On the outside, everyone who wins at life seems to do it with ease. Life seems to get handed to winners as they confidently stroll through the workplace. So, is it possible for you to have that easy stroll through the workplace too? There are just a few steps to become one of those successful people.
If you want to conquer your workplace here are a few ways to start acting like the successful person you are:
-
Confidence
Confidence is key. It’s the belief in yourself that you can do something. If you have the skills and know that you can be on top, then showing, or even bragging about those skills to other people will help them fully appreciate what you have to offer. If you are the best accountant in your firm, you darn well better walk like it, talk like it, and help others achieve the same awesome success you exude by utilizing your ‘best accountant in the firm’ skills.
-
Persistence
You will fail a hundred thousand times in your life. If you keep track of every slight fall, every day will seem like a failure, but every step you take without slipping is a successful step. You might fall every 1,000 steps, but that’s a 99.9% success ratio, persistence makes you a mega-star. Fail today, try again tomorrow, switch something up, learn from it. It’s far from a failure, but if you just can’t shake that feeling of failure or hopelessness, escape from the situation for a moment. Stepping back, taking a walk, or even a much-needed vacation, can help you come back recharged, and better for the fight. Trying is half the battle, so don’t stop.
-
Relax
Relax. People, like dogs, can sense stress, it creates uneasiness and think of you as untrustworthy. Stress is a killer to your productivity; it’s understandable that there may be stress in the workplace, but excessive amounts of stress can be a total effort exterminator. Take a walk around the block, get a cup of green tea, or kick off your heels, shut your office door and have a 5 minute dance party to some sweet sweet saxophone sounds. Let your mind drift like a turtle lost on the great current for a few small breaks through-out your day. It’ll help your confidence, your productivity, and your happiness at work.
-
Learn
Never stop learning, everything is a lesson. There are two defined routes of learning: book smarts and street smarts. Find something that works for you! Learning with life lessons, this means looking into what other people in the industry are doing at the time and staying aggressively competitive in the field. Other people want a defined, trackable way of learning. There are a few ways of doing this within your company, for free. Taking advantage of free online classes, like free excel tutorials, or taking massively open online courses (MOOCs) are a tremendous boost to your own knowledge bank. Because only about 4% of people who are enrolled in MOOCs actually complete the course, holding seminars/’learnsdays’ in your office would be the best way of showing off your moxie (rather than simply plugging it into your resume).
-
Prioritize
Prioritizing your work vs. play time will offer you happiness in the long run. If you are really satisfied with your job, then you may not need to prioritize work vs. fun because for you they are the same thing. For all the rest of us, taking the time to exercise and take care of ourselves is a priority that we do not make #1 enough. This may mean delegating work to an intern who is chomping at the bit for more progressive tasks, or setting aside tasks that are not time-dependent. It may seem silly, but organizing a set list of tasks for your day will propel you forward, there is something so rewarding about crossing out items on a list, even if they are silly things like “get coffee with Jen at 10:45”.
-
Set Goals
Lining up your goals not only for today but for the long-term is one key to success that pushes those brilliant, confident people like yourself from middle management to the top. It’s one thing to know you can do your boss’s job, it’s another to devise a plan to either be in their position or another equal. Over-throwing your boss is not a good idea, but setting goals with other managers and supervisors outlining your plan in the company, and setting long-term goals with the company shows that you want to stay there, you want to move forward, and are willing to take the effort to do so. Set definite goals and let your higher ups know what they are so you can gain valuable get advice.
-
Backtrack
Take a full evaluation of your plans, and the ideas that may have passed before. Sometimes you already thought of the right answer but dismissed it too quickly. Taking time to evaluate all your options, even the ones from a few years ago, is necessary. Old ideas aren’t bad ideas. Flourishing people is to be able to backtrack to older thoughts, older plans, and adjust for the problems at present. If you are really stuck, try expanding the amount of solutions you have. This can help in situations where there seems to be only two solutions, neither of which seem attractive.
-
Win!