How to shine in your job?

All of us want to grow fast in life, earn more and live a comfortable life. A good way to do this is to have a good job and climb success ladder with each passing year. To climb that success ladder, you need to shine in your job by doing hard work and adding value to your employer. 

If you ask people what you need to do to rise fast in your company or career then you will get many different answers like working late in the evening, on weekends, doing anything and everything for your boss, politics, etc. etc. However, after working for almost a decade now, I have realized that you don't need to work extra hours or indulge in activities outside your role to get what you want.

All you need to do is work when you work and work smartly. Confused??

Well, let me explain a bit. A typical company has 9 hours of working time e.g. 9 AM to 6 PM. Employees get 1 hour of lunch break and they are expected to work for the rest of 8 hours. Now when you observe people in a company closely, you will notice that majority of the people do not work for more than 6-7 hours on an average on any given day.

So if they are not working than what they are doing. Well, it depends on person to person and company to company. But the majority of the people simply waste time during the day. Some of the prominent reasons are

1. Coming late in the morning or in meetings when the team is waiting for them. (This is worst as they waste everybody's time)

2. Spending time on the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even watching YouTube.

3. Online shopping.

4. Gossiping 

5. Browsing internet news sites and other non relevant sites.

6. Extended lunch breaks.

7. Multiple and extended coffee and other work breaks (playing etc.) 

So now you see that people waste daily 2-3 hours in these activities and when at the end of the day, they have not delivered their work, they will work overtime to compensate for lost time. Sometimes they have to work on weekends to meet deadlines.

So what you should do to rise fast in your career. Well do not do what I just mentioned. You need to be watchful of your time. Start respecting it and expect your team to do the same. Follow these principles to work smartly.

1. Time management - Come office on time and leave office on time. Plan your day in advance and take buffer for things like traffic. Use a calendar to plan your meetings, deadlines, reminders and even breaks. You need to be mindful of how you spend time on various activities like meetings, coffee breaks, lunch breaks etc. Stop associating with people who waste your time. Politely refuse them by saying that you have a deadline to meet. They will be happy to go and waste somebody else's time :)

2. Have goals for you and your team. A clear goal with a timeline helps you become focused and driven. Ask your boss to give you clear goals and what is expected from you for the entire year or next quarter. This will help you work better as well prepare you better for your performance evaluation meeting.

3. Learn as much as you can so that you can work better and faster. Utilize your free time during lunch or when workload is less to learn about new technologies or stuff in your domain. Take courses online or enroll in certification programs. This will give you an edge over your colleagues. Help your team learn so that collectively your group can perform better.

4. Take breaks - Well this is contradictory to whatever I just discussed. Isn't it? Well you should take breaks but short and strategic. Take short 5 minutes break after every 90 minutes of work. Go for a quick walk or have a glass of water. This will rejuvenate your energies and help you think clearly. Instead of taking garbage in (like social networking feeds or jokes on whatsapp), take good thoughts in. Read something motivational or something which can uplift you.

5. Help other's succeed. If you help enough people succeed then eventually you will be successful. What goes out, comes back manifold. Train and mentor people so that they can do their job better and faster. Help them apply the takeaways from this article.

6. Think like a businessman. Do not consider yourself as an employee. Instead think that you are a businessman who is doing business with your employer. You are here to add value and get value in return which is the compensation for your services. You are in the business of providing services.

If you do all these things than you will surely rise fast in your company or with this mindset you can get a good job where you can climb the success ladder fast. After all every employer and boss is looking for someone who can bring results fast.

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PS: I am a growth coach on a mission to help 5000 entrepreneurs find 10x growth. I help companies find business growth, build productive and motivated teams and scale their product and technology.

 I will open floodgates of growth opportunities for your business. 

Discuss your growth challenges by connecting on LinkedIn or send an email to lokeshgupta15 [at] gmail.com

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