Job Seekers! Reframe Your Goals to Have More Opportunities

You have been yearning to land a good job. Though you have been putting forth efforts, you have not succeeded yet. Your failure to land a job may have resulted in frustration. It is an inarguable fact that the bloat of your frustration negatively impacts your confidence,  and so, you cannot perform well in interviews. Thanks to your failures in interviews, you understand that something is wrong with your approach. But you do not know how to correct your approach. This post may help you. The post may help those who already have jobs but are not able to advance in their career ladder.

1. Your failure to land a job is truly upsetting, but.......

You are upset, and it is natural. Things have not worked the way you wanted. Especially when you look at your friends who have already landed jobs, your frustration reaches intolerable levels. What should you do now? You should first understand that landing a job need not be your ultimate goal. It is not the end of the world. It is certainly a big step, but if you think only those who are employed will succeed in life, you could not be more wrong. If you peep into the annals of history, you will find that even those who have not landed a job have succeeded in their lives. This is not to imply that one should not look for a job. The advice is that if you are not able to land a job, you should not conclude that you cannot succeed in your life.

2. Make genuine efforts to improve yourself.

You can improve yourself in several other ways. To name a few, you can improve your persuasion and communication skills, enhance your personality by becoming a knowledgeable person, or fine-tune your conversational abilities. While making these efforts, you must ensure that these capabilities reach usable levels. By reading extensively alone, you can improve these capabilities. Develop the reading habit. You should read whatever you lay your hands on. This will help in expanding your knowledge. You can use the knowledge and insights you gain by adopting "cross-pollination" and "cross-fertilization" techniques. But you must ensure to use these techniques naturally and effectively.

You must change your attitude as well, if necessary. For example, if you are an introvert, you must take immediate steps to correct yourself. Similarly, if you have a negative mindset, you must try to become an optimist because negativity does not come alone. Along with it come failure, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and mood swings. 

If you think you are not able to make concrete decisions, it is high time you showed this habit the door. Indecision gives rise to ambiguous situations, so there will be no clarity at all in your life. The degree of your frustration and pain indeed clouds your decision-making abilities. 

Once you rid yourself of these things, your enthusiasm levels will get turbocharged. So, bright things will certainly happen in your life. In other words, you should reframe your goals to succeed in your life. Instead of lamenting over not landing a job, you should make sincere attempts to improve yourself in all possible ways. Fabulous opportunities will come your way once you start treading on this path.

This Particular Thing May Be Holding You Back from Achieving Big in Your Life or Career.

It is a known fact that goal-setting is important in life. Especially, if you are looking at extraordinary success, it is imperative that you should set goals. You may wonder why the plural form of the word "goal" is being used here. The purpose is that if you succeed in achieving a particular goal, that is not the end of it. Never forget the fact that success is a continuous journey and not at all a destination. This means that once you achieve a particular goal, you must fix another goal as your target and move on. Only if you keep setting goals one after another, you can grow on a continuous basis. If you do not adopt this approach and get complacent after achieving a goal, you are certain to stagnate. Never forget the fact that stiff competition rules the roost out there and unless you keep achieving one goal after another, others will surpass you.

Therefore, it is quite evident that getting complacent is the foremost obstacle that can prevent you from achieving big. This means if you want extraordinary success, you have to bring about a major change in your outlook. Though it is easier said than done, it is not impossible. Let us find out how you can change your mindset and set your eyes on big achievements in your life or your career.

It is your mindset that limits your growth.

If you believe that you can grow only up to a particular level, you are right. On the other hand, if you believe you can achieve big things, even then, you are right. Simply put, it is your mindset that limits your growth. So, you must change your belief if you want to achieve big in your life or career. 

Supply evidence to your mind.

The human brain always tries to rationalize things. It wants evidence to support beliefs. That is the reason you are asked to read the biographies of successful people. You must particularly choose the biographies of those people who started from scratch and built big empires or businesses or accomplished great feats. Once you supply such evidential materials to your brain, your brain will be ready to believe your big beliefs.

Talk to your mind.

We humans cannot live without talking. Of course, the quantum of talking of some people may be less while some folks talk incessantly. As you talk to others, you can talk to your mind also. You should argue with your mind and challenge it to free itself from the shackles of your limiting beliefs. If you talk to your mind frequently, it will dispense with all of those limiting beliefs. In due course of time, your mind will acquire a new mindset that can help you perceive things with a new and "I can" perspective. 

