One of the most important parts of your career journey is having the right mindset for career success. It’s the number one thing that separates successful people from everyone else. There’s going to be setbacks, rejection and frustrations that test your mindset. As long as you treat them as something you can learn and keep growing from, you’ll be successful in your career. So here’s my top tried and tested tips on getting your mindset right for career success:
- Get rid of any doubt
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will” – Suzy Kassem
It’s natural when you are looking for a new job, starting a new job or launching a different career path, that doubt will creep in. As doubt often starts in the mind, when your inner doubts arise, try to disrupt the thought pattern. Simply saying an affirmation to yourself such as “I believe in myself”.
When you find you are doubting yourself, think of all the times you achieved what you set out to achieve in your career, something else wonderful happened, or you benefitted from the experience.
- Don’t let fear get in the way, kick it to the backseat
Fear can really paralyse you and stop you from taking action. What you focus on grows. If you focus on fear, it will only expand. When you feel fear, instead of focusing on it, count to three and face it head on. Just jump in and be brave as it’s never as bad as you imagine. Start to take intentional action in your career and run towards your fears instead of away from them. Don’t let fear be the reason you don’t achieve your career dreams.
- Remove the “what ifs”
“‘What’ and ‘if’ are two words as non-threatening as words come. But put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if?” – Letters to Juliet
Spending time worrying about “what if” keeps the mind focused exactly where it doesn’t need to be. Try to spend time focusing on what you do want to happen in your career. Every time you go to say or think “what if?”, say to yourself, “so what!”, which pushes the nagging thought away.
- Get out of your own way
Stop self-sabotaging your success. Take a moment and listen to the way you speak to yourself, and think about the habits and behaviours you have. For example, do you start a diet and say to yourself “no chocolate allowed” only to find yourself eating chocolate that afternoon? This is self-sabotage.
Often, our thoughts and behaviour are tied together. Many times, it is these habits and behaviours that are taking us away from attaining the things we deeply desire. In every moment, we are taking action that moves us toward or away from our deepest desires, such as creating the career and life we want. Spend some time understanding which thoughts and actions are in conflict with your deepest desires.
- Work through your crappy limiting beliefs
Maybe you don’t feel you truly deserve to land your dream job or have the career success you are seeking. Spend some time and do a deep dive to know where these beliefs came from and then be able to move past them.
- Stop holding yourself back
Don’t put your health and happiness on the backburner any longer. It’s all about what’s going on between your ears. Believe you deserve to achieve your career goal. Visualisation can be a very powerful tool to help move you towards your career goals. Take some time to visualise what you want in your career and feel into the emotion you will experience in attaining this.
- Contain your freak-out moments
Your career journey can be a total rollercoaster of amazingness one minute and the next minute someone criticises you, which plummets you down. Accepts that this is part of the career journey and don’t spend too much time on the down. Pick yourself up and keep going.
- Eliminate your fear of taking action
You have to take action on your career dreams. Nothing kills a dream quicker than inaction. You can have all the knowledge and skills in the world, but if you don’t take action, then how do you expect to land your dream job or get promoted? Commit to spending a certain amount of time each day on actions to move you closer towards your career dreams. This could be listening to a self-development or career podcast, reading a motivational book or developing an action plan for the next step in your career.
- Develop a daily mindset practice
All you need to do is find 10-15 minutes a day to dedicate to your mindset practice. It can be saying affirmations or meditating or a combination of both. Your mind is like a muscle and needs to be strengthened. A daily practice develops a strong mind, which helps to keep you moving forward. You have to constantly feed your mind and remind yourself that you are great.
- Focus on the positive and be grateful
You have the power within you to control your thoughts. So start focusing on what you have achieved in your career and be grateful for that. Take a few minutes each day to write in a journal and develop a gratitude practice, noting what in your career you are grateful for. This helps you to focus on the positive and when this happens, your career starts to change. Positive vibes you put out into the world always come back.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and finding a job or landing your dream job can be a marathon, not a sprint, so work at your own pace. Too many people give up right before they would have experienced the career success they are seeking. Career success is within your reach, so get really determined and focused. Don’t give up. You can do it!