Being proactive in your job search begins with ensuring that you are actually seeing all of the available job openings. Leave no stone unturned, and apply to every possible job even if it seems like a remote possibility. Targeted mailing is another method of proactive job seeking, and can be one of the most effective means of obtaining your career goals.
Think about your ultimate purpose in life, and what you are currently doing to accomplish it. Everyone is gifted with unique talents, and a failure to identify and utilize yours would be tragic for your life and career. The greater purpose you identify in your life, the greater the obstacles you will face. If you persevere and push through these hurdles, you will find the rewards to also be correspondingly greater.
Trust people, and take advantage of opportunities however and wherever they present themselves; these are the two greatest skills that anyone can possess. You must have faith and trust in your employer when taking a job, and recognize that opportunities will frequently present themselves in strange ways. Every risk has a corresponding potential reward, and you generally will only succeed if you are taking risks to get to those awards. Have faith in others and take as many risks as you can, because greater risks tend to offer greater rewards.
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When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.
In this article Harrison discusses how a very crucial part of your future success and happiness depends on your ability to be free. The concept of freedom is difficult for most people to truly understand because hardly anyone is really free, in the deepest sense of the word. Most people are trapped by their own mental barriers, by obligations to others, by financial constraints, by habits and in many cases by actual physical barriers. Moving towards true freedom is something that will forever change your life and career, and will help you reach your full potential. In order to make the most of your life and career you need to understand the limits that may infringe upon your freedoms–and then decide which ones you can do without. The more freedom we believe we have, and the more we believe we can do, the more we will achieve.
Public Interest and nonprofit jobs can be excellent career choices if you are passionate about a certain issue, such as civil rights, the poor, or the environment. Public Interest jobs will place you among colleagues who share your interest, and enable you to make a difference in your chosen field. Public Interest work can be intensely gratifying, so much so that few people who enter such jobs ever return to the private sector.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of educating yourself constantly. You need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn that ever presents itself to you. Knowledge can empower you to become better, faster, and stronger in everything you do People want to hire and do business with people who are knowledgeable about what they are doing and are continuously studying it. Education needs to be a process of continually educating yourself, continually growing, and continually improving. The more you are constantly pushing yourself, the more you will grow. This can change your career and life forever. The more you learn, the more profound your ultimate experience will be and the greater the career and life you experience will be.
Make a list of the bonuses that you can offer an employer if hired, whether they be contracts or additional capabilities. Your extra assets may form a tipping point in the employer’s decision whether or not to hire you. Many businesses and career failures result from people focusing on their own needs rather than the incentives that they can offer others.
One of the most important aspects of the people around you is their definition of the “norm”; norms of acceptable behavior exist everywhere. Your own definitions of normal and acceptable will determine your success in life, as will those of the groups with whom you interact. Develop an understanding of the norms for the many groups in your life.
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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