You are capable of much more than you probably realize, and you need to maximize your potential and utilize every gift that you have. Many people talk about their potential, but refuse to act upon it. When you make full use of your potential and implement your gifts, you unlock the power to become the person you want to be.
In any given situation, you must consistently do 10% more than those around you; this is the essence of optimization, a vital tool for career success. Self-optimization changes everything, and is one of the best ways to improve in anything you do. Even seemingly minor changes can yield major results, so pay attention to the details.
Want Powerful Career Advice?
Get my free newsletter and strategies that make people successful
The number one thing that makes people fail and not reach their potential is competition. If get into an area where there is not much competition and you genuinely have something to offer, you will succeed. Everyone is successful to the extent they are doing something others around them are not that provides value.
Ranking people, assets, opportunities, etc. is one of the most powerful practices that you can implement. Ranking people against one another motivates them to grow, improve, and get progressively at what they do. Ranking naturally motivates people to improve, and companies who fail to do so often find themselves mired in mediocrity. Many people, however, mistakenly avoid rankings and the implied judgment of their abilities. You must use rankings as a means of escaping your protective shell and seeing the truth about yourself and your situation.
If you can learn how to create work for yourself, you will never be unemployed or lacking for excitement in your life. You must learn to use your mind to create work; if successful, this ability will come to define your life and career because outside circumstances will no longer matter to you. The world will work for you, rather than the other way around.
You can never become too comfortable if you wish to be successful. Your success will largely depend on your ability to become dissatisfied with your current position. Successful people are never satisfied with the status quo, and constantly push beyond their comfort zone. When do you this and succeed, you set a new standard for normality in your life. Be continually dissatisfied, and always pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
When I was an attorney, I stopped going out to lunch with other attorneys during the day. The reason was not that I was not hungry. Instead, I stopped going out to lunch because just about everyone I worked with would want to dedicate the lunch to a critique—whether it was critiquing our bosses, coworkers, or others. When these people were not being critiqued, the job itself was being critiqued. When the job was not being critiqued, the attorney’s home life was being critiqued.
Businesses who understand what their clients want, rather than what they presume their clients want, tend to perform much better than their competitors. You must view your service from your client’s point of view. In a job search you must view your potential employers as customer. You must find out what is important to your employer or interviewer, and you will stand out in your job search.
Be yourself, and strive to recapture the free self-confidence of your childhood. Embrace the person you are, and avoid being overly concerned with what others think. If you cannot embrace yourself, you will never find true happiness as you will always be trying to be someone else.
Creating a sense of urgency is one of the most important things you can do in your job search. Understand that your career is itself a commodity and you need to sell yourself, and your salesmanship will determine your career success. Creating a sense of urgency will always help you close your sale.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
True self-esteem comes from within, not from the acceptance of others. When your sense of worth comes from within, you free yourself from comparisons with others and will enjoy a greater sense of internal security. You will no longer be bogged down by the experiences of others and can become much more self-reliant.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
Everyone tries to maintain a certain emotional state, and learning to control your own emotions will have a profound impact on your career. While everyone allows their emotional states to be influenced by outside events, there is no advantage in basing your own emotions on things that you cannot control. Allow yourself to discover happiness and fulfillment naturally, rather than making your emotions dependant on external circumstances. Your outlook will have a tremendous impact on your psychological health, as well as that of those around you.
Want Powerful Career Advice?
Get my free newsletter and strategies that make people successful