Emma Uchendu: 8 Tips to Help You Excel in Your Career

After graduating from the university and landing a job, how to succeed in your career becomes the next concern on your list. Why? Because the work place is highly competitive. And for you to conquer, you have to find out what set professionals apart.

It is their unwavering willingness and die-hard desire to perform exceptionally well, coupled with other amazing characteristics that are found in great leaders.

Therefore, advancing in your career and gaining recognition are dependent on your willingness to perform, your ability to be proactive, creative and highly exceptional.

Having learned this, let’s take a look at other secrets that can help you excel in your career and workplace.

Be a Solution Provider
These days, it’s easy for anyone to complain and lament about just anything. Everyone is blaming everyone for something. Employees are turning their personal and workplace problems into their manager’s problem. Do not be like them.

Be a solution provider instead of a problem creator. Be helpful with ideas and strategies that will solve problems for the organisation. Even when the final decision making is not yours to make, communicate those ideas to whomever has the power to take such decision. He/she would be grateful, and would take note of you. You can’t tell what a recommendation or comment from a superior at the right places can do to you career.

Show, Don’t Tell
Do not go on and on about what you can do and how intelligent and better you are than other colleagues. Use this simple model: less talk, more work in your dealings in the workplace. No bragging is allowed; let your work speak for you. Show the management what you can do. I know it’s good to toot your horn attimes, but let it be in moderation.

Achieve Goals
The sole reason you were employed is to help the firm achieve their goals and get work done. This is the reason you are also being paid. So do just that. Help them achieve those goals even as you work on your own personal career goals. What matters to employers is how are you contributing to fulfilling their goals and mission, both short and long term. Having this in mind alone will set you on the way to career success, and help you climb your career ladder within the shortest period of time.

Evaluate Yourself
Assessing one’s self and performance is a good path to career success. You alone can tell yourself the truth. When you resumed work, you set some goals for yourself within a timeline for achieving them, right? You did also create a detailed plan to achieve these goals too, right? Don’t wait for external opinions or annual appraisals from the company. Call yourself to a board meeting and tell yourself what you have been able to achieve and what didn’t go well. Look at your weekly and daily tasks; did you achieve them before deadline? Do you need to change your strategy? Do it yourself. Evaluate yourself and improve. Remember your target is top of your career ladder; you can’t afford to be lazy.

Get Friendly with Co-workers
Yes, you heard me right. Get friendly with them. They aren’t your competitors. They are your team. As a good team player, encourage everyone to put their best foot forward, bring out their best ideas, etc. This will create a healthy work environment, and a healthy workplace competition.

Learning to keep your snippy comments to yourself is a plus. Offer to help if you see a colleague struggling with a spreadsheet or a task. Don’t be self centered. Help out. Invite another staff to lunch.

Learn
You can’t succeed in life without the willingness to learn. It is also the way to succeed in career and other life endeavours. He who stops learning becomes less valuable and obviously dies. You need to understand that what you know is enough to get you going, but definitely not enough to keep you going. To succeed and smoothly climb the career ladder, learn all that you need to for the journey. Be teachable and coachable. Pay attention to trends in your career, acquire relevant skills for the industry and excel.

Be Ready to Take Initiative
In today’s competitive career landscape, the ability to take initiative, and bring fresh ideas and solution to the table, is a plus for every career person. People who won’t take risk, contribute ideas, or even proffer solutions to company problems and challenges have no place in the success ladder.

Communicate
Communication is a fundamental skill that encompasses your persona and ability to relate with others, persuade people to listen and understand your ideas and point of view. Being articulate is highly prized in today’s workplace. To succeed, you need to understand the systematic violation of accurate communication such as universal quantifiers like all, any, every, etc. These create an illusory transparency that as we speak to others, we believe that they are of the same mindset as us, and are processing things exactly as we do. This might make it incredibly challenging for everyone to flow with you because of semantic ambiguity.

Keeping by these amazing career and success secrets will help you put yourself to the path of true happiness and greatness in life, career and business.