Position Yourself for Career Success

What exciting times! A New Year and new opportunities are everywhere. What approach are you taking for making progress this year? Continuing along the same path you’ve been on? Things may be working for you quite well with your current approach. That’s great if that’s the case. If not, you may want to reconsider your approach and try something new. One way in which you can position yourself for progress and success in the New Year involves looking back and reflecting upon what went well and what could’ve gone better during the past year. Click here to complete brief personal and professional assessments that can help you identify progress, successes and areas for improvement. Then, if you haven’t set goals for the New Year, use your responses to save yourself time, energy and money to create a challenging but realistic plan for success this year. If you have set your goals consider modifying them as necessary.

Reflecting upon our past performance, current situation and aspirations can be useful as we plan for greater career success (however you define success) this year. Use this to your advantage and don’t forget to celebrate your progress and successes. Consider the ways in which you can leverage your strengths along with the ways in which you can improve. Too often we focus on improving to the extent that we overlook the ways in which we can use our strengths to achieve even more progress. We also tend to forget to celebrate our accomplishments. This is so easy for workaholics and over-committed professionals to do because they’re already working on what must be achieved next. What’s it all for if we can’t enjoy it?

Your career success most likely depends upon others in many ways. Opportunities, support and business all depend upon relationships. Do you have the relationships established that can help you reach your goals? Adding value helps strengthen relationships so think about the ways in which you can add value to others during the year and remember that relationships are built upon sharing and trust. Sharing who you are with others helps them understand what makes you unique and your uniqueness can attract attention—attention that leads to opportunities. The events in your life, the jobs you’ve held and the impact you’ve had on the lives of others have been integral in your development. They do not describe who you are but instead connect to create a journey that is your life that’s resulted in the person you’ve become. Your uniqueness resides in the person you are now. Sharing your story with others helps them understand how you view the world and how you developed your views. Your story can also help others understand how you can add value to their lives. Tell your story and build more meaningful, lasting relationships this year.

Photo by Thomas Hawk, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.