Key ingredients of career progress

“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.”

-Thomas Henry Huxley

Your career is an important facet of your life and you need to take it seriously to succeed in it. You must allow your mind to ponder and deliberate over an instance or time when you were really successful in your career.

Perhaps you cannot think of any such time. Not everybody is fortunate enough to be really successful in their career. This is because very few people quite fathom their actual potential. They may have to their credit a string of academic qualifications but which never contributed to their workplace success.

Career success entails four imperatives and the earlier you comprehend them, the earlier you rise and progress. These imperatives do not make reference to objectives, visualisation or self-assurance because they automatically come into play when the four imperatives start working out. Sans these imperatives, you will always strain and stretch yourself to achieve even the slightest degree of advancement. And your objectives, visualisation and self-assurance will have little role to play in the entire game. These imperatives are:

· Fervour & ardour: If you are zealous impassioned in doing anything, you actually put your strengths forward. In doing so, your performance enhances and touches the sky. Regrettably, quite a few professionals lack this quality and hence, writhe, wriggle, grapple and tussle with their efforts to bring about any progress in their career. The workplace of current times is rather demanding and daunting. If you seek to excel and maintain a lead over others, you will have to work hard and be ever-willing to walk the extra mile. Whatever fortes and strong points you have, they need to be brought into effect with intense enthusiasm and commitment in each and every facet of your activity.

· Alignment of values: Simple fervour and ardour may not suffice because in case it did, there will not be any predictable unsuccessful individual. You need to be working in an atmosphere or team that has excellent alignment between your personal principles and standards at one end of the spectrum; and your organisational values. In case your own orientation of values vis-à-vis your organisational one is not in sync, things will always grind you to preclude attainment of your objective. You would have had experiences when your output plummeted due to feelings of being at the wrong place or because you were simple trying to be something that you otherwise were not. The fact is that if you are a square peg in a round hole, you will invariably continue to burn up your verve and spirits wastefully. On the other hand, if you be your true and genuine figure and play your part accordingly, you will be better poised to attain sky-scraping success.

· Physical & mental robustness: All professions are stressful, but work pressures should not make you collapse. In most instances, people pay no regard to this vital imperative. It is essential that you remain in good health otherwise you will not be able to keep your mind strong and clear. And without a strong and clear mind, you simply cannot achieve any success. Remember that if you lack physical and mental robustness, your performance by itself will be sickly; and hence attaining objectives or accomplishing success will always elude you. After all, health and success naturally beget each other.

· Good networking: You can make an entry into a workplace alright, but you simply cannot subsist there without appropriate networking. This might seem like a daunting task at first, but after some practice, you will acquire the correct state of mind to establish contacts and widen your network.  You have to be able to relate to people and they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to have a good relationship. And when you are surrounded with people who are ever-willing to help you, your prospects of success stand greatly enhanced. So, if you neglect relationships, you do so at your own risk.

The perfecting of yourself is the fundamental base of all your progress and development. And perfecting yourself is contingent on the efforts that you make. No matter what transpires and no matter how distant you think you are from wherever you aspire to be in your career, you should not stop believing that you will somehow make it.  You must harbour an indefatigable conviction that things will work out, that the long road ahead has a purpose and that the things that you desire may not happen today, but eventually they will.  Keep it up and keep at it, your chosen path shall always remain promising.