By adopting this strategy, you can remove the main obstacle that has been holding you back from achieving big. 

Two Pairs of Hypnotic Words That Can Change the Journey of Your Life.

You may have a desire and though you yearn to get it fulfilled, you allow it to remain useless and go the "stale" way by not taking the most appropriate steps to get it translated into a concrete result. Therefore, you continue to lead an ordinary life without any thrill or happiness. The journey of your life is similar to billions of people who just come into this world, lead a normal or sub-normal life, and leave the planet without creating any ripples. But you should ponder if this is the right way to lead your life. 

The problem is several people including you are always surrounded by "naysayers." When you share your passion with them, they will immediately come out with umpteen number of reasons for preventing you from pursuing your dream. In fact, you yourself have been looking for some alibi or the other for escaping from the drudgery, if any, that may be involved in following your passion. The main reason for your attitude of not taking any step is that you are afraid either of failure or of success in your efforts.

You should first understand the fact that failure and success are integral to the process of learning. If you fail in your efforts, it shows that you have committed a few mistakes. You should take a detour for analyzing those mistakes and finding out ways of avoiding them. Remember that if you skip the step of analyzing and finding out the ways of avoiding those mistakes, you will continue to repeat them. So, you will never move ahead in your journey of achieving your desire. Remember the words of the Bard who said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity." The adverse situations created by your mistakes will teach you several useful and more often, very big lessons.

Even if you succeed in your efforts, it does not mean that you have not committed any mistakes. Perhaps, your passion and the efforts you have put in have been so strong that they have nullified the impact of your mistakes. You should, therefore, analyze the process you have undertaken even if you have succeeded in your efforts. Only then, you can make your journey towards your goal smoother and silkier.

Now the point is: How to change the course of your life's journey? There are two pairs of words you should get imprinted in your mind. If you get these words etched in your mind and if you keep reminding yourself of them, you will find it easy to dispense with your alibis and begin your journey of pursuing your passion.

Two pairs of words that can create this positive impact.

"Bypassing the gatekeepers" and "taking action" are the two pairs of words that can suitably nourish your head and inspire you to leap into action.

Bypassing the gatekeepers.

You should ignore the advice and suggestions of the "naysayers" who are bent upon discouraging you and not allowing you to pursue your passion. These gatekeepers are negativity-breathing dragons and are worthy of being bypassed and their suggestions deserve getting slain. Never, never heed their advice. Once you are clear about your goal, you should immediately devise a plan for pursuing your passion. The plan should consist of concrete steps. Of course, the plan should not be cut-and-dried. There should be flexibility for changing or modifying the steps if necessary or if there are bumps.

Taking action.

You will not move even an inch towards your goal if you do not take action on your plan or steps. You should start taking action on them. You need not worry even if you make incremental improvements. But you should ensure that you are consistent in taking action. Remember that every step matters, however small or simple they may be. Only then, you can achieve the goal you are passionate about. 

If you are persistent with your "stick-to-it-ivity" especially in implementing the essence of these two pairs of words, you can certainly change the course of your life's journey.

Develop an Addiction for Success

Those who followed the Apollo 13 Mission may know what the commander of the mission said. If what he said is paraphrased, the meaning is: "Failure is not an option." Experts opine that if you are aiming for a huge success in your career or in your life, you should develop a similar attitude. 

In this context, I am reminded of how a friend of mine, who was constructing his own house in a suburb, had always been making it a point to earn at least 100 bucks every day, the reason being he had to pay wages to the construction workers every evening. There was no day on which he went home without this money. The inference from this is that if your aim is to succeed in your career, you should have no other option. Success should be the only option for you. You should work with such an intensity that your whole life or your very existence depends on it. If you work like that, there is no reason why you will not succeed.

When you change your mindset accordingly, you will find that all your qualms vanish and that all your fears evaporate. But how to change your mindset is the question now. Let us find out.

There are two types of fear that may afflict people who aim to succeed. Some people have a fear of failure. You may be afraid that you may fail in your attempts and that you will be ridiculed by others. This fear is so powerful that it will put you into the clutches of "The Devil of Inertia." This devil will not allow you to take the steps required for achieving success. 

