People who fail to reach their career goals are too complacent, rely too much on the opinions of others, allow difficulties to progress into ruin, and associate success with negative things. You have to establish success as a firm “must” in your life, associate your success with positive things, develop a workable strategy for success, and follow through with your plans. Never be a dabbler or give up in the face of adversity.
Your perceptions can make you either happy or unhappy. Most peoples’ perceptions, however, are clouded by assumptions that frequently aren’t even true. To change your life, change your assumptions about the world around you; suffering lies in the perception of the fact, not the fact itself.
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Most people are afraid of exposing themselves to failure, and therefore settle for less than what they want or are capable of achieving. Failure to take action due to your fear is itself the biggest failure of all; few people ever reach any degree of success without consistent failure. You must use failure as an inspiration to try harder in the future, and manage your emotions so as not to fear failure and let that fear preclude action.
In order to reach your full potential, you must avoid depression, obesity and unhealthy foods, boredom, and uninteresting people. Your daily activities should seek to improve in each of these categories; as you do, you will find yourself better equipped to face life’s challenges. Maintain various interests in addition to your work, and try to connect with interesting people to establish a healthy self-esteem.
One of the biggest mistakes people make in their job searches is going after jobs in sophisticated markets. A sophisticated and saturated market is one that’s populated by a lot of people like you—with your qualifications, background, and so forth.
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.
Just as a Unique Selling Position (USP) is important to sell a product, your own USP is vital for marketing yourself to potential employers. You must define your USP before even creating your resume, as it comprises the basic product that you are trying to sell in your interview. Focus your USP on a specific niche, for which there is market demand, and make it thoroughly persuasive.
You have the power to become the person you are capable of being. Although you will face external obstacles in the process of becoming this person, but your biggest challenges will be internal. Do not allow others to keep you down, but instead decide to excel on your own; in order to achieve your goals, direct all of your energies towards being the best person of which you are capable.
When you give your employer a good value, they will be motivated to keep you even in the lean times. Nothing is more important to your career than making sure your employer is satisfied with your work, which will make them likely to use you over and over again. Working for companies where there is a lot of froth will present you with more money-making opportunities; understand that froth moves in cycles, however, and it is more important to have consistent work than to hold out for ideal market conditions.
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.
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