7 Ways to Advance Your Career in 2022 – and Beyond
If you stand still in your career, you’ll get run over or passed by. At the very least, you’ll never reach your full potential or your own goals. “Maintaining” your current skills, responsibilities, position, or network is not enough. Playing prevent defense and maintaining the status quo rarely works out. Instead, you should take the offensive and upgrade, grow, and advance your yourself – and therefore your career.
Below are 7 practical ways to advance your career in 2022 – and beyond:
1. Commit to be a Continuous Learner
The 21st century economy and workplace are characterized by continuous change, disruption, and ambiguity. To succeed in this new, fast-paced world of work requires a commitment to be continuous learner. Acquiring new information through personal reading, on-site training, off-site training, volunteering, online courses, or formal continuous education, will enhance your knowledge, insight, and skills, and thus your value in the workplace.
2. Seek to Disrupt Yourself
Growth typically comes from changing and adapting. Instead of waiting for, and reacting to, change that is thrust upon you, take control and proactively disrupt yourself. Look at your current schedule, behaviors, routines, thought patterns, and relationships. Are there areas where you can change in a managed way? Small instances of disrupting your way of operating can help you prepare for larger changes in the workplace.
3. Network, Network, Network
Networking is building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. You already do it, so don’t fight it or the terminology. Relationships are key to succeeding in your current role (most work is done in teams/groups), getting promoted (familiarity reduces uncertainty), and to landing your next job (employers routinely say employee referrals are their best sourcing/recruitment method). Be intentional about maintaining and strengthening your current relationships, and seek to build new relationships, especially with people in your target role, company, or industry. Don’t know how to start? Consider this advice: say hello, give a compliment, ask questions, be interested, and ask what you can do to help.
4. Master Your Mindset
Having a positive mindset is critical to managing yourself, your relationships, and the challenges and emotions that present themselves in the workplace. A positive mindset will attract positive people and help you overcome challenging situations in the workplace, whereas a negative mindset will attract other negative thinkers and present hurdles to challenging situations. Take stock of your mindset over the course of a week or so to spot instances of positive and negative attitudes and beliefs. If you find a pattern of negativity, you can practice mindset shifts, which I wrote about here, here, here, here, and here.
5. Start that Side Hustle
More and more people are starting a side hustle – their own business – and for good reason. Side hustles help people earn more money, gain new skills, and test whether they can turn their idea/passion into a full-time business. Multiple income streams will help you achieve your financial goals and be less reliant on any one employer. New skills will help you be more productive and valuable in your current or future roles. And successful side businesses can create a path to freedom. Whether your side hustle is “successful” or not, your career will likely be better off for you betting on yourself. So bet on yourself.
6. Schedule Time to…Think
Your busyness isn’t a badge of honor, it’s a barrier to success. A schedule where you are constantly moving from task to task, meeting to meeting, or event to event, doesn’t provide time to process what has occurred or is occurring, build mental models for the day ahead, generate new ideas, or plan for the future. You know, things that help you be productive and successful. Consider blocking off time each day or week to just think – without distractions (especially electronics). You can wake up early, go for a walk, or barricade yourself in a room at home or work. Schedule “Time to Think” on your calendar. It might just be your most productive activity.
7. Understand the Job Market
Your awareness of the job market, and the overall economy, is key to successful job/career selections, advancements, transitions, pivots, and changes. Knowing what your local or target labor market looks like today, and where it’s headed, can help you make informed decisions about which jobs, companies, and industries to pursue, stay away from, or leave. An awareness of the job market will also help you determine if you are being compensated fairly, as well as what skills are in high demand. Knowledge of the job market can keep your career on track, as well as your earning potential.
A successful career doesn’t happen by chance. And it doesn’t happen by maintaining the status quo. It happens through intentional actions to grow ones’ skills, relationships, awareness, mindset, and opportunities, among other things. By committing to be a continuous learner, disrupting yourself, building and strengthening your network, mastering your mindset, starting a side hustle, scheduling time to think, and understanding the job market, you’ll position yourself for success and ensure your career continues to grow in 2022 – and beyond!
For more career development tips and information, visit: https://www.leonardworkforcesolutions.com/news
For information about 1:1 career development services, visit: https://www.leonardworkforcesolutions.com/careerdevelopment
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