best work Archives - Beat the Odds

Hello Friends,

Eid Mubarak!

After delving inside ourselves during the holy month of Ramadan to recharge and align our mind body and soul, we are now ready to focus once again on our mission and goals in life and incorporate the spiritual learning that we had during this holy month for our results to be even more powerful and hugely impactful.

In this post, I decided to share with you three of my tried and tested techniques on how to take ownership of your career and be the one who “make things happen” in your life rather than “wait for things to happen” to you. Here are your 3 tips for today:

Begin With The End In Mind

A lot of working professionals tend to have a passive and dependent approach towards their career development. They even blame their employers for not investing in them or taking the time to plan their development. Having been in this field for long years now, I’ve learnt that no one would have a genuine interest in developing you better than yourself! The sooner you embrace this fact then start setting meaningful career goals and executing them the better for you. Mind you, this is a great indicator of your maturity.

One of the powerful techniques that I’ve personally implemented in this context was to “Create My Future CV”! In year 2010, when I assumed full responsibility of my career development and started to invest long hours to understand how to do so, I got this inspiration to design how I’d like my CV or Professional Profile to look like in 10 years! I’ve jotted down all the degrees, certifications, positions, and associations that I’d want to achieve by year 2020. Even the timelines were specified in terms of what I’m planning to do year by year. At that time, I used to open my future CV every single day and noticed that the high feelings I used to get from there used to charge me for the whole day. I continued doing this daily for almost 18 months and started seeing visible improvements in my results within 6 months of regular practice. To my surprise, by 2020, my CV looks far incredible and richer than what I’ve originally planned. It’s true that there is a big power in writing your goals and aspirations on paper and looking at these frequently.

Become The Subject Matter Expert

The next big realization I had career wise at that point was if I dare to have such a big vision then the next step should automatically be to master my craft through being aware of the best practices in my industry and field of specialization. I’ve spent a lot of time searching about how to do so. One logical way was to further my education and gain relevant academic degrees and internationally recognized professional certifications in my area of expertise. Simultaneously, I’ve started applying all the fresh learnings and theories I’ve learned in my day job, so this is the second step after learning. I remember sitting with my manager at that time being so excited about all the learnings I was gaining from my education and telling her about it. Since then, I’ve taken on more projects and started new initiatives in my workplace to allow me to practice what I was learning.

So, the secret formula in this matter is to boost your credibility by acquiring the relevant education in your field while you apply the learning on the job in real time to bring about improvement and enhance work performance and results. There is no point in sticking to old ways at work because things become routine and boring and even unproductive after some time of repetition. On the other hand, learning new things without application in reality will not benefit you or your career in any way and you will forget what you have learned after some time.

Benefit Others with Your Knowledge & Expertise

The next technique, which many professionals don’t think about or underestimate is share your knowledge, expertise, and valuable learnings to make other people’s life easier. This way, your influence will not be constrained to your organization’s boundaries. You will have more noble reasons to continue striving and getting better day by day. You got to find creative ways to contribute and make a positive difference in your community and the world using what you know or do. Especially in the times we are living, there are countless ways to give back. It can be as simple as sharing what you know as tips with a colleague who ask for it, coach, or mentor a teammate, write an article on LinkedIn or start a blog and post regularly for people to read and benefit.

The quality of your life is directly influenced by the number of people you help or benefit. There are so many other forms in which you can contribute, you just need to be willing to do it. Just know, that everything you give with love and kindness with the intention of benefiting others, will return back to you in enormous and unexpected ways as blessings in your life.

Remember, no one ever achieved career success overnight without combining these 3 ingredients together, i.e., vision, vocation, and value! And all these take time, efforts, discipline & patience to actualize in your world.

As I always say; the only thing that you must not waste is “Time” and if you are on purpose, you will be able to utilize your time in the best possible way most of the time. Ready to start taking the right steps today?

Start reading my book “Beat The Odds” to acquaint yourself with the most effective practices that I’ve personally applied throughout my work life and achieved incredible results.
Connect with me here to book you complimentary coaching session to discuss how can I be of help in your career journey.
Have a great and productive time ahead 😊

Photo Credits: Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

Hello Friends,

In this post, I’ll share with you three of my tried and tested techniques on how to navigate your way through sophisticated professional scenarios and achieve the success that you deserve. Here are your 3 tips for today:

Become Politically Savvy

If you are aware of the “Law of Polarity”, then you would know that everything in this universe has two “poles”; good and bad, white, and black, beneficial, and harmful and so on. The same applies to office politics, you will be the one deciding how to make it work to your advantage while ensuring not to immerse yourself so much into it to avoid being dragged into the mud.

Even though “Office Politics” term mostly have negative connotation, it’s something you cannot run away from if you are a working professional. It’s a hidden part of the corporate culture in many organizations and one of those things that everyone wish it were not there, still many gets involved in it to some degree during their working life. You cannot turn a blind eye to it, but you can definitely look at it as an exciting game and learn its rules that will enable you to play it smartly and ethically.

Develop your political acumen in a positive manner. Don’t get involved in any sort of negative office politics as it can do more harm than good to you and your professional credibility. Use it in a positive manner to leverage your ability to advance in your career.

Deliver Your Best Work Everyday

One of the golden rules for winning in your professional life in general and office politics in particular is to focus on delivering your best work, day in and day out. You need to become so good at what you do that your employer and colleagues start believing that you are indispensable. There must be some unique style, knowledge base or profound experience that you bring along which will enable you to tackle every challenge that comes your way with wisdom and grace.

Working on merit and constantly surprising your manager and colleagues with creative ideas and excellent outcomes is your best tool and ally to win against unpleasant work situations as well as to transform the workplace vibe from negativity to excitement about the endless possibilities that you and your team can create to achieve success then celebrate the team efforts.

How will you do that? Read the next tip.

Leverage Your Strengths and Talents

Building on the concept of working hard VS working smart in a previous article; career progression requires not only working on your tasks and projects and completing them on time, but it also involves you to equally work on yourself and personal development along the way to establish admirable reputation and compelling brand image in your field and industry. Unfortunately, many professionals don’t realize the wasted time and efforts they’ve put in the wrong tasks/places until it’s late in their careers.

You may have heard this advice several times during your appraisal, that you must focus on your “weaknesses” or “areas of development” to perform better, let me tell you this is a totally misguided suggestion and just a waste of your valuable time. A better advice is to identify your strengths and native talents then capitalize on them by refining and polishing them even more then ensuring everyone around you knows about them.

Focusing on your “areas of development” will make you mediocre, while leveraging on your strengths will highlight you and eventually makes you an expert in your field, so learn where to focus your time and efforts from the beginning. If you are interested in identifying your top strengths, you may undergo the Clifton Strength Finder Assessment which I took and benefited a lot from to learn about my top dominant themes.

Start reading my book “Beat The Odds” to acquaint yourself with the most effective practices that I’ve personally applied throughout my work life and achieved incredible results.
Connect with me here to book you complimentary coaching session to discuss how can I be of help in your career journey.
Have a great and productive time ahead 😊

best work

Photo Credits: by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

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