Another fear is the fear of success. There are people who are afraid of success as well. These folks think that if they succeed, others may ridicule them by quoting the infamous statement "Fortune favors fools" and that they have adopted short-cuts or false ways for achieving success. 

But in reality, both these fears are unfounded. The findings of several studies conducted on success-related fears reveal that whether you succeed or fail, nearly 80% of the people do not care about it. Which is greater, 80% or the remaining 20%? Why do you need to worry about 20% of people? That is why you are advised to focus on your efforts in such a manner that your very existence depends on their positive outcome. Such a focus and a craving-like addiction for success will get you whatever you want in life. 

Get Rid of the Barriers That Stop Your Career Growth

An expert has once said that there are no barriers to the entrepreneurial world. The fact that the number of startup companies has been increasing at a very rapid pace might have been the reason behind this observation. Whether these startups are able to sustain in the competitive environment that is prevalent now is a different question altogether. While talking about the entrepreneurial world, you may ask what the situation is in the job market. The job market does not have barriers also. This point needs elaboration.

According to Parkinson's Fourth Law, "The number of people in any working group tends to increase irrespective of the amount of work to be completed."  Let us not debate if this law is right or not. But the fact remains that job opportunities are aplenty. But unless you acquire the talent required for the job you wish to land, you cannot achieve your dream. Therefore, the foremost step for landing the job you aspire for is to acquire the required knowledge and skill. But will you get complacent once you land the job that you have been aspiring for? In fact, if you get complacent at this stage, you can never grow in your career. This means you have to set your eyes on higher levels in order to climb the career ladder. Here are a couple of suggestions that may help you in this process.

1. Acquire the "I Care a Damn" attitude.

When others come to know that you are aiming high and trying to acquire more knowledge and better your skill, most of them will discourage you. Some of these folks may be jealous. A few among them may perhaps be traditional-minded and hence, according to them, aiming high may be a taboo. Some fo these traditional-minded people may even opine that contentment is the best virtue, and aspiring to move on to the highest level is nothing but avarice. There is another group of people who are negativity-personified and so, they will discourage you also. Yet a few others can not just tolerate if someone grows. They will derive a sadistic pleasure if others get defeated and doomed. 

In short, you are bound to confront a lot of criticisms and discouraging comments. You can not move an inch forward if you react to or worry about such javelins and jibes. Therefore, you are advised to learn and practice what is known as the "I Care a Damn" attitude. As Dale Carnegie puts it, "Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck." Hence, do not worry about what others say and be sincere in your efforts so that your climb can be as smooth as possible.

2. Never relent even if you face hurdles.

During the course of your journey towards career success, you will certainly confront challenging situations. You should not give up even when such situations threaten your aspiration. You should be resilient enough to use your resources and tide over such situations. But there may be situations when you may not have the resources that are normally required for tiding over such situations. In those instances, you must be innovative and look for using the resources that are available with you. For example, if you do not have a camera for doing your work, you can use your mobile phone for taking photos or shooting videos. If you do not have a credit card, you can explore the possibilities of using PayPal, Shrill, etc. for making your transactions. In short, if you apply your mind, you can always come out with innovative solutions, whatever may be the situation you may face.

To summarize, you must have a strong desire to achieve your goal. You must have faith in yourself as well. You should be committed and focused also. These three are the most important ingredients required for making the tastiest of recipes, which is called "success."   

A Keystone Habit That Can Help You Become Unstoppable in Your Career Growth

As an employee, you may want to have accelerated growth in your career. Especially, when you see some of the most successful people occupying very high positions, you may be puzzled over the conundrum as to how they have climbed the career rungs so quickly while you are still struggling. According to experts, the main reason for your career struggle is your mental blocks though there are several other factors that determine the success or failure of a person. This means you must ensure to eliminate these mental blocks first in order to tread confidently on your success path. Let us find out more about this.

What are the steps you must take for eliminating the mental blocks that do not allow you to climb the career ladder?

1. The foremost impediment to your career growth is YOUR PSYCHOLOGY or thought process. You have to drive out those thoughts that clutter your mind. Never forget the fact that thoughts alone govern your attitude. There are scores of instances to show how highly talented people are NOT considered for high positions just because they have attitudinal issues. Therefore, you have to work on your thought process for changing your attitude.

