Shift Your Mindset To Get Ahead At Work

A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal?interviewed me about why working too hard can hurt your career trajectory. The story was how being the reliable office workhorse doesn't always get you ahead.

What I particularly liked about this article was its focus on how to overcome that, or in their words,"other paths to office stardom."

This is where I shared my mindset shifts, which I talk about in "Smart, Not Loud" and are critical for us to accelerate our career growth. It's not just doing the work, it’s also:

?? Building visibility around our work so others know about it

?? Elevating our communication skills so we can talk about it with confidence

?? Shaping our career brand so we can be top of mind for the best opportunities

In the story, I unveiled my own struggle and revelation with this.

When I first started working on TV, I was constantly asked to "step-in" and help by working on the weekends. As difficult as it was to sacrifice my free time, I made sure to not just "do the work," but to take take a "crappy" situation and turn it into an opportunity.

So what I did was leverage the more "quiet office environment" of the weekend to work on projects I actually wanted to do, which at the time was anchoring the news, the most coveted position in any newsroom.

I enlisted my colleagues to help and before I knew it, I finalized creating a sample video that I could now use to further a job I actually wanted.

The point of the story: sometimes you have to take on tasks and projects that don't seem to help you get recognized, but if you think beyond the work, you can actually find ways to leverage it to help you! That's Smart, Not Loud.

Thank you to the WSJ for thinking of me as we change the narrative of what it means to accelerate our career growth ??

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