Know if you are doing well at work or not

When you are at work and working hard, you may still have doubts if you are indeed doing well. You may ponder if whatever you are doing is creating the desired impact. Such concerns may be superfluous because ostensibly they could be generated by disturbances in work currents caused by excessively busy schedules or even differences with your co-workers. It may also be possible that your co-workers and others are reluctant to acclaim your efforts for reasons best known to them. Therefore, it is your responsibility to watch out for indirect telling indications to suggest that your work is being appreciated.  

You will not be able to excel in your assigned responsibilities if you do not take delight in it. A lack of enthusiasm towards your work will probably preclude you from coming to it all together. On the other hand, you can always be happy at work if your efforts are acknowledged. But it is likely that you fail to notice appreciative feelings. It is possible for you to evaluate your overall performance at work by some introspection. You should gauge your work and performance in the backdrop of three yardsticks:

· Meeting various job expectations set out for you: Every job has a set of fundamental expectations that would be defined as a charter of responsibilities and made known to you at the time of hiring. It is necessary that you are fully aware of them. And more importantly, you should know for yourself if you have discharged them satisfactorily or not. You could be fulfilling the minimum that is expected of you, but your boss and others could expect additional contributions. And unless you do that, things may not prove to be really rosy. You need to exert more and deliver more if you really seek to excel and rise up. Hard work will entail pain, but then you have to experience it to inherit the gain.

· Willingness to walk the extra mile: When we talk of additional tasks, they imply those that others do not do. You will have an assigned charter, but you still need to shoulder responsibilities that are beyond it so that you are able have the spotlight on you. And when you indulge in such volunteering, your contributions will be seen as worth-augmentation initiatives because of new ideas that you will put forth. Just in case if you are not clear about how to go about doing this, remember that all organisations seek to boost productivity levels and make maximum profits. You can make significant contributions in this regard by suggesting interior economy measures. At the end of the day, it is what you contribute beyond your primary responsibilities that will matter and make you stand out. Remember that you were not born to just trudge along like others; you were born to make a difference. And you can make a difference if you are willing to walk the extra mile.

· Estimations of others about you & your work: You should have a clear discernment of how others feel about you and the work that you ought to be doing. This discernment is significant because in any business environment, it is the discernment that constitutes actuality. You simply cannot work in quarantine and be oblivious of what your seniors and others who matter expect of you. If you are unaware and unmindful of their acuities, you doing well will be of no consequence. Therefore, you should make serious efforts to obtain responses and reactions to the way you work and results you achieve. It is essential that you stay line up with their outlooks and anticipations.

It is your responsibility to watch out for all pointers of appreciation, howsoever small they may be. The indicators will be apparent when:

· People talk to you and about you reverently: The timbre and style in which people engage in conversation with you will manifest their respect for you. It is an established fact that if a person is liked and valued, people to him or her more deferentially. All upbeat remarks attributed to you will manifest a positive impression that you have created in the minds of others.

· Others come to you for assistance & support: If you find that people look up to you for guidance and direction, it should be indicative of how valuable your views are and how conscientious you are perceived to be.

· Additional work is assigned to you: You can be convinced that your efforts are not going waste if you are assigned additional tasks because they manifest trust in you and also your capacity to shoulder added accountabilities. And if it happens that you are required to be the head of a project, it will go to prove that your headship attributes are acknowledged by the environment.

You stand the best chance of success at work if you can discern responses and reactions from people; they will serve to signpost to you whether you are on the correct course or not. The main thing however, is to persist with whatever you are supposed to do. And the bottom line of course is to take pleasure in your work.

Pivotal actions to develop your career

In order to succeed in your career and life, you need to be possessing acute self-awareness, requisite wherewithal and necessary skills. Irrespective of where you work or the nature of it, you should be able to discern what you can excel at and improve upon yourself.

The process of selecting a career path and planning to develop it calls for personal foresight and forethought. Your career journey cannot be expected to be a smooth sail; there will be ups and downs. Such demanding circumstances will call for serious reflection and effective decision-making. And your decision-making ability will be contingent on the quantum of information at your disposal and knowledge in your possession. Since knowledge is truly empowering and facilitates informed decisions, you stand to great advantage if you have it. However, you need to know what your knowledge deficiencies are and take appropriate action for its acquisition. Once available, it will require scrutiny and examination.

You could be at any stage of your career planning – selecting options, formulating a road map or evaluating a job offer – your decision-making abilities will be critical for your career development. You may even want to go in for a career change, but before you explore any such option, you will have to compulsorily comprehend what you are all about. You will need to be aware of yourself, your inherent capabilities, your principles, your propensities and your current position or status in your career journey. It is only after having done so that you should identify a new profession or job.

There are basically eight different but highly decisive actions that you need to take for your career development. They are:

· Gauge your aptitudes: You need to be aware of your abilities and proficiencies which could pertain to performing specific tasks, observation, communication skills, learning prowess and social attitude, etc. In other words, you need to be aware of your preferences and propensities. Once you are cognisant of and responsive to them, you can plot your career development with ease.