How to work on your thought process? The process goes like this. Sit in a secluded place, do an introspection, and identify those thoughts that do not allow you to take the required action for changing your attitude and accelerating your career growth. This is a very important step because if you do not drive away such thoughts, you will never be able to achieve what you want. Only when you examine and analyze your thoughts, you can rewire your brain appropriately and change your thought process. 

2. Another important step to remove mental blocks is to CONSCIOUSLY DRIVE AWAY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS. It is true that you are human and therefore, it may not be possible to completely eliminate negative thoughts from your mind. But when such negative thoughts knock at the threshold of your mind, it is better not to let them in. Even if they sneak in, do not allow them to stay in your mind for a long duration. But how to do this?  The best way is to replace those thoughts with positive thoughts or ideas. If you keep practicing this process for a few days, you will automatically banish all the negative thoughts from your mind. You can then rewire your brain to think only positive thoughts or ideas. This will bring about a phenomenal transformation in your attitude and will ultimately fast-track your career growth.

This is the keystone habit that can help you in fast-tracking your career growth.

How the Attitude of Mediocrity Can Kill Your Growth

A study says that the number of people who are complacent with their mediocre skills and their learning aspirations is huge. On the other hand, there are people who firmly believe that any level of talent or skill is not enough in the highly competitive environment that is prevalent now. For these latter folks, even the sky is not the limit and they do not even consider age, qualifications, and other barriers as impediments. There are people who are in their eighties who keep studying and enhancing their knowledge levels. In this context, you should understand and realize that if you develop such an attitude, no one on this planet can stall your growth. Let us find out how the attitude of mediocrity can stunt your growth and how the attitude of not getting complacent can help in improving your growth trajectory.

1. It is true that mediocrity may make you comfortable. But it may take a toll on your growth regardless of whether you are running a business or in employment. If you believe that average or normal performance is enough for executing your tasks, you will be increasing the chances of your faltering along your way. This means that your output and performance will be below par. You may commit errors and mistakes as well. Therefore, you may have to repeat the tasks again and again. This may sap your energy as well as your enthusiasm. When your enthusiasm gets a beating, your output will again be much below satisfactory levels. In other words, this may become a vicious circle and so, getting out of this quagmire may become highly difficult for you.

2. If you continue nurturing your mediocrity mentality, it may negatively impact your health as well. Your stress level will increase. For example, if you are employed and if your output or performance is not to the satisfaction of your boss, he or she may ask you to repeat the tasks until he or she is satisfied. Unfortunately, you have always been in possession of the mediocrity mentality and hence, you yourself are not certain if you will be able to improve the quality of your output. This uncertainty coupled with the energy you spend for executing the tasks repeatedly will increase your stress level. It is a known fact that constant stress can lead to serious ailments such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart-related health issues. 

3. Your attitude of mediocrity can rob your peace of mind at the home front. A home is a place where you can enjoy tranquility and peace of mind. But thanks to your mentality and mediocrity habits, you will adopt a cavalier and insouciant attitude towards your close relatives including your spouse and children. Remember that such a lack of concern for them will certainly annoy them and they are bound to get upset with your behaviors and habits. This may lead to avoidable arguments or tiffs within your family, the casualty being the tranquility at your home.

     

4. Another very important point to remember is that your mediocrity mentality will not allow you to utilize the opportunities available on the career front in an appropriate manner. Though every organization affords near-equal opportunities for its employees, it will not be a level-playing field for you because you have chosen a mediocre mentality. Those who believe in acquiring more and more skills and developing their knowledge will be able to move ahead of you and you will find yourself in an unenviable situation. 

The problem with your mediocre mentality is that if you are a team head, your attitude will deprive your team of great achievements also This is because you will either hesitate to make decisions or even if you dare to, you will perpetually make faulty ones. 

How to dispense with this mentality?

These are some of the disadvantages you are likely to encounter owing to your mediocrity mentality. You should, therefore, try and get rid of it. But you have to remember that you cannot achieve overnight success. By taking small and baby steps and achieving small successes, you can boost your confidence. 

You should remember another fact also. You cannot acquire skills in all the areas. Even if you try your best, there are bound to some areas in which you can never become an expert. In this context, it is better to recall a conversation between Bruce Lee, a Hong Kong-American martial arts instructor and philosopher, and another upcoming martial artist. This upcoming artist told Lee that however hard he tried, he could not lift his legs and use them as effectively as his peers did. To this, Lee replied that it was not necessary to acquire that skill, and instead, the artist could develop those skills in which he was strong.

