Author your own career success story

           

“The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”

                                                                                    ----- Dale Carnegie

Everybody ponders over success stories of others with some element of jealousy. Everybody covets that propitious moment when dreams transform into actualities. Life, with all its ups and downs has an element of luck in it; that is precisely why everybody who runs after it cannot seize it. And those who do so are seen as successful. 

            If you have to be successful, you ought to make a resolution to be so and make sincere efforts for it. Men and women who genuinely want to taste success resort to individual preferences that are in consonance with their fervour, objectives and ability to work in hostile environments. They smash restrictive ideas and acknowledge that they have options.

You have to grant yourself approval and readiness to take necessary steps to attain your objectives. Subsequently, when you generate favourable circumstances for yourself, you will be able to make the most of them.

            Fortune favours the brave, so they say. But it also goes with those who gear up to embrace it. And that is best done by emulating successful people; you will thus write your own fate. All successful people have four common attributes that draws success towards them. At first sight, these qualities smack of passive acquiescence, but that is what it is.

Boldness

You have to be confident, you have to be venturesome. You have to be intrepid, you have to be bold. And all these qualities entail taking risks. It is something like jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down. What happens if the wings do not flap? Therefore, the need is also to have at hand crisis management plans to address the consequences that follow.

Most people prefer to operate in a zero error environment and take cautious decisions. On the other hand, the venturesome lot takes risks and cogitates on the outcome of their decisions, which is favorable most of the times. What do you do?

·  Do not presuppose:  Postulations invariably result in poor decisions. No successful person will ever give in to risk unless there are truth-centred prompting factors. You should always steer clear of conjectures and suppositions.

·  Appreciate probabilities:  A forwarding-looking person endeavours to prognosticate the prospects of positive and negative results and ruminates over actions that boost the former and trim down the latter. You can take risks only when things are perceived as favourable.  

·  Identify impelling measures: A decision can be risky alright, but prompt actions to reduce the risk factor should be taken. You need a big information base, but how do you get it? How much can be done right away to get going? The answers to these questions will throw light on upbeat measures that boost results optimistically.   

·  Evaluate risk:  It is human tendency to let others lead or refrain from participation when there is any risk involved. Like all successful people, you should evaluate first and then take a decision. If some sense prompts you to refrain from going ahead, it should invariably be an instantaneous decision to the contrary. Your foremost consideration should be whether taking a dicey decision is at all an option.

Sanguinity

Every successful individual advises on the need to have a positive disposition as it offers potency to excel. An outlook that is positive is brought about by positive settings, both within and outside. You must keep company with positive people, tell yourself again and again of your abilities and excel in your inner self-talk. A single negative contemplation can prove highly detrimental because it will tend to get entrenched in your subconscious mind and weaken your efforts. If you are positive, people will automatically get attracted to you. 

How do you generate a positive atmosphere? You may indulge in any noble pursuit that makes you feel good so that you are able to sway and inspire things around you. Compassion and helpfulness are powerful tools to craft positive surroundings. But, you cannot allow others to have the better of you; in fact your positive outlook will serve to overwhelm those who harbour envy against you.

Minimalism

Like politicians, people who complicate things do it for vested interests. Naturally, such people do not move up in their careers. The fact is that simplifying things is not really simple, but complicating them is. Making things less complicated facilitates your good luck. How can you make simplicity in your dealings count?

·  Be rational:  You should never inflict impracticable hopes on anybody. Deadlines, if assigned should be realizable. All tasks being given to others, even if they are trials of test should be viable and principled; they should be seen as manifesting your character. You should seek an answer from yourself if you can survive with the severest consequences of your demands.

·  Know others:  You should try to comprehend what the other person means; disregarding your own to-do list will help you gauge what he feels about you. A successful person invariably sees everything around him with not peripheral but an external dimension. You should   assess each action from the point of view of a third person; hanging your sense of self on the peg will be a big facilitator.

·  Act & not yearn:  Cheerfulness and buoyancy is brought about by optimism, but not by themselves alone. You have to do something and be active rather than simply hoping that something will take place. Your decisions cannot be based on pipedreams, but should be arrived at only on the basis of tangible proof, previous patterns or what you have in hand. 

In any activity or group, there are two constituents – the few vital and the many inconsequential. It is the former that makes things happen, however the contributions of the latter cannot be discounted. The most prolific facets of any issue ought to be your hub and the others could be delegated; entrustment will lead to you focusing on crucial issues. Your originality and ingenuity will of course matter!

The final word

If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain. And succeed, you will!

