How to Take Control of Your Career

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Take control of your career|How to Take Control of Your CareerLife is busy, and the months and years can fly by in what seems like the blink of an eye. With time passing so quickly, many people find themselves stuck in the same job, following the same routine each day without even realizing it. So, when they suddenly notice they have been doing the same job for years and every day feels like groundhog day, it can be an essential wake-up call. If you feel like you have been drifting through life and your role is no longer fulfilling, you may be ready to make a change and to take back control.

Realizing your career is not progressing in the way you hoped can be frustrating. But recognizing that something needs to change is the best way to get your job back on track. Putting yourself back in the driving seat and regaining control of your career can benefit every part of your life. Once you get started and begin taking control of your job, you will soon regain your enthusiasm.

Time to Change?

If you have been unhappy with your job for a while, you will need to decide whether it is worth persevering and sticking with it for the long term or whether you need to try something new. Making the break and moving on to a new role can be scary and unsettling, but doing so can bring a renewed sense of purpose into your life.

If you decide to stay with your current employer, you may want to explore the different career options available in the company. Taking on a new role in the same organization is an excellent way to revive your interest in your career and do a job you love. Alternatively, you may decide that you have been following a career path that is not right for you. If this is the case, you may want to focus your attention on thinking about the type of job you would like and how you will make that happen. It is never too late to change your career, so if there is a job you would rather do, why not find out more about it and make it happen?

Reach Out For Guidance

Whether you are just starting your career or you are a seasoned employee, seeking guidance from others is always helpful. Discussing your options with other people can be a valuable way to gain a fresh perspective on your career and will help you make an informed decision on your plans for the future. Talking through your options with your boss is helpful, but seeking a mentor to guide you is likely to be even more useful.

Having a mentor is an excellent way to get your career moving in the right direction. A mentor will help you map out your plans and be by your side to support you while you put them into action. When you choose to work with a mentor, you can benefit from someone else’s experience and skills, which can be helpful when you are trying to enhance your career. Your mentor will also assist you in developing your interview skills to help you secure a new position. While having a mentor can provide many benefits, you will only enjoy these benefits if you find the right mentor.

Selecting a mentor that is not right for you can be a negative experience. So, choosing your mentor carefully is essential. It is helpful to use a Mentoring Platform to help you connect with a wide choice of mentors so you can select someone that best matches your needs.

Make a Plan for Success

Achieving career success means different things to different people. For some, career success means reaching a high-ranking position in their organization, and for others achieving success means securing a six-figure salary. Deciding what your idea of career success looks like is the first step toward making it happen.

Understanding what you want to achieve from your career is an excellent starting point, but knowing how you will make it a reality requires further thought. One way to take ownership of your career plan is to set yourself goals. Setting yourself SMART goals is an excellent way to propel your career forwards. Making a plan for success and then breaking it down into smaller goals will make your career progression so much more manageable. Mapping out a route towards success in this way will help prevent you from becoming overwhelmed and make it easier to achieve the successful outcome you are aiming towards.

Forge Connections

Making connections and getting yourself noticed is a great way to open yourself up to a whole range of new opportunities. Through networking, you may discover an entire range of career options you have not previously considered, and you may even find yourself offered a new role. There are several ways that you can forge connections to benefit your career. Networking is one of the most popular methods of meeting like-minded people and building up your contacts. Looking out for networking groups in your area and joining them will put you in touch with a wide range of connections that you would not have met otherwise.

Keep Monitoring Your Progress

Taking control of your career and achieving your full potential at work is not easy. Maintaining constant progress and pushing yourself forward is challenging, and at times, you may feel your motivation is slipping. To keep your motivation levels high and to sustain your focus, you need to monitor your progress along the way. Celebrating every small success and acknowledging how far you have come on your journey is an excellent way to keep yourself moving in the right direction.

Checking back in with your goals regularly to ensure you are not venturing off track will help you stay in control of your career. With plenty of focused effort and lots of tenacity, you will not only be able to take control of your career but develop it way beyond your expectations.

5 Project Management Skills You Need To Have

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The Proof Of Fire

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Project Management Skills|5 Project Management Skills You Need To HaveSometimes the only way to test something is through what’s known as a “trial by fire”. Now, that may not mean there’s actually a fire; it’s a turn of phrase that indicates extreme testing. A car designed to be safe if an accident causes a roll needs to be rolled. Crash test dummies exist owing to the need for a “trial by fire”, as it were, pertaining to associated safety features.

As a Project Manager or PM, your trial by fire is probably going to be whatever projects you’re working to complete. Each new project will be its own trial by fire, and that which is being put on metaphorical trial are your skills as a PM. Some projects are essentially impossible, while some PMs can’t even handle “softball” assignments.

Regardless of inherent management acumen, like exercise, PM skills can be improved. Part of that improvement involves following known best practices. Here are five skills that any PM should already be proficient in; and if you’re not, at minimum find ways of enhancing your abilities as regards the following.

