Mistakes and the Magic Wand

No one can boast that they have not screwed up at least once in their lives. Even the so-called most successful people and filthy rich people will have more than one instance in their life or success journey when they have made wrong decisions or wrong choices, and have acted in glaringly unwise ways. Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, also confesses that he has committed blunders due to which he incurred losses to the tune of millions of dollars. He says, “If the size of your failures isn’t growing, you’re not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.” The points he and several such successful people insist on are that you have to learn from your mistakes, have self-belief, and develop the habit of thinking out-of-the-box to succeed in your life. Apart from desisting from committing the same mistakes, you have to avoid committing certain other mistakes as well. Let us dwell upon them a little more.

1. The decisions you make should never affect your credibility.

If you make decisions or if you act in a manner that can negatively impact your credibility, you will be affected in more than one way. Firstly, you will lose your self-confidence. When the whole world knows that you are a person with a low-credibility tag, you will be looked down upon. Such a situation will never allow you to act with focus and confidence and therefore, achieving your life's goal may become difficult.

2. Not building your goodwill account.

The foremost step to building a goodwill account is to develop relationships. The next and perhaps, more important step is to extend all possible support to those in your network. For example, if you are working for an organization, you should try to develop cordial relationships with other employees including your higher-ups and subordinates. You must then use every opportunity to extend your support to them. Only then, you can build and strengthen your goodwill account. Never forget the fact that if you ask for favors from those in your network, your efforts to build your goodwill account will get nullified. 

3. Not having a "success" mindset. 

If you want to succeed in achieving your career or life goal but if you have a mediocre mindset, you will never move an inch from where you are. For example, if you want to become a millionaire, you should have an "abundance" mindset. Similarly, if you want to have the career growth you have been aiming at, you must watch and emulate how your role model thinks, acts, and behaves. Your role model may be within your organization or he or she may have achieved phenomenal career growth in other fields.

Simply put, only if you transform the ways how you think and act, you can achieve what you want. Similarly, you must be ready to take the required action as well. A classic example is the case of a person who wishes to shed his extra pounds. Unless this person wakes up early and hits the gym regularly and on a daily basis, he cannot accomplish his aim. If he keeps procrastinating taking action or if he does not get into the action habit, he will never lose his excess baggage on his corporeal frame. In other words, having mediocre habits such as not taking the required action or having a negative mindset, and aiming high may tantamount to oxymoron-like situations.

So, in order to achieve the success you have been aiming at, you must refrain from committing these mistakes. Once you put yourself on the path of doing the right things at the right time, you can pretty well assume that the magic wand that can get you phenomenal success has become yours.

Double Your Chances of Getting Promotions in Your Organization.

Being a hard-working and sincere employee, you may often be wondering why you and your contributions are not being recognized by your boss or the company management. You may get frustrated as well. Though such situations are bad, you can double the chances of being recognized, rewarded, or promoted. You may wonder how. Please read on. 

Being resourceful and resilient is not enough; You should be relentless.

If you think that your skills and your trait of being resilient are enough, you are wrong. You should be relentless also. Only then, you can find ways for helping you dominate the situation and achieve what you want. The simple mantras are 1. Get more creative. 

2. Work still harder.

In addition, you can use the following few tips also for increasing your chances of getting the recognition you think you deserve in your organization. 

Learn to quantify your contribution to the company.

It is true that the quality of your skills is very important. But you should be able to quantify the contribution you make to the company as well. As the quote says, "There is strength in numbers." Even Peter F. Druker, one of the renowned management experts of the modern era says, “What gets measured gets managed.” Unfortunately, most of the employees do not quantify their contribution to their organizations. They stumble around and this leads to catastrophic results. 

You do not buy a car without knowing its price, the mileage it gives, and the maintenance costs you are likely to incur on it. Similarly, an anesthetist cannot administer the right dose without knowing the bodyweight of the patient and the surgical procedure involved. Setting a career goal is analogous to these. Unless you do not know how much business you can and will bring to your company or how much profit the company will make thanks to your contribution, you cannot improve. This means setting a career goal will itself become an insincere effort.

If you fail to quantify your contribution to your company, you will be dependent on your emotions and not on logic while fixing your career goal. Remember that almost all the decisions made using your emotions will be wrong. 

On the contrary, if you are able to quantify your contribution, you can work towards improving your performance and output so that you can grow in your company.

Compromising on your expectations is wrong.

We come across several employees who compromise on their expectations when they find that the results they want to have are not forthcoming. This is wrong. You cannot conclude that things will never work in your favor just because there are downtimes. Instead of lowering your expectations, you must change your strategies. Of course, ordinary and average folks bring down their expectations. Some of them may quit the race as well. Really ambitious people never make compromises on this front. Since your aim is high, you should be ready to double or even treble your efforts. 

Use social media as a business-booster and not otherwise.

Hundreds or even thousands of folks waste their time and lives by scrolling on social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter. Instead of indulging in such wasteful activities, you can use these sites as platforms for providing suggestions related to the field in which your company is operating. The reach of social media is phenomenal and hence, this strategy will help in expanding your influence in the industry. 

You can even write blog posts to express your opinions and provide your suggestions. You can post these blog posts on social media sites. Never forget the fact that creators of such content have always been the most sought-after clan. So, by continuously providing invaluable suggestions, you will increase your chances of getting recognition and landing elevated positions in your company and field.

Today's discipline and pain will lead you towards tomorrow's freedom.

Jim Rohn, a renowned personal development guru, says, “We must all suffer one of two types of pain. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is that discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.” If you choose the former pain, you will easily grow and achieve stupendous success.

Never stop learning.

This is yet another important step that may catapult you to higher positions in your organization. You will find that there are several sources from which you can learn. Even the behaviors or activities of other employees may teach you a few important lessons. So, keep observing people, how they behave, act, or make decisions. You can imbibe the right lessons and put them to use whenever necessary. Simply put, always keep looking for lessons to learn.  

The above steps are based on common sense. If you implement them consistently, you are certain to double or even treble your chances of getting to the top in your organization.