7 Career Lessons Learned - 7 Years Working!

Almost everyone working know how important it is to excel and keep moving forward with everyone by your side. I revise, by your side. Will further shed light on this later. Who does not want to be appreciated for all the hard work each day – five days a week; round the year. Some of us win that and some of us keep wondering what went wrong during the annual appraisal – usually. Well, the truth strikes only around evaluations and appraisals because to be honest that’s absolutely how it always has been. No matter how self-aware we are, we just don’t see ourselves with the lens of our higher-up.
Allow me reveal what I have learned by far from my own experience which if you may embrace will for sure make you squeak a little next when you are counted as a high achiever.

1      Hard Work is Not Smart Work:

For sure hard work is the key to success. However, if you are doing it clumsily and results are not there – eventually we all will see you throwing a little pity party every now and then. Work hard but be smart about it and make sure your level of smart is above and beyond your boss’s expectations. Next when you think, something is wrong even with all of your hard work, you now know where to put in that extra effort.

2    When the Going Gets Tough – You Ask for Help:

Many of us during tight deadlines and packed schedules, especially want to be seen more doing things alone. I believe that’s the worst thing you can do to yourself. You are a superhero and you will save the world someday but for now ask your team mates to peddle things because at the end of the day no one cares for a stand-alone-basis-performance. Its a new era and everything revolves around collaboration. Interesting part is you do it in a way like no one else can do and that may involve various inputs from different brain boxes. Asking results in adding value which ultimately leads to innovation. Therefore, I encourage asking feedback otherwise too. Believe me if I tell you I have never felt bad of asking - what scares me is being pooh-pooed for not knowing when I am asked.

3    Burning Yourself Out Is Suicidal:

Work-life balance is the way to go now. Until you don’t have a life other than work (which I hope is not the case) you should never sit late into work to prove something. Your productivity will nose dive and there will be a point when you are only going to gag on your own vomit just thinking about work. Big projects requiring special attention are an exception.

4    Keep it Clear but Low:

You don’t have to really shove down other people’s throats what you are achieving or how well you are doing – infact even how bad you are doing. Assertiveness in an implicit way is far better than screaming and repeating things over and again. Instead of swirling around the same thing, keep it straight, clear and less irritating. Believe me no one likes to be around some boaster suffering with Attention-Deficit-Hyperactive-Disorder. May it be about meeting a deadline and your follow-ups with your team or your request to your boss for a raise/increment. Same formula applies to different yet almost all the situations.

5    Brown-nosing is Cancerous:

If you even slightly have considered the idea of it – discard it away NOW. Do not just do not even think of not working your fair share and getting away with kissing and greasing up to someone. Its not only ephemeral but also will bring a blotch to your career as unfortunately even your hard-work will be accounted in for as your achievement coming from the same direction. Under all circumstances be honest and say what you mean and mean what you say. Just like those white cells, your efforts in pleasing anyone are not required and are harmful – REFRAIN!

Don't be the Burnt Ashes When You are the Flame:

If you lose that spark, you lose everything. Your energy defines you. You being vibrant means you are the source of new ideas and concepts which subsequently means you are indispensable. Even at 70 if your mind works like a 30 year old i.e. adaptive and receptive to the newness and challenges; you are very much IN the game.

Leave A Legacy:
With HR perspective, succession planning helps in location of a resource and is considered an important aspect before you bid farewell to a job for  almost everyone around your team and at the organisation even people other than your team. However, in my perspective what you are leaving behind is the most crucial aspect and supersedes the importance of who is next in charge by what will be in the charge. I leaving a vision and diaspora of lucid dreams for the years to come behind me is far better than leaving a self-obsessed, centered and limited objectives that do not deem my presence or absence very important.

Above all is the crux of what I have learned via my first hand experience in the past 07 years which I think is fundamentally stronger in value to me than a scientific research conducted at Yale. Oh well! they too might concur with me after reading this!

Keep Shining!

About the Author: Believes in herself!