You should apply the same analogy here and focus on your areas of strength and try to develop your expertise in them. You should not get complacent with average-level skills. You should learn to adroitly sidestep roadblocks along the way. You should work hard to become an expert in your strong areas. This will empower you to a great extent. You will be in a position to leverage your skills for achieving enormous success on the career front as well as in your life.  

  

Can You Get Rich Even If You Are An Employee?

There is a general notion among people that only those who do business can become rich. You may also believe in this notion. But in reality, even those who are employed can become rich. The only point is you have to choose the right industry and work for the right company. You can then take steps for becoming a valuable employee for the company. Once your company starts reposing faith in you as you are a valuable employee, you should look for ways to graduate to the next level which is becoming an invaluable employee. Of course, you should know the industry standards and ensure that you get the remuneration you deserve. Of course, these efforts need your commitment, focus, and time. Let us now find out how should go about the whole process. 

1. Choose the right industry.

In any field, there are big organizations. If you get a chance to work for such companies, you will have ample scope for career growth. But remember that in such organizations, the competition will be very strong. This means you will be competing with other employees who are equally smart and committed, if not more, as you are. You should, therefore, make all possible efforts to stand out. Only then, you can command the remuneration you think you deserve. 

Your field may consist of small entities as well. But you should carefully choose that company that has great potential to grow. Only then, you will have a scope for growth in your career. Of course, in such small companies, you may not enjoy the environment that may be available in big corporations. But there will be less competition in these companies. You can push yourself based on the situations and the resultant responsibilities and prove your worth. Once you earn the respect of the top management of these small companies, you can easily earn very well and accelerate your journey towards riches.

2. How to become an employee who is valued by employers.

Proving yourself as an employee who can be valuable to the company is the next step to get rich. But this is not easy. If your commitment and ambition are sporadic and are not strong, you cannot become such an employee which means you can never get rich. Your salary will increase slowly and maybe in single-digit percentages. If you want to have extraordinary increases in your salary package year after year, you should be an extraordinary employee. There are such employees working in the corporate world and the increases some of these employees get in their salaries go even up to 100%. But how to become such a valued employee is the question. The following tips may help.

a) Work smart and bring out the optimum output by adopting innovative ways.

You should be smart enough to bring out your optimum output for which you should adopt innovative ways. But once you complete your work, do not remain idle. Offer your help to other departments. By doing so, you will be expanding your knowledge. Remember that managers of companies will come to know your cooperative attitude very soon. Experts advise that you can even go out of the way to help the staff working in other departments.

b) Try to complete the most difficult tasks as soon as you begin your day's work.

When you begin your official work in the morning hours, your energy level will be at its peak. Hence, you should complete all the difficult and complex tasks during these hours. Prioritize your tasks based not only on urgency and importance but on difficulty level as well. 

Experts advise that it is better you reach your office about 1 hour earlier than other employees and even your boss. This will help complete your tasks more quickly, easily, and without distractions. In the book "How to Become CEO," the author, Jeffrey J. Fox, says, “Arriving to work late signals you don’t like your job very much. Even if you prefer to come in late and stay late, staying late sends the signal that you can’t keep up or your personal life is poor.” By arriving early to the office and by completing your tasks more quickly, you are signaling to your managers that you are different from your peers. This will pave the way for your quick growth in the company.

c) Adopt an enthusiastic attitude.

You should never be a sourpuss. You may be highly talented but if you are a sourpuss, no one will like or respect you. On the other hand, if you are enthusiastic, everyone will happily mingle with you. Your positive attitude will rub on everyone and so, they will also try to do their best for the company. When the company grows, everyone can grow.

d) It is not wrong to say “Yes."

Never say "no" to your boss. Only then, he or she will support you and laud you for your efforts. If you are in the habit of saying "no" or arguing with your boss, you are either irritating him or her or putting spokes in his or her efforts. How can you then expect his or her support? Even if your boss asks you to do an extra task, you should readily take it up.

3) Never hesitate to make your accomplishments known to everyone in the company.

Don't be timid and keep your accomplishments within your bosom. Let them be known to the whole world. This is not boasting but it is self-promotion. But at the same time, guard against bragging. 

