My Career Journey: The Learnings So Far

On the 12th of December 2011, I took a major step in my career journey when I joined Guinness Nigeria Plc(a Diageo Company).

It's been an exciting and deeply fulfilling experience despite the ups and downs.

So here, I share my top 10 learnings in this journey and hope you find the tips helpful in navigating your own journey.

1. Your career is in your hands. Sounds a cliché right? Well, it's still 100% true and the earlier you learn this and be ready to do whatever it takes to get ahead in your career, the better for you. Organizations can offer you platforms, line managers and colleagues - guidance, but what your career turns out to be is squarely your responsibility. Your actions and inactions decide not just your career, but your life. Take charge early enough and you will be grateful you did.

2. You need a mentor! One interesting thing about mentorship is that you realize the huge importance in hindsight – mostly when mistakes have been made and career probably delayed or even destroyed. Get a mentor as early as you can in your career journey, and I guarantee you’ll be years ahead of your peers.

And by the way, your mentor mustn’t even know they are. With the internet and social media, you can learn valuable life and career lessons from people who don’t even know you exist.

In fact, I've learnt more from “money twitter” than I did in the years I spent at the university, and I don’t even know any of the account owners in person. Get a mentor fast!

3. Never let failure stop you. Never reject an opportunity to try out of fear of failing or being rejected. I did in 2013 and I still feel the pains.

Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a critical part of it - a proof you’re doing something great and feedback that you can do better. View success as an iceberg with failure and rejection as parts of the foundation hidden beneath the waters. You can’t succeed if you’re not failing. In fact, use this clue: decide from today to do the things you fear, and the results will amaze you.

4. Always ask for what you want. Learn how to ask for anything you want. Need a promotion? Ask! Need a pay rise? Ask! Need help/support? Ask! I learnt that anything and everything is possible, but if you don’t ask, the answer is always NO.

I’ve seen people get promoted, transferred to their desired career path, given favors that everybody thought was impossible simply because they had the courage to ask. Always ask! After all, the worst possible outcome is NO.

5. Have a purpose that drives your actions. I realized this a bit late in my journey, but it’s been a different experience since then. The difference between highflyers and others is self-awareness backed up by purpose-driven actions. You are not going to have a great career and by extension, great life if you are not clear about what you want, and your daily actions driven by desire to achieve them. Sadly, most of us are sleepwalking. Wake up! Live, and work for a purpose. Until you do, trust me, nothing really works.

6. Don’t be scared of mistakes. Like failure, mistakes are integral part of your success journey. They are proofs you’re testing the waters outside your comfort zone. See, if you get it right at first attempt, you’re probably not aiming high enough. Champions including career highflyers you probably admire failed countless times before getting it right.

Learn to put yourself out there, be open-minded, ask for feedback, accept criticism, and keep going. Nobody has it all figured out, not even your CEO.

7. Avoid comfort zone. My early career years was blighted by comfort zone. I was na?ve and inexperienced. Glad I escaped it. Not many are as lucky.

Comfort zone is a career dead-end - nothing great grows out of it. Avoid it like a plague.

Don’t stay in a role for too long especially where you do the same thing repeatedly, challenge yourself daily, take more responsibility, ask for secondment, be more visible with your work, make contributions at meetings, sell yourself…just do anything within your powers to push yourself out of comfort zone if you plan to have a great career.

8. Master important soft skills. In today’s dynamic business world, you’ll need the support and alignment of others including those outside your function to deliver on your role and you need a set of skills that can help you seamlessly get this.

Emotional and social intelligence, teamwork, positive attitude, empathy and effective communication are some of the very important soft skills to master to help you create productive relationships that drive results. These are very crucial to your success or failure. Master them!

9. Think Big. You can never go wrong thinking big. Always aim high and be willing to put the work needed, especially in your early days. The gap between people’s position in the organizational chart is in most cases, hardly down to knowledge and skills rather how far each can aim. Don’t sell yourself short, have the courage to ask for more, aim as high as possible and you can never go wrong.

10. Your association matters. More than anything else, our lives are reflection of the kind of association we keep and the environment we live in. Your association can derail your career growth or even kill it without you(r) knowing. Be very choosy, especially in your early days. Poor neighborhoods for example, are cheap on rent but can keep you average at best. Again, think long term!

Experts say you’re average of the five people you associate with, and I totally agree. Choose your friends carefully and let them be people you want to be like.

Bringing it all together, your career, just like your life is yours to make whatever you want. You have all the powers to do that. Start early enough with smart work, right skills, right mindset and attitude... you can never go wrong.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

Chiemezie