1. Prioritization

Task priority is quite important. Product testing isn’t as high a priority as prototype development. If you don’t have something to test, how can you test it? So you need to know which steps are most important for which situation.
Determining such steps may well involve specifying a general outline for your project from beginning to end, and organizing efforts based on associated priority.

2. Effective Delegation Of Tasks

Tasks need to be delegated based not only on priority but based on the skill of employees to whom tasks are delegated. That means you need to know your team intimately enough to determine who will do a good job, and who can’t be trusted with certain responsibilities. Everyone has skills, and you want to delegate accordingly.

3. Self-Examination: External Testing Options Help

One of the most important things is to know your own efficacy as a PM. Some of your tasks will involve hands-on participation in a given project, while others will require you to be a more remote player in the production overall. Especially if you’re in a more remote role, a PMP practice exam can be very helpful in advance, as well as between varying projects.

4. Flexibility: Unexpected Circumstances Develop Regularly

You’ve got to be willing to “roll with the changes”, as that old REO Speedwagon song goes. Sometimes someone quits mid-project, sometimes management changes operational focus throughout a given company, sometimes budgets dry up, sometimes bad PR impacts project viability. Flexibility is absolutely paramount to managing such uncontrollable variables.

5. Perseverance: Some Projects Are Much Harder Than Others

You’ve got to be able to see things through. Your first project, if you’ve got a managerial staff of any quality, is going to be something you can handle. As you successfully handle varying products, you’ll be trusted with more complex work.

Certain projects may take years to complete, and that requires perseverance. A “bigger picture” perspective helps both initiate and foster necessary perseverance.

Optimizing Your Effectiveness As A Project Manager

Perseverance, flexibility, honest self-examination that incorporates external means of determination, task delegation, and prioritization all represent fundamental aspects of project management. If you’re in the position of PM for your company, you need to be sure your abilities incorporate such skills.

Certainly, these aspects of effective project management are stated in broad terms. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not fundamentally essential. Whatever your project is, as a manager you’re operating as a leader of sorts, and that means being able to juggle complex projects with skill over the long run.

3 Reasons to Not Let Your Doubts Keep You from Pursuing Your Dream Career

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Pursue your Dream Career|3 Reasons to Not Let Your Doubts Keep You from Pursuing Your Dream CareerMany people out there have a “dream career” in mind. Something that they would really love to do, and would find deeply meaningful.

Far too often, though, doubt ends up getting in the way and we end up settling for “safer” options, instead of putting ourselves out there and earnestly pursuing our dream careers. This is in spite of the fact that there are now many platforms and services out there which can streamline the process of getting started in your dream career, such as Preceptor Tree.

Here are just a few reasons not to let your doubts keep you from pursuing your dream career.

Because your thoughts about things may be deeply mistaken, and direct experience gives real perspective

Although you may feel as though you have a pretty clear insight into the potential obstacles that stand in the way of you achieving your dream career, the fact of the matter is that your thoughts may be a lot less accurate than you may think – even when you feel as though you’re being very logical.

In order to make predictions about how things are going to turn out, and in order to create “logical projections” as well, we all need to make certain assumptions on the basis of our past experiences and biases, and on the basis of the mental maps that we have constructed.

In many cases, though, direct experience ends up proving to be very different than what we had thought about a given situation.

This is a pretty clear reason why it’s important not to let your own self-defeating thoughts prevent you from taking steps to pursue your dream career. There’s a good chance that those self-defeating thoughts are mistaken, or are in any case not providing the full picture.

Because striving to achieve something that you find meaningful can enrich your life in all sorts of other ways.

Even if you don’t necessarily succeed in achieving your dream career, simply striving to achieve something that you find genuinely meaningful can enrich your life in all sorts of other ways, ranging from granting you a great deal more motivation and enthusiasm each day, to showing you all sorts of options that you had never considered.

The momentum that pursuing your dream career can give you, and the process of discovery that comes from working honestly towards a dream in this way, can be fundamentally rewarding, and can be game changers in and of themselves.

And, at the end of the day, you won’t have to sit around thinking “what would’ve happened if I had just tried?”

Because the more proactive and engaged you are, the more opportunities will arise.

Being proactive and engaged, in general, tends to generate a lot of opportunities along the way – whereas simply going through the motions and remaining in your comfort zone, at a day job that you don’t much enjoy, doesn’t tend to generate many opportunities at all.

Pursuing your dream career– like all other proactive endeavours – has the potential to open many doors.

Time For a New Career? Here’s How to Scope Out Your Options

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |New Career|Time For a New Career? Here's How to Scope Out Your OptionsRight now, there are a lot of people looking for new roles. The reasons for this are various and as individual as each person searching the jobs boards. A major cause of people looking for employment is the coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the course of the pandemic, many people lost their work – whether that was due to the company they worked for collapsing or being made redundant. Many people also took time on furlough or between jobs and have had time to reconsider what they’re doing, realising that the work they’re currently carrying out isn’t for them and that they’d like to try something new. Whatever your reason for looking for a new job, you can rest assured that there are plenty of options out there. Here’s how you can whittle them down and find the right position for you and your needs.