3. Graduating from the level of a valuable employee to the level of an employee who is invaluable to the company.

Of course, as an employee whom the managers value highly, you may be getting good salaries. But if you graduate to the next level, the company will never like to lose you. But how can you graduate to that level?

a) If you help your company increase its profits manifold, you will become one of its invaluable employees. There may be only a few like you. So, there may not be much competition for you. You can demand the compensation you think you deserve. In fact, the management itself will readily offer you hefty remuneration. 

By helping in the company's efforts to bring out new products or to improve their existing products, you can increase their profits. You can also come out with viable ideas and suggestions for reducing the costs as well. Similarly, you can give suggestions for marketing the products more effectively. 

Once you become such an invaluable employee of the company, the managers will not want to lose you. They will be ready to offer the best remuneration package as well. This will ultimately help you become rich. 

The Head-Start You Do Not Know You Possess for Your Career Growth

Imagine a scenario. You and another colleague of yours are holding important positions in your company and the rank of both the positions is the same. Suddenly, there is a chance for a promotion for both of you because the person holding that position has resigned. The management has to make a choice now between you and your colleague. How will they decide? Let us find out.

You:

You have all the qualifications required for the position. You have experience as well. You have been winning accolades for the good work you have been able to do. 

Your colleague:

Your colleague is more qualified than you are. He has as much experience in the field as you have. Thanks to the inputs he has been giving the company, the management has been lavish in extending additional perks to him.

The question now is: Who will get the coveted promotion? Before answering this question, let us find out what Phyllis Schneider has to say. In an article entitled "Career Charisma," that he wrote in a magazine called "Working Woman," he said, "The real winners in business and in life, the women and men who are tapped for golden career opportunities, have something extra.

The people with charmed careers have a way of looking at the world that takes top management feel they can do almost any job superbly, that imbues everybody with whom they work with a kind of enthusiastic, winning spirit. Their success is as much a matter of attitude as of hard work and talent. They are optimists. That optimism is astonishingly powerful, and it can be cultivated.

...................The optimist almost invariably has an edge over less enthusiastic colleagues."

In short, if you have an optimistic mindset, you can certainly be confident that the management will choose you for the promotion. So, pause for a moment, and check if you are an optimist or not. If you are not, don't lose heart. You can cultivate this attitude, and once you master it, you can be confident of your career growth.

Mistakes that may not allow you to grow in your career

If you feel that your career is not growing as fast as you wish, it shows that you are committing a few mistakes. Experts assertively say that negative patterns in the way you approach your work may spell doom to your career growth. Therefore, it is imperative that you should change your attitude before it becomes very late. Let us look at some of the mistakes you may be committing.

1. Over-committing and under-delivering

Hordes of people commit this mistake and you may be one among them. You may be in the habit of over-committing, thanks to your enthusiasm and when you begin the tasks that have been entrusted to you, you may realize that the tasks are tougher than what you have originally thought. So, you may not be able to deliver the output you have promised. If this happens repeatedly, employers may rank you very low in their quality audits. 

There can be two reasons for under-delivering. You may either be taking more tasks than your capabilities or may not be putting forth the right kind of efforts. You may be committing beyond your capabilities also. When your employer does not get the output or the results they have been promised, they brand you as 'unreliable'. You should therefore refrain from committing such mistakes so you can avoid losing your increments or promotions.

The only way to regain your reputation is to make only those commitments you are capable of fulfilling and once you make your commitments, you must work hard not only carrying out the tasks with aplomb but to complete them much ahead of deadlines. If you do so for a considerable period, you can regain your reputation.

2. Feeling inadequate

The main obstacle that may be impeding your career growth is YOU. If you have self-doubts and always have a feeling that your capabilities are inadequate, this will turn out to be a prophecy that is certain to come true. This means you will hesitate to take up challenges, will not come out with your opinions even when they are needed and will not re-assure your employer that you are willing and ready to handle critical projects. 

The best solution for keeping your worries and self-doubts at bay is by being busy always. But you must ensure to do useful and purposeful work. You should especially engage yourself in tasks that pull you out of the comfort zone you are cozily enjoying. After some time, you may be inspired to speak up or may volunteer to take up difficult tasks as well. If you fail in the tasks, you must delve deep to learn. Willingness to learn from your failures will help you move ahead and grow in your career.

