Are You Looking for an Extraordinary Fast Track Career?

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

– Pablo Picasso

Get in line. There are many looking for this entrance to a fast track career, aren’t there? I spent 38 + years in my career in management and leadership of employees very interested in a successful corporate career. And while I stumbled onto the entrance to a fast track career, I wasn’t specifically looking for it. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t disappointed to find it. But I likewise would not have been unhappy with an average career pace.

I spent over 40 years in coaching, mentoring, and assisting in employee career development. And I got the question about the fast track career development many, many times. More than one employee wanted to set goals for senior management/ executive positions with time tables attached. I always frowned on these plans. And my answer never changed to a successful career. I believed (and now more than ever) that employees should pursue jobs for maximum job satisfaction and not worry about the advancement rate. Why might you ask? My answer was always that such rapid career advancement always depended on a high degree of chance. So why fret and stress about it.

That does not mean you should not focus on career development, however. This is especially true today more than ever. Why is that you may ask? As Clay Shirky describes the digital internet age, it is far from minor and not optional. Right on the mark isn’t it? This description is particularly relevant to the need for continuous learning and personal development for long term success.

 The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. EVERY TWO YEARS. The top 10 jobs that were in demand in 2013 didn’t exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that don’t yet exist. All this to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. Scary, isn’t it? So development planning is more relevant than ever for career success. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a famous French writer, once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Achieving career success requires more than luck, more than hard work — it requires a plan. And the great part is that your plan doesn’t have to be difficult to create or complex. 

 See our article on Learning to Learn.

When it comes to improving career development, here are my 18 tips to build the best opportunities for rapid corporate career growth:

 

Use initiative

Always be on the lookout for actions that have been over looked and show initiative to get them done.

 

Continuous learning

Know what your skills are and what they are not. Keep adding to it all the time – with both your development and surrounding yourself with others who complement your talents. Remember to focus on your strengths and set your weaknesses aside.

 

Focus on results

Deliver objectively unmistakable value that transcends opinion. This should be your number one priority.

 

Maintain a positive attitude

Learn what attitude is, what aspects of your life are controlled or directed by your attitude, and how to determine your attitude at any given moment. Know what specific strategies make a positive attitude a permanent habit in your life.

 

 

Strong relationships

Build beneficial relationships with many people. Networking and making friends is the name of the game.

 

 

Have a vision

Invest time to imagine what the future is going to look like and how you’ll need to adapt to fit into it. Remember though, vision without action is a daydream. No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.

 

Try one new thing at least weekly

 Your life will be in constant change mode, and that is a good thing if you lead change in the direction of your success goals. To do that most successfully, you should try lots of new things continually. For things you like, get very good at them with lots of practice. But keep trying new activities.

 

 

 Practice new skills

 One of my most favorite quotations about aim and goals is one from Michelangelo:

 The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

 Michelangelo knew a thing or two about high aim and goals didn’t he? Need we say anything more?

 

 

Develop self confidence

Understand the nature of human potential through a simple process of identifying your talents and abilities. Believe in yourself; you are stronger than you realize.

Remember to develop strengths and personal interests to create fulfillment and economic opportunities for your future.

 

Know lessons learned

Become recognized as a corporate historian, remembering what’s been done, what’s worked and hasn’t and why, where ALL the bodies are buried, and who was responsible for putting the bodies where they were buried. Avoid relearning old mistakes.

 

Be low maintenance

Make sure you are low maintenance and represent minimal overhead. Know what tasks to take on and which ones to avoid.  

Build good habits

Understand the process of how habits are created. Learn to identify and remove self-defeating habits and create habits that will make all aspects of your life easier and more successful

  

Set and manage goals

Recognize the difference between a wish and a goal. Make a commitment, plan and take action, and recognize completion.

Be persistent

Develop the focus and determination required to succeed. Create an attitude of gratitude as the access to fulfilling your dreams.

 Be relevant

Make sure what you stand for is relevant to what’s going on right now and will be relevant in the future as well. Keep it in your headlights consistently.

 This will create more value to be freed up and let you do more valuable things.

 

  

Know when to change

Always know where a door is and what situations will make you want or need to use it.

 

 

Put creative imagination to work

Extend your physical ability to accelerate creative problem solving and goal achievement in all areas of your life.

 

Dedicate yourself to learning new things

 I am a big believer in adaptation and change. You should always seek to be flexible and keep several alternative paths in front of you. Always be on the lookout for ways to reinvent ways for self-improvement. Our most favored quote on change and adaptation is from Charles Darwin:

 It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Increase your reading

 Let your curiosity take control and take you where it may turn into new information. Read for many reasons, but most of all to be entertained and learn new things. In today’s world of infinite access to information and knowledge, the sky is the limit, isn’t it?

 

 

Be persistent

Develop the focus and determination required to succeed. Create an attitude of gratitude as the access to fulfilling your dreams.

  Those are twenty career success principles I tried to follow in my career development and use with my employees. Not all apply in every situation, but if followed, they will not lead you astray.

 Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.