How to be successful in career

The most common query I get from my mentees and young professionals - How to excel in a career?

There is no straight forward answer to this important question. No one or nothing can guarantee success in a professional career. The only thing one can do to be successful in a career is to prepare oneself.

Here is what I have learned from my experience about what I call the 'Fundamentals for Success'.

1. Be sincere and ethical. Work hard. Build trust.

This is the most fundamental to be successful in life. Whatever we do we must be sincere and work very hard. Nothing comes easy in life.

Being ethical ensures long term success. Anyone trying to achieve success taking shortcuts that are unethical will never achieve the desired results.

Building trust is very important for getting success. To build trust, you have to keep your commitment. Always. You can't build trust if you are not sincere about delivering commitments.

2. Be aware of your strengths and improvement areas. Acknowledge mistakes.

Before you know others you must know yourself. It is very common to see that many professionals do not know their strengths and weaknesses. As a matter of fact, many of us do not want to know the weaknesses. We want to know what we are good at and what can bring in praise for us. But the fact is that unless you know both strengths and weaknesses, you can’t get success easily. No one has only strengths in their character. We all have both strengths and weaknesses. If we know it well we can always try to improve ourselves by learning and practicing the weaker areas and perform better by using our strengths more often.

We learn from our mistakes. If we do not acknowledge our mistakes we missout on an opportunity to learn and improve our weaker areas. Great leaders and successful people always acknowledge their mistakes in public.

3. Remain physically and mentally agile. Learn every day. Be open to change.

Remaining physically and mentally agile is a precondition to a successful professional career. We don’t need to do research on this to prove it. If you are not 100% agile both physically and mentally you won’t be able to give 100% to the work that you are doing and also you won’t be able to learn. If you want a long and successful career, keeping yourself fit for tomorrow is every young professional’s own responsibility. Find time out to do exercise. Many of us make the mistake during the beginning of the career of not taking care of our physical and mental wellness. This leads to complications in the latter part of the career.

Learning is essential. You can grow in professional life only if you continuously learn. No one knows everything. Even the top corporate leaders do not know everything in business. They learn continuously. This culture of learning must be made part of life for all young professionals.

Change is the only constant in life. This old proverb is so true for all of us in professional life. We all know it. But still, many professionals resist change. This is very common. But it is important for professionals to embrace change. It is important to look at changes with a positive frame of mind. The transition to the new phase may be difficult at times but Change actually benefits individuals. We don’t need to look at changes with suspicion or discomfort. Be comfortable with changes.

4. Continuously review your activities/ strategies and look for opportunities/ improvements. Take initiative.

What is right for today may not be right for tomorrow. The environment is continuously changing. We also have to adapt our strategies and activities accordingly. Review on a continuous basis. Never be complacent.

Only good thoughts are not good enough. One has to initiate action. Many people feel lethargic or do not get enough courage to initiate new things. But to achieve results one must show initiative. The initiative makes a person visible. It is important especially for young professionals.

5. Always remain positive. Be humble. Show respect.

Successful leaders always remain positive in any situation. You can’t achieve success with a negative frame of mind. It doesn’t support growth. Be it a crisis, be it a very challenging situation, it is very important that we remain positive. It is the first step for a turnaround.

Being humble and showing respect help to build trust with others. Please remember that you don’t get success by yourself. To be successful you need to work in a team and you become successful only when you get your support from every team member. Team members respond to your call only if you remain humble and show respect towards them. Respect your colleagues, your juniors, your seniors everyone. Show respect for the environment, the organization, and its values.