Industry or Sector

First, consider what industry or sector you want to go into. Many people have a vague idea of what kind of work they’d like to do and would find fulfilling. Knowing a general industry or sector can help you to determine what roles are available and conduct more research into them. Some popular industries and sectors include retail, hospitality, healthcare, IT and more.

Training

If you’re entering a completely new field, you may find that certain roles require training or qualifications that can take time, money and effort to receive. You need to determine whether this is something that you are willing to do to be able to land the position you have in mind. If you want to go into medicine, you could have a long, seven year degree ahead of you. If you want to become a security guard, you may need to undertake security guard training. If you want to become an accountant, there will be all sorts of specific courses to the area that you live in that you will need to complete. Determine whether you’re willing to undertake the necessary training before setting your heart on any given role.

Location

The location of a job can determine whether it’s right for you. You need to determine where you want to live and then you can start job hunting within the area. The good news is that most roles are available in most areas. For example, if you want to become a social media manager, chances are, most locations will have a company in need of this. However, for more specific roles, you may need to relocate. For example, if you want to become a marine biologist, chances are, you’re going to have to be willing to live near the sea.

Salary

Of course, salary should be a consideration when applying for roles. What amount of money do you need to be able to provide yourself with a good quality of life. This figure will differ from person to person. If you have dependents, chances are, you’ll need to earn more than someone who lives alone and independently.

These are just a few areas to mull over during your job hunt. Hopefully, each will help you to find a position that works for you!

Nine Ways You Can Further Your Career

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Further your Career|Nine Ways You Can Further Your CareerCareer development is not the responsibility of your manager. You are responsible. The manager is liable for your output. Thus, determining your goals and accomplishments at the annual review time is not the best idea.

These 9 career-boosting steps you can take today and in the coming months will boost your career.

Set Small Goals Often

There is a lot of emphasis on goals during annual reviews. It is difficult to set realistic, attainable goals in a year; it is actually too long. For this reason, setting smaller goals is more appropriate.

Consider what you do on a daily basis. Are there any ways to elevate that work? How can you improve yourself? Put these items on your list of goals and give them some thought. Once you’ve set your goals, give yourself a deadline by which you must learn these things.

You should grade yourself at the end of the deadline. Please. You know how it goes. What did you do? How well did you do it? You may also want to ask a friend or colleague how they would rate or grade your new skills. Do it again.

Stretch Yourself

We think the only way to succeed is to get out of our comfort zones. As such, you must learn to think outside of your expertise.

Dare to be scared. Are you afraid to speak in public? Attend business presentations and networking events. Do you feel anxious about sharing your industry insights? Request that someone publish your articles. Emotional intelligence training for geeks could be one way to stretch yourself.

Ask For Feedback

It is important to do self-assessments and to get feedback. You should also get feedback constantly. You should ask the following questions after every meeting:

What were your most successful strategies?
If it were even better, what would it be?”

From these two questions, you can learn a great deal. There is a lot you can learn from these two questions about the quality of your work and performance. Try them out.

Learn About Your Industry

Every week, spend some time learning about your industry. Consider yourself to be being tested on your industries and companies. Consult experts. Get advice from colleagues and managers. Speak to your clients about their feelings. Gather information from industry experts. Share the insights you collect with your clients.

Research

Keep up with the latest blogs, whether they are big or small. Take the time to read books relating to your profession. Read books about business that encourage you to think differently. As a reader, you can spark conversations with other people you meet at networking events. You can also build your career by learning new ways to do things and different hacks about living your life that will make it run more smoothly, both at work and at home.

Networking

The standard LinkedIn invite should never be sent. Not ever. That is all we can say. Let the recipient know what you have in common with him or her, and how you want to help them. To get a face-to-face introduction, ask a member of your network. Keeping an impression is the key to successful networking. But LinkedIn is not the only platform. Meet as many people as possible by attending industry events, local events, and local functions. This will also keep you interested in what you’re doing.

Find A Mentor

For all those elements, mentors can be an excellent resource. What are you looking for in a mentor? Let your mentor know what you are looking for. Do you have a question about the industry or how your company operates? Want to find out how you can stretch your abilities? Try mentoring!

Find A Protégé

Furthermore, a good protégé can be a valuable source of information and knowledge as well. It is possible to break your paradigms when you have a protege. In addition to exposing you to new ideas, they can present you with new approaches and ways to approach problems.

Always Be Listening

Even if you are happy in your current job, building relationships with new people and listening to other opportunities never hurts. Whether you want to grow and improve your career or grow and improve your personal life, that’s what you need to do.

Don’t shy away from your next opportunity or new connection. It feels great when people notice you! Do you have any other tips that could help? Please share them in the comments below.