Career Ambition: Obtaining Your Dream Job

Are you passionate about the role you play at work?

Have you set goals and identified tasks to better enable you to reach your 2 year, 5 year, and 10 year goals?  If not, create a plan now, market yourself, and identify the skills and behaviors you will require to obtain your dream job!

Career Ambition  = Passion, Skill, and Will

Champions are made from something they have deep inside.

A desire, a dream, a vision.  They have to have last minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will.  But the will must be stronger than the skill.
– Muhammad Ali

Seven items have been identified that impede individuals from obtaining their dream job (excerpts from For Your Improvement by Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger).

  1. Unsure of what career is truly desired.
  2. Bored, in the wrong organization, or in the wrong career.
  3. Unwilling to make sacrifices to get ahead.
  4. Unclear on how careers really work and how people get ahead.
  5. Inability to market oneself, stand out, get noticed.
  6. Hesitant to express career wants, needs and desires.
  7. Stuck in a comfort zone; unwilling to take a career risk.

How to get started:

-Assess your strengths and identify and take action on your weaknesses

-Obtain a mentor and establish a “board of directors” that will provide you with objective and meaningful feedback

-Identify your “dream job” options

-Step out of your comfort zone and don’t become complacent.

-Share and make your successes known to clients, peers, and bosses.

-Get a coach. They will help you determine what you really want and keep you focused on your dream.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
–Howard Thurman

BONUS – QWIKTIP – Follow this link to read why Passion Is Energy

4th Quarter Check-In

Can you believe we’re in the last quarter of 2016? That means we have less than 3 months to accomplish our goals and take action on leadership development plans.

NOW is the time to review organizational and personal goals, assess unfinished business, and begin planning for 2017.

Aim higher. Stay focused.
–Brandon Adams

4th Quarter Check-In Questions

  • Have achieved goals been acknowledged and recognized?
  • What targets have been missed or neglected?
  • What are your priorities for the next 3 months?
  • Does your organization have a talent retention plan?
  • Does it have leadership bench-strength?
  • Is technical savvy sufficient to keep abreast of changing times?
  • Have relationship enhancements occurred as needed?
  • Has action been taken on becoming more courageous leaders?

As a reminder, Courageous leaders:

  • Have and live a dream.
  • Document goals.
  • Commit to goals.
  • Understand personal and team strengths.
  • Communicate.
  • Address conflict.
  • Develop others.
  • Delegate.
  • Enhance a skill.
  • Remain controlled.
  • Give rewards.
  • Succeed and learn from failure.

Answering the questions listed above and utilizing the courageous leadership skills will position you to take appropriate actions to differentiate between IMPORTANT issues (those which contribute heavily to goals and objectives and have high value) from URGENT issues (those that require immediate attention but may not contribute to the success of meeting goals and objectives).

All of our behaviors are intended to support our goals, mission, and vision. Aim higher and stay focused!

BONUS – QWIKTIP – MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS ONBOARD

Impediments To Success

We all have our own styles and preferences, and we go about attaining our goals and inspiring others in our own unique way. What we need to know is if our preferred style includes impediments to success.

There are ” minor” work place foibles which begin to chip away goodwill.
–Marshall Goldsmith

Marshall Goldsmith’s List of 21 Bad Habits

  1. Winning too much: the need to win at all costs and in all situations when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it is beside the point.
  2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
  3. Passing judgment: the need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
  4. Making destructive comments: the needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
  5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
  6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
  7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
  8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
  9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
  10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
  11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
  12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
  13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
  14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
  15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
  16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
  17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
  18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually trying to help us.
  19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
  20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
  21. Goal obsession: Doggedly pursuing tasks or goals instead of paying attention to relationships or the personal needs of others.

We’re pretty sure some of these (if not most) hit home as you’ve likely observed them in others, and you may even have exhibited some yourself.

What’s key is awareness. Make an effort to avoid chipping away at the goodwill of others!

BONUS – QWIKTIP – Confidence and Competence