· Evaluate your dexterities: You always learn and develop your expertise and capabilities. But your capacities and aptitudes are inborn. Your dexterities and skilfulness are utility-focussed undertakings that over a period of time, you hone. Training, guidance, usage and practical run-throughs contribute towards improvement of your skills. It is all contingent on how you make use of and benefit from your intrinsic adeptness in acquiring handiness; the more speedily, effortlessly and effusively you acquire such handiness, your career development will be accordingly expedited.

· Recognise your individual panache: Every person possesses advanced outlines of speech and non-verbal communications; common and collective expedients; and character and behavioural individualities that are exclusive. People tend to always act in positive response to individual approaches and hence it is necessary to identify what those approaches are in your context. Knowing them will help you connect with other people better.

· Discern your appeals: A person is able to develop his concerns and interests with the passage of time. If you are clear about what appeals to you or what fascinates you, you can coalesce them with your capacities and aptitudes to be able to bring about a cohesive and thorough utilisation of both towards your career development.

· Know your personal annals: Your life and work principles are influenced and modelled by your family and upbringing. You should be well-aware of the manner in which your background and family history, including bonds therein have inspired, shaped and changed you as an individual.

· Connect with your principles: Your principles and standards prompt you to judge people and things. You are thus able to differentiate between issues that are ethical or[H1]  iniquitous, sensible or irrational and upright or vile. In other words, you are able to describe your reactions to people and happenings in your vicinity. If your mindfulness of your principles and standards are amalgamated with your knowledge of other dynamics, you evidently are poised better to accentuate your strategies and options for evolving a better career development.

· Attain your objectives: It is the objectives that you set for yourself that impel you to act on a continual basis. Whatever inborn capacities and aptitudes that you possess can prompt you to alter your objectives.

· Confront current issues: Every person has to face typical and critical phases or changes in his or her life. These phases could well be pertinent to your job or career or even both. Practically all career issues are either self-generated or prompted by outside causes like company shutdown or retrenchment. If you are able to define and look at developments provoking you currently, you will be able to come out with ways and means to overcome such transitions. Consequently, you will be able to make informed career decisions.

You need not restrict your thinking about success because you can always achieve what your mind allows you to achieve. It is your own resolution to be successful that matters the most. Let success not remain a dream; you can transform it into a reality by knocking off your slumber and work hard to attain it.

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Kick off impressively on your new job

The initial two months at a new job are critical. You need to actually lay the foundations of a ‘good you’ to ensure that your career is on course. Your aim should be to embark on your career journey with purpose and gusto; and excel in it. After all, definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

That you have landed a new job, you deserve kudos for it. It is up to you now to live up to your promises made and assurances given when you were being screened by the interviewing panel. You have to deliver everything that you are unreservedly required to do. Some hints to simplify your embedding at the new job so that you kick off impressively are:

· Be aware of what is in store for you: To be able to perform well, you should know for certain what you are expected to do. People err by accepting jobs that hold out high-sounding designations; what is expected of you is to be fully aware of your major responsibilities and what they entail. You should know who your immediate boss is and the people with whom you are required to collaborate. In case your predecessor is available, he or she can provide you valuable inputs on how to go about. However, you will have to take initiative to find out where he or she erred. A clear understanding of how you will be assessed will also help you to work on correct lines. In case if you are viewed as nosy and others are inquisitive and obnoxious, there is nothing wrong in it because it is much better than being people seeing you as a slow, apathetic and incompetent individual at a later stage. Therefore, if you show curiosity and inquisitiveness today, it will help you settle down fast. Needless to state, subsequently you can always calm down and retreat into your individual space subject to all doubts having been cleared.   

· Failing to plan is planning to fail: A goal without a plan is just a wish; therefore, it is essential that you plan for success. Your initial weeks at your job should also be spent in charting your way forward. The route that you select should invariably indicate specific signboards in the form of assignments required to be completed and qualifications that need to be acquired. Evidently, such signboards should be placed at intervals of time. Your planning has to be at both higher and lower planes so that whatever you plan and accomplish can be monitored. When you plan in detail, you get to discern where you are headed to. If you do not know precisely where you’re going, you will not know if you have reached there or not. The plans that you make should be accorded precedence too because that will help you to determine the importance of tasks and the time that you ought to be devoting to them.  You surely do not want to jump off an aircraft and then try to knit a parachute as you fall below. 

· Prime yourself by being well-organised: Organising yourself for your new job implies swotting all the findings you had about your company earlier. You could have been recommended specific studies too and you should do them with due seriousness. The team or section you get assigned to should be requested for all material that can prepare you to make useful contributions at the earliest. Being well-organised calls for planning your moves; this is more pertinent if your charter of responsibilities has been spelt out. It will be in the fitness of things to ponder over your previous performance so that you can identify your weak spots and take remedial action to mend yourself. It is essential that you lay down goals for achievement and envision yourself succeeding at your job by attaining the goals set, acquiring newer expertise and allowing yourself to not repeat past blunders.