3. Seeking perfection 

If you have a perfectionist attitude, it will certainly harm your career. According to the Pareto's principle, 20% of your efforts will help you achieve 80% of the outcomes you desire to have. But there are certain outcomes for which you may have to spend 80% of your energy. People with a perfectionist attitude will put forth 80% of efforts and will get only 20% of the results they expect to have. 

Of course, you must aim at 100% perfection if you are sending a space-ship into the skies or when you are involved in a laboratory experiment. Spending more time on an office task may reduce your output. You should set short and very tough deadlines and finish every task. In short, you must know where you must chase perfection and where you must look for conserving your efforts.

4. Ignoring lateral moves 

If you wish to reach a mountain top, you cannot assume that you can go up only by a straight road. In fact, you may encounter insurmountable obstacles if you choose such a straight path. However hard you try, you may be failing repeatedly. But lateral thinking, learning new skills and willingness to go around the mountain may show you new and easy ways. Lateral moves will allow you to view things with new perspectives. At the same time, you must approach issues with a positive outlook and move towards the direction of the goals you have set. Focusing on a single path may delay your growth.

5. Chasing money always

You cannot build your career if you always focus on earning money. You should sometimes accept tasks that may not get you very good money. Similarly, switching jobs just for the sake of earning more is also not right. Especially, if you lack skills for those jobs or if you are not enthusiastic about the tasks involved in them, you will be doing grave injustice to yourself and also to the organization that is offering such a job. Instead, your career plan should purely be based on your current skills and those you are willing to learn.

6. Ignoring relationships for the sake of tasks

It is true tasks are important but ignoring relationships and focusing only on tasks will turn your team against you. Especially, when things are tough, people may let you down. You should be a general who leads his men and not behave like a mercenary. In short, relation-building is as important as completing tasks. Therefore, you must focus on interpersonal skills also while you develop your other job-related skills.

7. Resisting change

If you have the habit of viewing new ideas and concepts with scepticism, it shows that you are fond of only repeatable tasks. By adopting such an attitude, you may soon get fossilised because the modern workplace involves rapid changes in job definitions as well as technology. So, shed your negative attitude forthwith and embrace every workable, new idea willingly. Every task has alternate approaches and so, you should try to learn from the changes that are taking place in thedynamic and modern world.

Stop These Career-Killing Attitudes

When we have unpleasant experiences, many of us tend to put our minds into autopilot and start imagining things. For example, when you do not get the promotion you have all along been thinking you will get, you may immediately come to the conclusion that you are not good enough for getting it. Still worse, you may think that you will never be good enough during your entire career and so, you will never get that promotion.

If such a self-depreciating thinking is an isolated incident, you need not worry. But if you allow a torrent of such thoughts to wreck your life, this is an attitudinal problem. They are also known as cognitive distortions. You must therefore stop them because they may kill your career. If you have this problem, you may tend to interpret a simple event in such a manner that it may cause extreme mental stress. 

The greatest problem with this attitude is it may negatively impact your self-esteem. Eroded self-confidence will affect your productivity. You should therefore know about some of the cognitive distortions so you can stop those attitudes.

Projecting an isolated failure upon every endeavor you undertake

During the course of doing your job, you can not rule out failures. But projecting an isolated failure on future endeavors is wrong. Experts call this as "Black-or-White Thinking."

For stopping this, you must learn to listen how your mind speaks. When you hear your mind speaking such an extreme and unrealistic language, you must push those thoughts out. You must instead recall your past endeavors in which you achieved success. You can also recall the promotions you got or the occasions when you were showered with heaps of praises by your managers and co-workers for well-executed tasks..

Failing to take control of situations when something goes wrong.

When you face a tricky situation and if you allow your negative imagination to fly high, you will not be able to think in the right perspective. Not only that, you may conclude the outcome of the situation may be catastrophic. Such Catastrophic Thinking will not allow you to take control of the situation. 

So, when you face such situations, you must study the situations well to know if there are any areas that can be controlled. You can be certain that regardless of the seriousness of a situation, there may be certain steps upon which you may have control. Therefore, take appropriate action and do your best. This will reduce your stress.

Not allowing the positives to influence your thinking

Risks of failures will always be there. As experts put it, only if you do not take any action, you can avoid failures. But it you fail in a particular task, it is not that you will fail in whatever you do. In fact, you may have accomplished many things in your career. You must not forget those positives. If you forget them, you will be allowing only negative thoughts to reside cozily in your mind. 

