Career success

Career Success and how people react very differently to the waves of change that suddenly flood the workplace environment and jobs marketplace. Some people who feel confused or unsettled struggle to keep their heads above water and are left gasping for air. If only they knew the techniques to take charge of their career...

By contrast, others, who may not even like or agree with the changes, are nevertheless able to accept these changes, get on with their lives and swim forcefully to their new destination.

The following three tactics will help you mobilize your resources to take charge of their careers.

Fuel the fire in your heart.

Live your life and career with intention. The key to sustained peak performance is discovering who you are, what you want in life, and then confidently pursue it. Remember, if you don't have your own mission or purpose get one, or otherwise, all you can do is sign up for someone else's. Remember, if you don't know where you're going, how will you know that you've arrived?

Start by develop a career success line. Prepare a graph that outlines your career highs and lows from your first job to the present. What kinds of activities were you involved in during your highs - during your lows? Continue this getting to know yourself process by locating your inner energy source. What really gets the juices flowing for you? Is it challenge? Helping other? Being creative? Having authority? Making an impact? Whatever motivates you, write it on a card and look at it every morning.

During times of change and uncertainty, you must realize that it's often your outlook or your attitudes - what you bring to work, not what work brings to you - that determines your career success. Can you look at what's happening in the workplace and not take it personally? Can you accept the luck of the draw and move on? Can you bounce back on your own rather than allow yourself to wallow in negative emotions? You must learn to accommodate adversity. It can either break or build character. Which is it doing for you? A major step in overcoming workplace adversity involves learning your basic employee rights.

Forget being the lone ranger.

Are you familiar with the saying: "It's not what you know, but who you know." Well in today's changing work world, the new saying is: "It's not only what you know, it's not only who you know, but, as important, it's who knows you and your work."

First thing to do is to inventory your network. List all the key people in your career world. Are your contacts mostly within your area? Or are there linkages into different departments, divisions, subsidiaries? What about outside your company? What kinds of relationships do you have? Hi and Good by? Or Hi! What have you been doing? Develop relationships with a whole array of people. It's your ticket to career success and advancement and success.

Know and be known. Work groups or teams, not hierarchies, are now doing the real work in today's workplace. How are you going to find out about the latest hot project? How are key people going to know about you and your talents? An active network is the most effective tool fin this age of uncertainty. Realize that contacts are the bread of career life. In times of change, information and relationships are a source of power.