· Get involved from the word ‘Go’: At work there is no waiting hall or waiting time. You should start shouldering responsibilities immediately. This will portray an image of your fervour, readiness and resolve to make useful contribution. But you must exercise caution when you make promises that you are unable to keep. Your aim should be to have more output and a faster output so that you add value to your work and name.  It is also essential that you do not deviate from principled tenets.

· Keep your eyes & ears open: Though learning is always an eternal process, the initial days at work are actually all about it. You should shed all your rigidity and take off with an open mind. Keeping your eyes and ears open does not imply keeping quiet; you must clarify all your doubts by asking questions. If you try and practise what you did at your last job or emulate what others did at your previous work, you are likely to alienate yourself from your new friends and bosses. What you ought to do is to mingle well with your fellow colleagues and help them out if the need arises. Remember that when you pay attention, you enjoy vitality and versatility; you connect with others well and makes you eager.

Remember that most organisations function on a system that recognises abilities and potential in that utmost importance is attached to your professional knowledge and expertise. But that does not mean that you have to indulge in unhealthy competition and deviousness to move up. Work hard and honestly; and your work will speak of you.

Being happy with your career

While at college, everyone has some dreams – visualisations of things that we would like to attain in life. But as years roll by, quite a few amongst us suffer are and suffer from feelings of having botched up. You could be in a good paying job, yet feel discontented with it because you feel that you are stuck in a pursuit that carries no great weight. You tend to doubt if at all the job you are in is your cup of tea.

They say that a cat has nine lives and you have just one. There is no scope of living it over again. External influences and intensities coupled with bad judgements can unsettle and wreck you unannounced. Therefore, you need to safeguard your interests and make certain that all your career moves are apt. You need to particularly make certain that your hunt for contentment and sense remains unhindered. 

It is unfortunate but true that quite a few people select a job without understanding what it is all about or what it holds out for them. We tend to consider things from incorrect perspectives and act in haste. And then there happens to be no alternative left but to accept it as fait accompli. We are forced to rationalise our action and believe that it is not realistic to pursue something that we are passionate about.

Any decision that pertains to your career or life should be prompted by three guarantees – being successful and happy in the career that you enter; maintaining a good work-life balance so that happiness enjoyed gets a boost; and living a life that is principled and honourable.  Have you given thought to these issues or closed your eyes to them? The fact is that in our quest for instant and short-term advantages and rewards, we generally erase from our mind possible aftermaths of our decisions and actions.

When you make a career choice, it is not about getting a good job that pays you well or offers you good perks. It extends much beyond that. It is your work value that matters more than anything else, because invariably work value influences your individual life and has a great bearing on it. The satisfaction and delight that you derive from your work is contingent on the worth and import of it.

It is essential that you do what is known as tactical planning to live your life. The planning that you do has to be practical and sensible; and devoid of any rigidity in any form. Your plan has to be such that you do not get stuck while meeting emerging contentious situations and prospects. The fact that you and your company can be successful only if you cater for strategic swings cannot be afforded to be lost sight of. Likewise, similar principles are applicable in your individual domain. You invariably need to begin with a distinct and precise plan that does not allow you to deviate from your principled standpoints.

That every individual seeks to lead a meaningful life is a truth beyond doubt; this craving amongst people has been in existence since centuries. It is also a fact that nobody can offer nippy solutions to widespread problems that plague us. However, if you can strap up some concepts and thingies, the process of making choices can be rendered simple and trouble-free.

The basic question that needs to be answered is the methodology that you need to adopt to apportion your time, fortes and efforts. That is what will define your line of action. The maiden requirement is to identify what matters most and least to you in your career. You will encounter major problems when your line of action is not in harmony with various imperatives that make you feel exultant and contented. You simply cannot afford to be guided by impulse or at the behest of anybody who happens to be more vocal than others. If you do so, you will be all set for times that will be ambiguous and unrewarding.

You should be also clear about what inspires you. Any ambiguity with regard to the link between stimuli and inspiration should be dispelled. It should be understood that contentment and discontentment are two distinct phenomena, irrespective of each other. Had they not been so, you would have never got to like or dislike you job simultaneously.  

Factors that result in discontentment at work can be broadly classified into two categories – feeling-generating and import generating. The former comprises, inter alia, organisational approaches, superintending systems, congenial working conditions, salary structure and prestige. If all these conditions are fulfilled, you are unlikely to be discontented with your job. It will be a different thing that you may not truly like your job, but you will not detest it totally. On the other hand, import-generating factors are exciting assignments, appreciation for jobs well done, accountability and individual progress. They are highly dynamic by themselves and make you believe that your efforts and exertions are indeed telling; you get inspired by the inherent settings of the work per se.  

The above two factors explain the reason why people gifted with particular flairs and who harbour the best intentions get to be disenchanted after making a career choice. If your choice is prompted by feeling-generating factors, you are more likely to suffer disenchantment and demoralisation. They are important considerations alright, but do not necessarily increase your oomph levels or give wings to your passions. Issues related to the relevance of work, prospects for growth, getting recognition and shouldering enhanced responsibilities are equally important to derive happiness.

The truth behind being happy with your career lies in discovering one and then devoting yourself to it. You will have to fall in love with it. After all, the [H1] most horrible days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who do not.

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