Two Contradictory Secrets To Career Success

We have all felt fed up with our jobs.

Even if we’re passionate about what we do, we’ll all have bad days or days that make us question if we’re on the right path to career success.

This is healthy.

If you weren’t able to assess where the flaws were, you wouldn’t be able to make improvements.

What isn’t healthy, however, is a long and extended feeling of lethargy towards our work, which can only serve to demotivate us and make us feel trapped.

The old adage of “do something you love, and you’ll never work a day of your life” is somewhat true, but its snappy and memorable usage often doesn’t contain advice for getting there in the first place.

Often, we have to make a strict series of well-disciplined decisions before we can call ourselves privileged enough to work the career we truly desire.

Below are the two contradictory secrets to career success:

Competency is everything

It feels good to be good at something, right?

Daniel Pink explains in his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” that mastery – our urge to get better at things we like to do – is what motivates nearly each and everyone to go to work every morning.

We want to become masters at what we do.

Human beings have an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges to extend and exercise their capacities to explore and to learn.

We like to be competent and respected because of our specialised knowledge. In the world, where money runs the world, it’s unlikely you are able to purchase yourself into the job you desire, and even if you could, you wouldn’t want to do it.

Earning your place is superior, so refining your competence is the best place to start. No matter your age or how far along in your current career you are, it’s never too late to learn something completely new.

There are countless qualification degrees you can obtain, if you are interested in finance, for example. All you need to know before enrolling in the most suitable course is what exactly you want to do. As a newbie, you might not know, but there is real differences between studying MSC Accounting and Finance vs MBA degrees, which could help you make a wiser decision when trying to find an entry-level role.

Competency isn’t everything

We need others to succeed.

This may sound contradictory to my previous point and discourage many of you, self-starters, but hear me out.

Your success will always depend on how useful you are to other people. It’s how well you serve others, that help you move forward.

You will always need to interact with people. Hence, refining your interpersonal skills is crucial for your career success.

So, how to communicate effectively?

There are a lot of articles written about it, but a few points that come to mind is to make people you interact with, feel special by being genuinely interested in them, be upfront about your intentions and try not to be liked by everyone.

It’s better to focus on your competency, your respect, and your ability to be forthright.

Make use of brevity, speaking volumes in as few words as you can. Respect people’s time in conversation.

There are many networking events, that you can sign up for, through LinkedIn, business profiling blogs, community platform, and networking events.

The more like-minded people you meet, the more opportunities you’ll have.

It’s in our human nature that we want to work with and help those we personally like.

Maybe that’s what they mean when they tell us to work smart, and not hard?  🙂