If you do your best, you can't go far wrong.So said out grandparents and our parents. Boy were they wrong!
Maybe in
jobs-for-life mentality of era before 1980's such attitudes were laudable. Keep your nose clean, put in a good day's work and retire after 40 years with a pension and a hacking cough.
The business world is very different today. Nowadays, your performance isn't measured against your own personal best, you are measured against your peers.
Who cares if you wrote best report of your life, or just gave best presentation of your career? Nobody. All that matters is result. If Joe can write a better report or Sam can give a better presentation, they will pretty soon have your job.
Is that cut-throat? You bet it is. Since Regan years in U.S. and Thatcher years in U.K., business has changed from corporate family to Darwinian evolution. Only fittest survive.
Now, it isn't enough to just turn up and put in a good day's work. You have to make a 'positive contribution' as well.
How can you do that without suffering fate of so many rising stars: executive burnout?
Stress was curse of nineties and is getting worse in noughts. But stress is just an inability to deal with a situation. It can be beaten. You just have to have right tools in your armory to fight it back.
Here are five tools that you can use right now. They are not industry or job-specific. Anyone can use them, but you do have to put in effort to learn.
Any tool, in any job, feels awkward and unwieldy when you first pick it up. These are no different. But practice and application will pretty soon make them all old friends. They will keep you sane and light your way to success.
1. Time and self management.
This is an old chestnut, but in truth, time management has never been so important. The person who can effectively complete six jobs in a day will always rise higher than one who can only complete five.
Often time management is a misnomer. What needs managing is ourselves. Our attitudes are time wasters, not time itself.
Read books, learn skills and make every second of your life count.
2. Positive mental attitude.
"Whether you believe you can, or believe you can't, you are right."
What is point in self-doubt? It is a self- fulfilling prophesy. Far better to believe in yourself and push yourself to achieve higher and greater things, than to fail for lack of trying.
There are two words you should erase from your vocabulary: can't and might.
'I can't do it' and 'I might do it' both usually mean 'I won't do it.'
You can. you should and you will.
3. Insatiable curiosity.
The old way of cocooning yourself in a little world of your own and letting rest of office/company get on with their own tasks must become extinct in your life.
