I have been coaching many people to achieve grand career breakthroughs.
When they approach me for not being able to achieve them, I make them talk about how they have been approaching it.
And as they open up, I realize 5 grave mistakes that stop the large majority from achieving these breakthroughs!
In this post, I will cover the 5 mistakes that derail your career success and a few simple tricks to avoid them. When you do so you overcome the tramp mentality and soon become a part of the highfliers’ league.
So are you curious to know what these mistakes are?
Let’s dive in!
Mistake # 1: You are competing with others.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
In school, college, or even otherwise you have been taught exactly this. You were always compared with the others. That made you compete with them. Taking the lessons from the lion and the gazelle story this is what you did – you strived to get more marks than others, you endeavored to get better others. You thus were competing with your fellow school/college mates. This exact same thing continued at the workplace too!
I usually hear people say that they are working hard as compared to others, they are putting in a lot more effort than the others; they are more deserving than the others. People get into unnecessary competition with his colleagues. This is very typical of the tramps.
During the appraisal discussion or otherwise, tramps usually say they deserve a promotion because the person who just joined is less experienced but still is one level above or they need a raise because they have done better than the others.
The highfliers on the other hand, find out where they want to get in their careers. Then every single day they work towards it. Step by step they strive to be a better version of themselves thus achieving a greater feat.
When I coach people to achieve grand breakthroughs in their careers, I make them have this paradigm shift. When people realize that there is no point in comparing themselves with others, they endeavor to be better than themselves every single day. And this is the first step on the journey to achieving breakthroughs.
So, here’s a simple change you must make today–Compete with yourself. Strive to be a better version of you every single day. And to that you must decide a career destination you have in mind for yourself. Then design your career – not based on what others are doing, but based on what you truly want for yourself!
Mistake # 2: You are being ignorant
There were twin brothers who grew up knowing nothing else but poverty. Their father was an alcoholic and their mother a domestic worker who later passed away in an accident. The brothers were on their own. They separated at the age of 17. Years later one of the brothers was a wealthy entrepreneur while the other was an alcoholic with no direction in life. At a family reunion, both were asked, “How did your life turn out like this?” by one of the relatives. Both had the same answer, “What did you expect with a childhood like mine?”
This story tells us that you are not a product of your circumstances but the outlook you have towards them.
Usually, I hear professionals doing everything thing possible. They worked hard. Completed their work on time. Keep busy throughout the day. Hardly have the time to speak with their colleagues. They don’t believe in wasting his time. Ideal right?
But this so-called ideal thing doesn’t work. When you behave this way at office, your colleagues perceive you as serious and rude and even make fun of you. They backbite and don’t involve you in their discussions. You could also be looked at as being shy, one who lacks initiative and under-confident. Eventually, your manager too becomes a party to his. And why on earth would your manager recognize you in that case?
Not being involved in the workplace, being all by yourself, believing that you go to the office to do your work and nothing more than that – is being ignorant. This is one of the top Tramps’ trait.
Highfliers instead are aware of things happening around them. They get involved. They are a part of conversations. Now it doesn’t mean that they are involved in everything happening around – but the least they do is to show they are a part of it. This changes people’s outlook. They perceive the highfliers are outgoing, full of energy and enthusiasm, and more importantly confident.
Ignorance is bliss. But being involved will get you significant career breakthroughs.
And this is connected with the correction of mistake # 1. Once you stop competing with others, it is easy to connect with them. You can have great conversations. Your colleagues were fewer colleagues but more of friends then. The world around you would change in a jiffy!
So be involved in the workplace. Talk to people, take part in silly conversations, and help everyone change their outlook towards you.
Mistake # 3: You are busy doing your job
I was heading the campus recruitment in my previous organization. While doing so, I introduced the concept of sharing feedback with the candidates who could not make it through. The candidates used this feedback positively, worked on their areas of improvement, and eventually got placed in the other organizations. The college authorities highly appreciated this gesture of providing feedback. We thus became the preferred recruiter in all the colleges. This gave me a lot of visibility in my organization. The management was happy with me. I got promoted.
When you are too busy doing your job – you will keep struggling to make a mark. If you pause and look around for opportunities, you will find plenty of them. They will get you noticed, and that’s the easiest way to have significant career breakthroughs.
The tramps usually are too was busy doing their job. When work takes overall they are really concerned about is completing the task and meeting the deadlines. In the quest of completing his daily chores, they found themselves very busy with no time to do or even think of anything else.
