set milestones and deadlines to motivate you to get things done. If necessary, break down big goals into small components.
\nBy doing the above, you\u2019ll have a blueprint in your mind that will allow you to stay focused and motivated.
\nAs an example, if your goal is to be a professional musician, then you should devise a plan to reach that goal. It could look something like this:<\/p>\n
\u2981 Enrol in a full-time, professional music course.
\n\u2981 Learn everything you can about music and your chosen instrument.
\n\u2981 Spent a large chunk of your spare time in practising your chosen instrument.
\n\u2981 Collaborate with others to build your skills and confidence.
\n\u2981 Seek ways to make your playing, appearance and personality stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n
A blueprint is a vital component for success \u2013 helping you to plan ahead, and keep track of your achievements.<\/p>\n
To achieve your goals, you\u2019ll need to work hard. However, that doesn\u2019t have to mean working long hours. You should seek to work hard \u2013 but work smart too. This means putting effort, determination and focus into your work.
\nIn other words, make every hour you work count. Everything you do should help the company and yourself grow.
\nYou should also seek to contribute more, because this opens you up to additional learning opportunities \u2013 which will help you to grow.
\nHow to work smarter? Take a look at the time most people waste going through their emails. It can be hours a day. You can work smarter in this area by utilizing folders, color-coding and auto-responses. By implementing these functions, you can cut down on the amount of emails you receive, easily prioritize your emails, and make searching for old emails much simpler. All of this saves you time to get on with your real work!<\/p>\n
Do you go beyond what\u2019s expected from your role? If not, you definitely should.
\nFor starters, make sure that you think often about what you can do to improve your work. Don\u2019t just act according to what\u2019s assigned to you. You should also provide feedback, opinions and ideas that will stimulate others.
\nDon\u2019t overestimate your own abilities, but do ensure that you go beyond your duties when you can. However, by doing this, you must be prepared to open yourself up to more possibilities for failures and mistakes. To counterbalance this, you will also have more lessons to learn from.
\nThink of it this way, if all you do is the work given to you \u2013 then you will fail to impress your management team. For senior roles, managers will want go-getters who know how to take calculated risks and use their initiative.<\/p>\n
Your company\u2019s strategies and goals may change once in a while, so it\u2019s important that you keep up-to-date with them. Try to align your effort with these goals, or ask your company about how you can align your work with the direction in which the company is traveling.
\nAt Lifehack, team members constantly review their tasks and priorities to ensure that they are aligned with the company\u2019s current strategies and goals.
\nWhen your goals are aligned with your company\u2019s goals \u2013 your efforts will directly contribute to the company\u2019s direction, and the results will be stronger and more effective.<\/p>\n
Your skills and knowledge should be valuable resources to others. To help increase this, besides job-related skills, build skills that are outside the remit of your job. By doing this, you\u2019ll open yourself up to more opportunities, including, mentoring possibilities and advancement.
\nFor instance, imagine that you work as an office administrator. The job mostly involves paperwork such as spreadsheets and letter writing. As you are determined to climb the career ladder, you choose to enroll in your own time in a course in office management. Here you learn vital skills such as health and safety rules, supplier coordination and people management. With the extra skills, you find yourself ideally-placed to snap up any office management vacancies that come your way \u2013 either within your company, or within a different company.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s face it, many try to climb the career ladder, but few succeed.<\/p>\n
As the CEO of Lifehack, I\u2019ve seen a lot of employees trying to rise higher in their careers, but unfortunately, the majority of them fail.
\nWhat causes people to fail?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-business"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.cyberoctane.com\/niroshan-silva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}