The right approach to get rid of this problem is to to forcibly tune your focus only on your positives. You can keep a journal that contains all your accomplishments. Whenever you are staring at a failure, you should immediately take out the journal and go through its contents so you will not allow negative thinking to take on the reins.

Coming to conclusions without knowing the complete facts

When you come across a situation, you should not come to conclusions without studying all the facts completely. This may lead to a lot of stress. You must therefore ask yourself whether you have all the facts and if you have studied them fully. In short, your conclusions should be based only on facts and facts alone.

External control may be a fallacy

Many a time, all of us think that we become victims of circumstances. For example, if you have failed in an interview, you are only responsible for that. You may not have prepared well for the interview session. There is absolutely no external control here. In fact, when you analyze any situation, external control may be a fallacy. You should therefore not blame your circumstances or others for your failures. If you do so, it shows you are not taking responsibility for your life.

To summarize, only if you recognize that you have such attitudes, you will be able to overcome them. You must implant new and different thought patterns in your mind so you can push out the distorted thoughts. If you learn to challenge these career-killing attitudes, you can not only get rid of your stress but can build your self-confidence as well. This will go a long way in helping you climb your career ladder.

This Will Help You If You Feel You Do Not Deserve Your Job

You may frequently earn accolades in your job. Your manager, co-workers and everyone in your office may heap praises on you. You may be getting excellent performance reviews also. But in your heart of hearts, you may be feeling that you do not deserve the job. You may also be constantly afraid that someone in your company will find out that you are not fit enough for the job.

Experts have given a name to this phenomenon and it is called “the impostor syndrome”. According to researchers of Georgia State University, even a number of high achievers have this problem. Dr. Valerie Young who has authored the book "The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women" says that those who have this problem may downplay their achievements or accomplishments and may think that if they can do a job, anybody else can also do. This means these people are looking for reasons outside of themselves to explain their success or achievements.

Such chronic self-doubts are common but they may prevent people from taking up challenges. So, they may fail to realize their fullest potential. If you belong to this group also, you may find the following tips useful so you can overcome this impostor syndrome.

Redefine what competence, success, etc. are

According to Dr. Young, how impostors define competence is not sustainable. Likewise, "success" does not also resonate for some of them because of their thinking that they can not be considered smart. Many of the impostors think that they can be considered successful only if they get a "gold medal" or its equivalent for their work. In short, they think that only if they get perfect performance reviews continuously, if they come out with the right answers for every question and if they are knowledgeable about everything in their field, they can be considered successful. There are yet a few others who feel accomplished only if they move ahead without the help of others.

If you have this impostor syndrome, you may require a big shift in your beliefs. This means you must remind yourself as often as possible that no one can be perfect all the time. You must also remind yourself that equating success with not failing or being perfect is wrong. If have this wrong thinking, you will never learn from your failures and may never grow also.

To have this mental shift, you must change how you do your self-talk. Especially, when you encounter a challenge, the dialogue you have in your head should be something like "this is the right opportunity for learning many things." Of course, this needs a lot of practice but it is not impossible to achieve. Once you make this attitudinal change, you can see wonders.

Validating Your Skills

Even Joyce Roche, who was the Vice President of Global Marketing for Avon Inc. had impostor syndrome despite the fact that she had an Ivy League MBA qualification. It is in her book "The Empress Has No Clothes: Conquering Self-Doubt to Embrace Success", she explains how she got over this problem. She prepared a list of her accomplishments and focused constantly on the list. This proved to be an effective technique for surmounting her problem. By adopting this strategy, she could validate her skills internally and for herself.

Fake It 

To get over your impostor syndrome, you must change your body language suitably so you become a personification of confidence. You may have fear in your mind but if you change your body language and walk holding your head high, you can feel as if confidence is getting infused into your system. 

Amy Cuddy gave a remarkable explanation about this strategy in her TED Talk . According to her, tweaking how you carry yourself will help you change the way your life should unfold. She adds that just two minutes are enough for adopting this strategy and raising the hormones in the body so your leadership qualities and performance levels are enhanced. In short, appropriate body language can help you feel confident.

To summarize, it is easy to get over the impostor syndrome if you redefine success and focus on your accomplishments.