Understand others & stand out

            You need to have a correct discernment of others as also of how they see you. It helps in being more constructive and dynamic with your career growth and advancement. It also serves to prompt you to concentrate on issues that matter and gain insight into them, just in case you are not very or familiar with them.

            How do you go about to making out yourself and others? It is all about having necessary qualities and refining them; of course your own nature and temperament has a role to play in the process. Here are some guidelines:

·   Principled stand:  It is of no consequence where you employ this tenet, but it does make you understand what others feel of you. By following set values, you will be able to derive satisfaction from your actions and in the process also get admiration from others who get to recognize you and your intentions. Sticking to principles manifest honesty and honour as also steadiness and reliability. These attributes facilitate your forward movement. In addition, they help in fostering mutual confidence in every association that you create.

·   Communication skills: These two words are synonymous with interaction; it implies an exchange of ideas. To be able to have mastery over the communication process, you will need to engage people with yourself – by spoken and written mediums. For this, you also need to acquire good listening skills. You will be able to inspire others with your communications.

·   Premeditated objectives:   Aims and objectives are necessary to attain anything that you long for. Therefore, fixing them and more importantly pursuing them sincerely are vital components of any activity, including career progression. You need to have a clear statement of intent for reaching your target. The statement per se is a momentous ideation to define your career path, vision and inspiration for success.

·   Venturing risks:  It is human tendency to keep oneself secured as much as possible. People are reluctant to venture out and play with risks. Life has no meaning if it is all about mundane things; you do not progress if you are of a my-horse-also-ran category. You need to be dynamic, take initiative and take chances. Of course, taking chances have the likelihood of disappointments and fiascos, but failures are stepping stones to success.

·   Lending a helping hand:   If you come to the assistance of others, you instantaneously build an association with them. You are able to share your knowledge, which can be gainfully made use of by them. Be it knowledge or anything else, any act of sharing speaks of bighearted and openhanded individual quality. If you help others, your assistance comes back to you in some form or the other.  

·   Consideration:  You need to be thoughtful and understanding vis-à-vis others. You need to have a concern for others. If you are an empathetic person, you are more liable to strike a chord with others. Once this happens, the gates of the doors to exchange ideas are flung wide open; you build truthful and honourable relationships. You also get to identify newer opportunities to lend a helping hand.

·   Skill upgrading:  You have capabilities and vulnerabilities, you have strengths and weaknesses. Your capabilities and strengths have to be improved upon; and vulnerabilities and weaknesses have to be overcome. If you achieve this, you are better qualified and emerge as better poised to take on professional challenges. You should aim to become a specialist in your own field; this will afford you opportunities to display your skills. 

·   Humbleness:   It is but human to brag, particularly if you have hit the news or have some success to your credit. This tendency is deviously perilous and can impact others in a very unconstructive manner. To say that it by a long shot, will be regarded as self-approbation or blowing one’s own trumpet will not be stating the untruth. This perhaps is the reason why a self-effacing disposition is vital to progressing by leaps and bounds. Humbleness precludes you from publicizing your attainments; as a result, you acknowledge the performance of others too.

·    Positivity:   All leaders are optimistic and upbeat. They have an encouraging disposition that serves to stimulate others. A constructive mindset together with adequate controls by itself is a very potent implement in life; coupled with positivity and enthusiasm, one can achieve possibly anything. Your passion and zeal will remain ignited and never run short of energy to see you through arduous moments. More significantly, positivity will help you remain concentrated on your aims and objectives.

·   Liaison:   Interpersonal relationships are the best things ever known in the human history. They facilitate taking steps forward towards growth and development. Your associations do offer you ways and means to give a helping hand, to share experiences and to convey sentiments. Not one, not two, but several roads open up for you make a choice and move forward confidently. What is necessary is to view people as entities and not pronounce any verdict on their capabilities or any other attribute.

·   New tasks:  People who bestow and confer are always remarkable. So give and look forward to zilch. You should derive pleasure in presenting to others what you have. It can be immensely advantageous because such a quality is perceived as a leadership trait. It makes evident your inclination to accept fresh tasks and prove your worth. You should take a fast decision accepting a new responsibility, particularly when others are reluctant to do so. Volunteering for a work implies contributing more than what you are otherwise supposed to do, so the outcome can be gauged very well.

·   Output:  This need to be boosted, both in the context of your career progression and life. The best way to do so is by making full use of the time at your disposal. You should discard issues that are insignificant and devote time to discern your craze and enthusiasm in life. While at work, you have to work and do nothing else. You should try to portray an image of yourself of a conscientious, industrious and result-oriented individual.

            The high peak of knowledge is perfect self-knowledge; it arms you with the capability to learn from your success, blunders and failures. Unless you understand yourself, you will never be able to understand anybody else. And you will never be able to understand anybody else unless you consider things from his point of view. If you understand this simple fact, your career graph is poised to show an upward trend.