IF YOU DO THESE 2 THINGS CONSISTENTLY, YOU’RE VERY LIKELY TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL [2-min read]

Who doesn’t want a successful career?

Well, there may be a few out there… But I’m doubtful they’d be reading this.

Anyway, I would love a successful career, and am constantly striving to find ways to fast-track my development and success.

Well, it turns out a fantastic predicator of success is our output, and if we are leaders of people, the output of our teams. You see, as much as we all work in the people business and work is about building a culture where people can perform to their best – we are still all judged on our output.

This actually presents a great opportunity.

We can use the way we view this output as a way to ensure that we are constantly outperforming others, and improving ourselves… And all we need to do are these 2 things.

#1 – MAKE SURE YOU TAKE PRIDE IN EVERY PIECE OF WORK YOU DO

Have you ever created a piece of work, only to look at it and cringe – just because you know, deep down, it’s not good enough?

Well, I’ll keep this short – never do that.

Our performance is judged on our output, and the consistency of the quality of our output. It’s not good enough to occasionally put in a stunning piece of work, when the rest of the time it’s mediocre.

A great way to avoid this happening is to create and deliver work that you are proud to show people. When you’re proud of your work, it means you’re proud to let it represent you – this means it’s a good piece of work.

Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean you should be gravely offended when someone gives you some constructive criticism. Criticism and feedback are crucial to improvement and should be welcomed.

What I mean by pride, is that you should be happy for the work to represent you – if you’re not, then it’s not doing you justice.

Once you’ve mastered the art of doing this, then you’re ready for the next step.

#2 – TRY TO MAKE EVERY PIECE OF WORK IS BETTER THAN THE LAST

I’ve spent a lot of time working in Japan in my career, and one of my favourite Japanese business philosophies is kaizen. Kaizen basically means continuous improvement. Kaizen dictates that everyone, every process and every element of every company should be continuously improving.

The same applies to your work. Try to make every piece of work you do, slightly better than the last. Of course this isn’t easy, but the process of trying has 2 wonderful side-effects.

Firstly, to continuously improve, you need to be constantly reading and researching into what other people, doing similar work in similar fields are doing. It forces you to reach out and nourish your brain with new and inspirational ways of working.

Secondly, it means you need to experiment. It’s very hard to continuously make something better without changing it slightly. This means you have to constantly tweak your process and way of working, in an attempt to continuously improve. Some people may think this sounds like a very silly idea, however, in 2019, and the VUCA world, the ability to be agile, try new approaches and constantly tweak the way we work is invaluable.

Again, to clarify – this doesn’t mean that every piece of work you do will be better than the last – it just means you’re trying to make it better. Sometimes, the new experimental approach may not be as effective as your previous approach, but the effort to try to improve all the time will pay off in the long run.

WHAT NEXT?

Well, give it a go…

Start with taking maximum pride in the work you put out. Then, keep looking for ways to improve. Of course, no-one can guarantee you career success. But you can give yourself the best possible shot by focusing on making the work you put out these be the best reflection of yourself that it can be.