Are you happily sad at work?

·      Do you feel disinterested in your work but nevertheless take pleasure in the company and solidarity of the folks?

·      Do you think that all jobs are tiring and frustrating else work would have been known as pleasure?

·      Do you often wish that you could change your career when your friends and acquaintances talk about theirs?

·      Do you feel that it is not worthwhile to embark upon a job hunt and that it is alright to carry on with the type of people that you have as colleagues?

·      Do your acquaintances, friends or relatives opine that you are well-entrenched and that it is no point going for a change?

·      Do you apprehend that your appointment may be scrapped?

·      Do you often ponder over the issue of establishing your credibility and reliability because everybody knows your capability?

·      Do you envisage that finding a new job is plagued with difficulties?

·      Do you realize that you are good at your work, though the job is not to your liking?

·      Do you realize that a career change is fraught with perils vis-à-vis the position that you hold today?

·      Do you concentrate only on the off-putting aspects of a career change rather than looking at the optimistic side of it?

·      Do you detest your work but yet do so for the monetary benefits it offers?

·      Do you doubt if you will be able to get into a comparable position at some other company?

·      Do you ever count the number of years left before you retire from your work?

·      Do you feel that your workplace environment will improve sooner or later and hence it is worth the trouble to stay put in the job that you are in?

If the answer to any one of the above questions is ‘yes’, you are definitely not having a good time at work. And if your response to two or more questions has been likewise, you can be described as one who is happily sad. You are almost certainly suffering from a self-imposed and self-wreaked career related disorder generally known as ‘comfortable misery’ and which is exemplified by inactivity feelings along with an overpowering necessity to let things remain as they are. It is not that happily sad people cannot function capably but they fail to derive any pleasure from any attainment that they may have in the process. Human robot is perhaps the best term to describe them.

The point to ponder is why people clutch jobs that they otherwise loathe. There could be a horde of causes, some direct and some indirect:

·      Outlook that nothing can ever be better than the present.

·      External exhortations that whatever had to be attained has been done and is good.

·      Absence of networking to discern actual comprehension of skills possessed.

·      More or less total confidence in organizational hierarchy.

·      Excessive workload and accountability in a stagnated appointment.

·      Relaxed working environment with little accountability.

·      Inability to confront the likelihood of a new job hunt.

        A happily sad person can lead to collapse of treasured associations and enduring contentment. He also tends to become depressed, loses self-respect and misses out on newer avenues. It has been established that men and women who abhor their work invariably transmit antagonistic thoughts into their private lives; the adverse effect is thus passed on to their family and social circle alike. Career-related dissatisfaction, irritation and disturbance is taken out on blameless members of the family; needless to state but important is the point that such a development creates fissures in personal lives.

        When you reach the age of fifty or sixty, comfortable misery has a propensity to destroy all comfort levels and become more miserable. That is the time perhaps you will make allegations in retrospection. ‘Had it been so’ feelings surfacing two or three decades later will not help in bringing back the times gone by, wasted in a pointless pursuit. You will then realize that time is one article of life that just cannot be stocked up or reloaded.

        But a happily sad person can become happy. Comfortable misery can be restored to health.  You can do so in a number of ways, however, you will have to pronounce tomorrow as the beginning of your life; its dawn will signify the opening chapter of your remaining life. Some tips to smash your inactivity and ennui are:

·   Widen your circle of contacts:  You should endeavour to network and establish contacts. How do you do so? You can join any professional club or actively participate in social service programmes. As a thumb rule, try to know a new person every five days. At your workplace, try and get involved in a new project; in this way you will be able to draw out your expertise and bring about company gains. You can even volunteer to work in a different department at your workplace.

·   Start a job hunt:   You can be on the lookout for a job or even career change – it could well be within your current company or in an altogether different setup. If you are unable to take the first step for whatever reason it may be, there is no harm in seeking external help. Career counselors and placement agencies do help.

·   Meet calamitous aspirations head on:   You need to look all that has been worrying you straight into its eyes and contemplate on the worst that can happen to you. Attach an out of hundred likelihood factor to it and then proceed to work out a strategy to deal with it in the eventuality of its occurrence.   

·   Improve upon your qualifications:   This implies expanding your knowledge and expertise base. Identify subjects that genuinely interest you and join a training institute that offers a course in them. In this way, you will be able to add force to your skills.

·   Solicit support:   That you were not on the correct path is known to all. Now that you have decided to apply corrections, you can well ask your friends and family members to support your spanking enthusiasm. Let them shout approval for and applaud you.

