Stop making excuses and steer your career in the right direction

I’ve never met a top manager who was born at the top. Psychologists agree that everything we know about career management has been taught to us. If you want to improve your career options, you have to sustain efforts. It may be that you have the will to succeed, but are afraid you will lack motivation and time. While that is possible, the good news is: motivation can be developed!

Let’s take a look at 3 ways to improve your motivation and bring your career to the next level.

The first method

The first and largest obstacle that lies in your path of getting started enthusiastically is the belief that you never will be able to achieve what you want. The safest way to discourage eagerness and avoid disappointment is to simply obey this belief. John Galbraith calls this process “adapting to poverty.” He suggests that a person’s economic level is always free to choose and accept.

No one is forced to believe such discouraging thoughts. Either you accept your current performance and prosperity, or you learn, develop, and make an effort to move forward and get more out of your life. You live very dangerously if you choose just to live with the idea that eventually your ship will be towed into safe harbor automatically. In reality, ships don’t move unless we climb aboard, make sail, and start steering.

The second method

Focus on specific things you want. Connect yourself with a contract: if I do (A), then I get (B). Try not to come to work for nothing. Congratulate yourself on every success—even if they are only small accomplishments—and celebrate!

The third method

Work in stages. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn a million dollars per year, but start with realistic steps. Choose your goals in a way that you find quite exciting, and maybe just a little bit discouraging. By the time you reach your first goal, you can get ready to define another new goal using the same criteria.

Your improvement potential

How well does your job suit you? Does your current career fit you and serve you well? Read through this list, and choose the answers that apply to you.

Taking pride in your work:

• A) I am proud of my work, and I like to tell people about it. I even feel respected at work because I am very good at my job.
• B) I don’t like to talk about my work—and I’m certainly not proud of what I do.

Growth and rewards of your career:

• A) My job rewards my most important values and enables me to fulfill my goals in terms of personal growth and income.
• B) My work does not reward me as it should. I am not growing that much, and my income concerns me.

Your work makes you FEEL:

• A) I feel like a honeybee in a flowering orchard. My work is a natural expression of my talents and personality.
• B) I feel like a honeybee at the North Pole. My work completely sucks my energy away.

Career enjoyment:

• A) My job suits me well. Work feels like play.
• B) Work is a duty.

Work environment:

• A) The people I work with and the environment I work in bring out the best in me.
• B) I do what I am paid to do.

Dread or Desire?

• A) I wake up enthusiastically each morning because I enjoy going to work.
• B) I drag myself out of bed each morning. The thought of work doesn’t inspire me in the least.

Colleague relations:

• A) I actually like the people I work with.
• B) Yeah, the people I work with are all right, although…

Complimenting work:

• A) My work is in line with my private life.
• B) In my private life, I do other things that serve me better.

Your drive:

 

• A) My work exhilarates me and gives me energy.
• B) Work just wears me out.

If the majority of the “A” answers describe your feelings towards work, then you are doing well. However, if you checked several “B” answers, then you have some work to do. Every aspect of your life is related to your career and the way your job suits you in some way. If your job wears you out, it will also influence how you feel in your private life and your feelings of happiness and success in life.

If you would like to go even further and explore which career goals you are setting for yourself, then take a look inside the free eBook “My Career Guide Part II” written by Marjorie Mensink.