Summary
- Why you shouldn’t be stagnant in your career
- Tips to help you grow in your career
While you strive to make a career, always remember, it is not enough to remain in the job, but also grow in it. Career development is as important as landing yourself the right job.
Wouldn’t you like to have a career that you love? A career that does not give you Monday morning blues?
When you are in a job for a long enough time, the job may get monotonous and boring. This is when Mondays seem gloomy and lethargic. Your career is just not pushing you enough to go.
The best way to avoid this is to seek career growth or career development. Do not be satisfied with what you have. Always look to enhance your career every day.
Now the question may arise – how can I grow my career? The answer is not that complicated. Following a few career growth tips can help you maintain a steady career growth.
11 Fantastic Tips for a Perfect Career Growth
1. Absorb Skills from Peers and Colleagues
Like how children learn and pick up mannerisms and skills from their caregivers and parents, in the same way, learning from peers and colleagues is one of the best tips for career growth.
When you learn from your colleagues you get practical knowledge about how they function and manage.
For example, if you were always inquisitive about how the accounts team of your company functions, get in touch with a colleague from this division.
Ask questions so that you can learn the tricks of the trade. At the same time be sure to offer them the knowledge you have about your department.
There is a saying “As you sow, so shall you reap.” This way it is beneficial to both you and your colleague.
For all you know. Through this exchange of knowledge, you may discover a new way of making a profitable buck for the company.
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2. Put out A Friendly Demeanour at Your Workplace
Socialising at your workplace can go a long way to help you grow in your career. When you have a friendly demeanour, you are able to vibe better with your colleagues.
It is evident that people usually do not like to extend help to anyone who is not friendly or grateful. A more social and friendly person is more likely to receive help when needed.
One of the best ways to do this is to talk and interact with your colleagues. A good joke or two can break the ice. Finding common likes or dislikes with your colleagues can lead to strong topics of discussions.
Sports, movies, and books are some of the topics you can brush upon while trying to interact with people at your workplace.
Once you begin to socialize with your colleagues you will find it easier to collaborate with them for work purposes. Eating together in the company food court and bonding over lunch or coffee can be a good stress buster at work too.
3. Set Goals
When answering the question how can I improve my career growth, one of the best tips to follow is to set career goals.
Setting long term or short-term career goals in one of the best career growth tips. It helps visualise what you really want to achieve.
Notice how many interviewers and employers ask where you see yourself 5 years from now?
This question basically enquires about your career growth plans. From your answer here, the interviewer gauges how well you have planned for your career in the future.
The most successful careers are not achieved overnight. They are in fact achieved after a lot of planning and deliberation. Goals were set, goals were reset and careers were made.
Use these goals to put your career on fast pace mode. You can have long term career goals.
However, don’t let the nitty gritties of daily work let you forget your long-term plans. Always have your goals at the back of your head at all times.
4. Reward Yourself
As you achieve milestones in your career, make a note of it and reward yourself for it. After all, you worked really hard to achieve that milestone.
Every reward will remind you that you need to achieve many more of these milestones.
5. Be Star Struck
Many students ask the question: how to grow in my career? The best advice is to have a mentor or idol to look up to. Having a mentor gives you a kind of encouragement.
For example, if your interest lies in authoring books, you may be having a favourite author.
Try to look up more information about your favourite author and how they made it to where they are now. Their life story can be a kind of stimulation for your career growth.
Many successful people often had idols to look up to. They followed their life stories and were able to seek encouragement from them.
It is not necessary that you meet your idol, you can take encouragement from their achievements and work towards fulfilling your growth.
6. Improve Your Skills
One of the best and no-fail career growth tips is to improve your skills and thereby increase your knowledge. Increasing your skills is always a sure shot method of growing in your career.
Jobs and careers are never static. Every type of job changes with a change in time. The needs of an industry are constantly in a state of motion and change.
This indirectly means that your professional skills also need to be upgraded every now and then.
Unless you are continuously improving your skill, you will become irrelevant. Change is inevitable, growth is a choice you have to make.
Nowadays, there is no dearth of classes that one can take up in order to enhance or sharpen your skills.
Technology skills, communication skills, management skills are all skills you can learn by participating in various extracurricular activities or classes.
Constantly sharpen your skills so that you remain up to date with the changes in the industry. The more up to date you are, the better chances of growth in your career. Continue to study and sharpen your skills.
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7. Be Trustworthy
Companies and people always want to surround themselves with people they can rely on. Being trustworthy is a great attribute to possess in a career.
Companies always want the surety that they have employed a long term recruit and not someone who would jump positions at the drop of a hat.
Show the company that it can rely on you. At the same time let your colleagues know that they can trust you.
8. Never Be Afraid to Ask Questions
Having doubts and asking questions is not something to be afraid or ashamed of. In fact, having doubts and getting them cleared paves the way for growth in your career.
If you have a doubt but feel apprehensive to ask questions, the best thing you can do is search for the answers online. The internet nowadays has answers to almost everything.
However, getting answers from the internet without verifying them can also lead to some adverse situations. So be sure to clarify and verify the sources before you close in on the solutions.
If you still do not find your answer on the internet, clear your doubts directly with your boss.
Always remember, your boss also started where you are standing today. So most bosses will be more than happy to clear your doubts in a jiffy.
9. Don’t Be Too Harsh on Yourself
It is good to be raring to go, but at the same time be calm and allow yourself to relax a bit in between.
For example, you set a goal to finish a task within a particular period of time and immediately start the next task in hand.
However, things didn’t go according to your plan because of some unforeseen situation.
Don’t be too harsh on yourself. It’s good to stick to schedules and goals but also advisable to give yourself a bit of leeway in case you cannot complete a task in a particular period of time.
10. Share Your Accomplishments and Achievements with Others
One of the best tips for career growth is sharing your accomplishments with others. An accomplishment is of no use if you are going to keep it to yourself.
When you share your knowledge with others, the more you will see your career grow. An industry grows with the growth of all sectors.
Seeing only your department or sector growing will eventually be of no use because all sectors of an industry are linked with each other.
11. Experience Makes You Stronger
Growing in a career can only happen when you experience what life has to offer. There may be a period of lull and a period of great achievements, take them both in your stride.
Without giving more weightage to another. Experience is the teacher of all things. Every new experience brings its own maturity and a greater clarity of vision.
Conclusion
However, slow the growth in your career seems to be, it’s better to move forward at a snail’s pace than backwards at any pace.
Take actions that will move you to where you want to go. Jobs will come and go, but careers are for a lifetime.
Make the best choices that allow you to grow. Investing in your career growth along with self-development is not a selfish move.
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