·   Regard your career as important:  You should concede that your career ranks high in the attainment of your life’s objectives. The golden rule is to never ever regard your work as a punishment; on the contrary, always consider it as a facilitator to act according to your inner desires. Regard it as a medium through which you can repay the world for what it has given you.

Remember that there is a dividing line between existing and living; and that life goes on. Once you shed that comfortable misery, you will be happy. At that time, you will not cry because it is over, but you will smile because it happened.

Dilemmas of career selection

Decisions having diverse ramification are taken by practically every person on a continual basis. To presume therefore, that decision-making is a complicated knack is being, to a large extent, rather bizarre. Research has nonetheless indicated that most people are a lot weaker at decision-making than they fell about themselves. If the implications of decision-making are comprehended well, the process per se will prove effectual.

Meaning & connotation

There is something called a decision milieu within the parameters and strictures of which every decision is made. A decision milieu can be described as an assortment of gathered facts, options, standards and priorities that are obtainable at the time a decision is taken. In spite of this, the gathered facts and options are held back on account of the greater amount of time required for their acquisition and detection respectively.

The constriction of time suggests that a decision has to be arrived at within stipulated period of time. On the other hand, endeavour constriction manifests the restrictions imposed by number of people involved, financial resources available and precedence set. Since decisions are to be taken within this limited milieu, it will not be presumptuous to state that the biggest impediments to decision-making are ambiguity and insecurity.

It is a foregone conclusion that the prime objective of decision scrutiny ought to be their lessening. It is a fact that the factual data required to take a correct decision will never be readily available, hence all decisions will be plagued with ambiguity and insecurity; therefore, the peril factor will always be there.

The influence of quantity

A sound decision can be arrived at with a specific quantity of information. But people tend to seek and consider more than the necessary amount. This leads to several problems. The time taken will be more because of correspondingly more time required to gather and handle the additional data. Resultantly, the value potential of the decision will reduce. In addition, information surplus that will set in will lead to several issues being inadvertently overlooked.

All human beings have limited brain capacity to handle data, like in the case of different memory configurations of computers. If information is not synthesized properly, that received first will always have a tendency to be addressed first. Consequently, mental exhaustion takes place; information flowing in is disregarded and already available base is not remembered.

The circumstances can also be described thus: decisions entail selecting the best one from amongst a series of readily available ones. The decision almanac, if it may be called so is nothing but a pool of earlier decisions taken. Interestingly, all previous decisions would have triggered some options and perhaps brought to a standstill some.

The importance of decision-making               

If one were to go to a readymade garments store to purchase a shirt, the limitations of choice available posed by the availability of stocks and brands will always exist. There could well be scores and scores of brands in the market, but the store would be offering just a fraction of them. In this situation the decision to select the best shirt would be hampered by the decision of the shopkeeper to stock only those that he is displaying. This explains the criticality of the decision-making process.

Decision-making is a very critical factor in both career selection and progression. It has the potential of securing or ruining the career prospects of any youth. The career selection decision has to be very judicious and equally astute. And it is in this context that ability and penchant tests are conducted; they invariably offer great advantages in that students recognize their own aptitudes and capabilities. Resultantly they are able to milk them for career development.

The most significant feature of career development is its correct selection. It is important because if does not select his or her career well, the years to follow will always be afflicted by acute problems, both mental and emotional. In the light of the foregoing, the need to appreciate and comprehend various causative factors of such impasses cannot be overemphasized.  

The why of wrong career decisions

There are three prime reasons that make one to take incorrect career decisions:

·   Information dearth:  If adequate information or data is not available, selecting a correct career can turn out to be a stumbling block at the very outset itself. The world at large is relatively unknown to a majority of the youth who reside in small cities. A very distorted and prejudiced portrait of what is transpiring in the current era is available to them, as a result the character and coincident eminence of the career intended to be joined are never discerned by them. Unrealizable aspirations follow and eventually become a cause of torment.

·   Readiness deficit:  There have been many instances when apt individuals could not continue in good jobs or lost out on offers because of a disposition of reluctance, disinclination or even aversion towards them. For example, t is a known fact that very few boys and girls prefer to work in field or in harsh conditions and cannot ever reconcile to the idea of doing so. Perks and remunerations hold out no meaning for them. This readiness deficit could well be inborn or stimulated.

·   Impetus debit:  In a large number of cases, people have to be goaded to get work out of them, whether they are adept to do so or not being of no consequence. This inspiration or enthusiasm turns out to be a very intense component of career choice and development. People who are introverted and diffident invariably lose out on being motivated or taking lessons on it. They, more often than not are ‘my horse also ran’ types.

