10 Rules For Success At Work

Work hard and you’ll succeed.  Dress for success. There are so many aphorisms to try to help people achieve success in their endeavors, but are any of them really true?  

In my experience, success boils down more to cultivating a few important habits and then practicing them over and over again.  If I were asked to distill those habits down, these would be my personal rules for success:

1. Define your goals.
   These could be business goals or life goals, but the value of knowing your purpose and understanding your destination cannot be overestimated. One person goes to work each day and does the required tasks competently and on time, while another goes in and does the same tasks just as well, but always with an eye towards earning a promotion, a pay rise, or another goal. Which do you think will succeed more quickly?
2. Associate with the right people.
   This is a wonderful maxim in many different situations. If you are in charge of a team, bringing in people who are better at certain things than you are will improve the team’s chances of success. If you are an entrepreneur, associating with other entrepreneurs in different fields will teach you things you didn’t know. If you’re networking, going out of your way to meet different and interesting people will always pay dividends.
3. Go the extra mile.
   You might apply this to your work, anticipating what your boss will ask for before he or she asks for it, but you can apply it to many aspects of your life. Go out of your way to be helpful and kind to be more likeable. Bring coffee for the big meeting without being asked. Do something nice for a friend or colleague. Follow up. You’d be surprised how often the little gestures make the biggest impact.
4. Practice confidence.
   Some people are naturally self confident, others need to practice. Whichever you are, work towards having such faith in yourself and your purpose that act with total confidence. Then, even when you fail, you will fail boldly and move on quickly.
5. Cultivate initiative and integrity.
   This basically boils down to doing what you know you should, without being told. No matter what level you’re at, bosses and managers love employees who can see what needs doing and do it, without having to wait for an assignment.
6. Be creative.
   Dare to think outside of what has already been done. Question what they say cannot be done. Imagine, daydream, doodle, create, test, plan, and ponder. Successful people make this sort of creative brain work a regular part of their routine.
7. Stay positive.
   A positive and enthusiastic attitude will get you much further than a negative one. People like and respect positive people much more, and applying a positive mindset to difficult or repetitive work will show that you can handle yourself under pressure.
8. Learn to tell fact from fiction.
   Especially in a business environment, it’s vital to be able to determine what’s accurate and what’s hearsay or gossip — whether the information is being presented in a boardroom or in the break room.
9. Focus.
   Disciplining yourself to work with focus will make you more productive and less likely to make mistakes. Experiment until you find the optimal length of focused work you can do, then take a short break and get back to it.
10. Always look for the bright side.
    Successful people tend to be able to find opportunities in difficulty. They learn from mistakes and profit from adversity. When you can learn to turn an unfortunate situation into a fortunate one — even if only in your own mind — you will be well on your way to success.

These are just my personal favorites, but I’d love to hear yours. What do you believe is the most important rule for success at work? Please share in the comments below.

----------------

Thank you for reading my post. I regularly write about management, technology 
as well as the mega-trend that is Big Data for LinkedIn and Forbes. If you would like to read my regular posts then please click 'Follow' and feel free to also connect via Twitter, Facebook and The Advanced Performance Institute.

Here are some other recent posts I have written:

• Career Choices You Will Regret In 20 Years
• The One Thing Successful People Never Do
• The 25 KPIs Every Manager Needs to Know
• How NOT to Introduce Yourself
• 10 Sentences Good Managers NEVER Say - EVER
• Big Data Explained in Less Than 2 Minutes - To Absolutely Anyone
• How To Make A Billion Dollars From Big Data

-------------------------------------

Bernard Marr is a bestselling business author and is globally recognized as an expert in strategy, performance management, analytics, KPIs and big data. His new book is 'Big Data - Using Smart Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance'.

You can read a free sample chapter here.

Photo: Shutterstock.com