Highfliers on the other hand, think of what they could do for others – colleagues, bosses or clients – highfliers’ treat all of them as their customers. They recognize opportunities to help their customers achieve what they want to achieve. They act on it. When the customers are happy in return make their life easy. What goes around comes around. It is a full circle.
You could choose to be busy or you could choose to look at pockets of excellence to make your customer’s life easy. You may not be able to identify it at the very first go… but don’t give up. Be aware. Keep looking around. There will be ample opportunities you will see.
Mistake # 4: You are OYO aka on your own
Benjamin Franklin once had a very powerful political rival who was hell-bent on making his life miserable. Franklin knew that it would be beneficial to have this man on his side but instead of begging for his approval, he took a counter-intuitive approach. He knew his rival was in possession of a very rare and valuable book and he simply asked to borrow it. After a few days he returned the book with a thank you note and surprisingly his rival became his friend. When we do a person a favor we tend to like them more as a result. This is because we justify our actions to ourselves that we did them a favor because we liked them.
All professionals usually take a lot of pride in doing everything on their own. Asking for help is usually extremely underrated at the workplace. They think asking for help is a sign of being weak. So when a task gets assigned, they immediately get back to their desk and focus on completing the task by themselves. When it is completed after a lot of struggles they proudly present it to their manager and subtly drop hints to showcase they had done it all by themselves. There are times when things are right and their manager is happy. But more often than not their manager doesn’t approve of their work.
Tramps don’t believe in taking the help. They take pride in doing things on their own and eventually fail.
The highfliers on the other hand are aware of the Benjamin Franklin effect and ask for help. And because the highfliers ask for help, they are not only getting help but also are liked by their managers. And, I need not tell you what happens with them during the appraisals!
It is thus imperative to ask for help. When assigned a task sit down to discuss with your manager what exactly needs to be done. What outcome is expected? What is the bigger picture? What could you do to ensure the task is done right? After having all the answers make a plan of action. Also, identify the areas where you would need help and ask for it. To your surprise, you will get all the help you require and you will be looked upon as a reliable person.
The belief of being on your own is a sign of strength is too old school. Ask for help. It makes you strong and not otherwise!
Mistake # 5: You are measuring the effort
Imagine you are watching a cricket match. It is a crucial match. But something did not go right the last time this crucial match was played. Keeping in mind that experience, the authorities have decided not to display the scoreboard. They will keep a score internally and only declare the final result. Well, this is never going to be a reality, but let’s assume it does. What happens? The very thought of it is so mind-numbing. You wouldn’t watch this match however crucial it may be. You would probably just switch on your TV only at the time of the declaration of the result.
Most professionals do exactly the same with their work. They keep playing a match without a scoreboard. All they do is always measure the effort they take which primarily is based on the time they spend in the office. But are these efforts having an impact? If there is, is it even desired? They have no mechanism to find it out. In short, they don’t know what the score is. They thus don’t enjoy the game they are playing. So they often switch off. And the only time they switch on is during the appraisals to know the result. This is yet another typical tramps syndrome – They measure the effort.
Highfliers on the other hand, keep a score. They measure the impact of the effort. They devise a mechanism – a scoreboard that tells them whether they are winning or losing. If it is the latter, they can do a course correction before it is too late.
Like you need to know the score every single moment you are watching a cricket match, you need to devise a mechanism that keeps your career progress score every day. You can track it your way–but it is imperative you need to know whether you are winning or losing.
So these were the 5 mistakes that have been keeping you away from grand career breakthroughs.
To quickly recap, these are the 5 mistakes –
Mistake # 1: You are competing with others.
Mistake # 2: You are being ignorant
Mistake # 3: You are busy doing your job
Mistake # 4: You are OYO aka on your own
Mistake # 5: You are measuring the effort
Were you able to relate to any of these?
If yes it is imperative that you don’t ignore these. Recognize and accept them. Then take small steps to overcome these mistakes and see grand career breakthroughs come your way.
Let me assure you I have seen these principles apply to all areas of your career – whether you are looking for a new job or you are looking at a great performance appraisal this year, or even if you are looking to transition your career! Also, these principles work irrespective of the situation – pandemic or no pandemic!
If you have been able to identify yourself with any of these mistakes; don’t make mistake # 4 of being OYO. Ask for help. And if you want it to be from me, give me a shout out at amit@designyourcareer.co.