The decision to select a particular career has to be necessarily well thought-out. It is   out of question to even think of it without knowing what you are cut out for. If you are not aware of this crucial aspect, the future will be as uncertain and unstable as ever.

Being professional

The major predicament of any employee, particularly new appointees at workplace is to comprehend his or her charter of responsibilities. Getting used to all-together new people and new office is indeed a monumental quandary. And greater is the problem in taking orders from people with whom one is not familiar with. Other tests are coping with time limits and completing allocated jobs in time.

Present day workplaces are high on demands and heavy on stress; everyone suffers from tremendous strain – they either deliver or depart. Adjusting to such a work environment is a task that is easier said than done, particularly for a new appointee.

The fact however, is that it is not difficult at all adjusting to a new workplace and everything that it comprises.  All that is required to cope with new complexities is by being dynamic in taking up good procedures. Some tips on what you should be doing when you take your initial steps in your new workplace are:

·   Watch the atmosphere:    No two workplaces are alike. Customs and traditions that make work culture vary from one place to the other; even ethics differ and show marked variations of standards. Therefore, it is both difficult and unnecessary to take a broad view of business cultures. You may have learnt several work philosophies and models, but being able to put them into operation is another matter. The best method is to watch your coworkers and settle down first rather than let go yourself with full steam from day one.

·   Never act in haste:  You should remember that you are a greenhorn and as a tenderfoot, you have to establish yourself and prove your worth before others start admiring you. Getting spotted and proving your true value is indeed very difficult; hence it is always desirable to take deliberate and calculated paces rather than big strides. Never ever attempt to hasten whatever you may be required to do. It is recommended that one should take his or her own time to be au fait with what you are required to do. It is only then that you should think of harnessing your ideas. The crux of the matter is that you should be meticulously thorough, thoroughly assiduous and assiduously attentive.

·   The person one up matters:  You should be well aware of the hierarchy of you new place of work. It is all the more important to know the likes and dislikes of the person above you. If you enjoy an affable equation with your boss, you will be able to give a free rein to your ingenuity and vision; the result will be that you will start getting pleasure in whatever you do. Your boss may suffer from some arrogance and condescension; hence it will take time for you to be able to establish such a relationship. The important point is not to forget the difference between professional and personal associations.

·   Know your charter:  You should make full efforts to get to know what you are required to do. This implies understanding your position, functions and duties; in short, your job conditions and obligations. As you gradually move ahead, you will realize that there are disparities between the role that you were initially explained and what you are actually required to perform. Under such circumstances, you should not get unnecessarily perturbed but resolve to work cheerfully. In case of any apprehensions, sitting and discussing across the table will help. The point that should never be lost sight of is that tasks that you may not be able to carry out should be graciously but forcefully declined.

·   Understand your assertion level:   You should routinely endeavour to come to terms with the degree of influence you can exercise and the amount of weight you can throw around. There is no harm in seeking a word of advice from your immediate superior and be aware of the level of faith bestowed upon you. Being dynamic and taking initiative is good for your career and will be appreciated, but the person one-up should be kept in your loop. If you do not do so or if you exceed the bounds of dominance, you could land in severe dilemma.

·   Withstand stress subtly:   You may adopt any method to do your work but whether or not it is correct will largely be contingent on if you are successful or not. Corporate canons recognize end results more than the endeavour that goes in attaining them. Bosses and supervisors have a tendency to press-gang subordinates to complete assigned jobs in time and meet stipulated deadlines. Should you land in such a situation, make it a point to express candidly any reservation that you may have with regard to the cut-off date or time being imposed. In addition, you should not shy away from asking for the necessary wherewithal, including finances that are inescapable for completing the assignment.        

·   Have an open mind:   Rigidity of mind will lead you nowhere.  You have to be willing to accept truth, you have to be willing to work hard. You have to be motivated to go to practice with an open mind. You have to be willing to be criticized. Having an open mind implies being open to debate and argument. Your objective should be not only to put across what you feel about things but also to comprehend what others think. The good point of having an open mind is that it will leave a chance for other people to drop a valuable idea in it. Remember that a wise person changes his mind and a person who is reckless or imprudent, never does so. The crux of the subject is to also be open to deliberations and negotiations. 

To conclude, it should be remembered that all jobs call for maximum exertion, delivering the best and meeting targets in the desired timeframe. Your professional disposition should be balanced and your attitude should not be governed by your emotions. After all, that is what life is all about!