Safeguarding Your Career

To prosper in this fast-paced, ever-changing job market and workplace, where your present job is more than the duties and responsibilities you were hired to perform, you sometimes have to think more like a behaviorist than business person.

It is from your job you protect your family and guard your quality of life. For some it is the starting-point of future challenges and successes or a pathway for attaining financial goals. For some it is an ongoing quest or perhaps a labor of love. Still for others, it may be a way of life – their reality. In all cases, it is something worth safeguarding, nonetheless. When caught up in times of rapid change, whirling markets, up and down economies… and an increasingly competitive workplace, we get anxious and tend to overlook the obvious. Below are some factors to consider for safeguarding our careers.

Look closely at the paradigm you have in front of you; not where you’ve been and what you’ve done – that’s the old model you. Expect the business environment of 2008 to be pressure packed and stressful, and embrace this as your opportunity to exceed self-expectations. Start to put your emphasis on setting goals. Chances are if you don’t, you’ll find yourself off course and wondering why. There’s nothing more rewarding than setting lofty goals, stretching to the edge of your envelope to attain them and achieving what you perhaps once though to be beyond your reach. Conceive in mind a legitimate and aggressive goal—a purpose—and then set out to accomplish it for 2008.

Embrace the concept of positive thinking. Though some may argue it is a cliche, you must consider the concept, still. It is paramount that you approach your present job situation and any that you encounter in the future as if nothing is impossible; the art of positive thinking. I once heard said, “if you’re going after Moby Dick, don’t forget the tarter sauce.” This is the positive thinking of those who are devoted to attaining their goals.

The vision to see yourself. If you want simple changes in policy or procedure or surface-level changes in attitude or behavior, then attend some workshops. If you want deeper-level changes, then you need to examine your self … the self-concept. Think like a behaviorist, but process like a businessperson. This is a very energy and time consuming practice but well worth your while

People who are willing to examine themselves spring forward with new knowledge, insight, motivation and direction and emerge with greater self-expectation. For example, students who want to learn (those who are inwardly directed) are far better learners than those students who listen and learn because they need to pass the exam. Those who are motivated from within raise their sights and with a new vitality take charge of their own development. Having the vision to see yourself is a cornerstone for major change and vital to keeping up in the ever-changing workplace.

Learn to understand problems. Things happen; and often will happen beyond your control. Professionals learn early on in their career that growth is a dynamic process; and as with any dynamic process, it unfolds with a certain amount of unpredictability. Sometimes problems unfold; other times opportunities disguised as problems unfold; or worse, crises may unfold. Don’t leave your job or career at the mercy of Wall Street or Washington. Consider what it was, for example, that you or your company did right to have today’s problems/opportunities and then examine and build on them. Consider past projects, former client relationships, strategic decisions; the trials and the failures. Therein lie the successes … and the best place to begin to build. As much as it may feel good to fix your thoughts on the faultless you help yourself more thinking of the imperfect. Cracking today’s problem safeguards tomorrow’s job.

If you see only the apparent effects of a fast-paced, always changing job market and workplace and not the change itself, you become an “apparent effect” - a victim left standing still. In contrast, if you embrace it and look at the opportunity within, you can become its conqueror.