I used to be a Recruitment Consultant, running a business that recruited staff for the recruitment industry itself, (yes, you read that right). That’s got to be the sharpest end of the recruitment sector. I became fascinated why some candidates achieved their career goals and others didn’t. Assuming equal levels of skills and intelligence, why did some people go on to achieve far more success than others? Where did their ambition come from? What was their secret? I decided to change my own career and find out.
So I sold my shares, gained a masters degree in organisational psychology with a career management specialism and then qualified as an executive coach using mostly cognitive behavioural techniques. Now I coach and train hundreds of clients each year, from actors to actuaries and bright young things to boomers. All have different skills and ambitions of course, but with many behaviours and vulnerabilities in common.
Here’s what I have learnt so far about career success:
- To achieve your career goals you actually have to have decided upon some goals! It might sound obvious, but many people never get round to this, drifting from role to role without a plan, rather than making decisions and feeling in control.
- Successful people listen more, do more, have a healthy perspective on failure and seek more advice. They nurture their networks. They put more energy into their careers and take action; lots of small steps towards achieving their goals. They combine a sense of what they want their working life to look like with the energy to make it happen. They aren’t frightened to try new things and to take a U turn if things aren’t working.
- Confidence comes AFTER action, not before. People that seem confident are just getting on with things, regardless of how vulnerable they may feel inside.
- The more specific you are about what you do, the more likely you are to get hired or promoted. ‘Good’ candidates are very clear on what they do best and can articulate this to all stakeholders.
- Many people don’t have a clear narrative for pulling together all their job history to make it relevant to the work they want. Some self-awareness is helpful to pull together the patterns of your previous roles and what they have culminated in to make you indispensable.
- Good people create opportunities for themselves. They use their networks (particularly their connections’ connections) to move upwards and build formal and informal mentoring relationships naturally. They have sponsors when they need them.
- Our own thinking and the lens through which we view our work can be our greatest impediment to fulfilling our natural potential. Our thoughts get in the way of what we are capable of. (Poor managers don’t help either.) More successful people have a more rational, here and now, perspective and ask for feedback. They don’t bear grudges or make unhelpful assumptions.
- Selling ourselves doesn’t come naturally, even to salespeople. We don’t like talking about ourselves so can’t always articulate the difference we have made. The candidates who get through promotion panels and get on in life are able to get over this by focusing on the outcomes they have achieved, not their personal characteristics. They develop a definable brand that gives them more sustainable careers.
- Finally, successful people have Bruce Lee’s laser focus on what they want to achieve. They manage their daily activities to keep moving, task by task, towards their goals. They manage themselves, not just their time, working on what is strategically important. They don’t procrastinate. They aren’t necessarily the busiest in the office and they might not please everyone. They have a better sense of their boundaries and play a long game, managing their well-being to avoid burn-out. Long hours aren’t the answer, but working in Covey’s third quadrant as much as possible is (i.e. important but not urgent tasks). Goal achievement is all about the repetition of effective daily and weekly behaviours. They break down their goals into manageable chunks and then crack on with doing them.
These are all the factors I have observed that contribute to successful careers and they provided the jumping off point when I started to write my own training material. Once people become aware of the relationships between what they want, how they think and how they act, they can change their daily behaviours. This leads to higher performance, increased confidence and deeper engagement.
What are you waiting for? Confidence at Work Masterclasses
If ever there was a time to invest in confidence and productivity, this has got to be it. What difference would it make to your business if your people achieved their targets this year?
Let’s talk about my unique Confidence at Work masterclasses and speaking events: +44 7968 424650 or email me: zena@zenaeverett.com. In just a few hours we can banish any negative attitudes and embed the behaviours of successful people into your teams: https://zenaeverett.com/coaching.
Your confidence mantra of parking your insecurity the door and flipping it around is genius and I’m going to use it with every negative aspect that creeps in and tries to self-defeat!! Altruism rather than egotism. Brilliant. Claudia Elmhirst, actor.