Career Advancement

To advance in your career, demonstrate your value to your employer and those around you. Be highly visible and take charge of situations when warranted. Continuously challenge yourself and members of your team. Act like management material by following these guidelines:

• Take advantage of every available opportunity to learn and grow.
• Establish behaviors that stand out positively in the minds of supervisors.
• Develop excellent critical thinking skills.
• Be a self-directed worker who performs duties with proficiency.
• Act professional at all times and display integrity and ethical behavior.
• Take on extra responsibilities and help others.
• Become an expert in your field.
• Participate in lifelong learning to keep your expertise up to date.

Take a long, hard look at your personal qualities and adjust your strategies to align yourself closer to the way management level people behave. With an inner drive and a determination to achieve, you can position yourself to rise to a higher level.

Take Time to Enjoy Easter

Take time this Easter to enjoy family and friends and to renew yourself spiritually. Living a balanced personal and professional life is crucial to your successful well-being. Too much attention to your professional life to the exclusion of your personal life will cause you to miss out on important "self" time. Too much attention to your personal life and not enough on your professional life will cause career stagnation. Develop a routine that personally fits your life plans and make corrections when it is out of balance.

• Take steps to maintain a healthy physical and mental balance.
• Practice good time and stress management.
• Get and stay organized.
• Maintain a positive attitude.

When you think of balance, consider all areas of your life, including work, family, friends, health, finance, spiritual, hobbies, and everything else that fits into your life. Balance in all areas of life is a key to contentment.

Career Advice - Build Better Work Habits

Build positive work habits by continually searching for ways to improve yourself and the way you do your job.

• Correctly interpret and follow directions.
• Pay attention to every detail and step.
• Learn the why behind the tasks you perform.
• Look for ways to increase your productivity.
• Meet daily goals, quotas, and deadlines.
• Assess how you perform tasks and determine if there is a better, cheaper, faster way to do them.

Prove you are a competent, resourceful employee by performing your job efficiently and accurately.

Provide Excellent Customer Service to Add Value

Whatever happened to customer service with a smile? It seems to me it is difficult to find it some days. Adding value to your boss and company might be as simple as providing the best customer service. Customers mean business. Repeat customers mean business is going well. Put forth your best customer service efforts if you want to succeed in the business world.

• Focus on the customers' needs and concerns.
• Watch for nonverbal clues customers provide.
• Develop a personal connection with customers.
• Be knowledgeable about your products and services so you can provide accurate information.
• Anticipate problems and concerns.

By treating customers with care and personal attention, you will go a long way toward making yourself valuable to your employer.

Add Learning Something New to Your Goal List

It is important to keep your mind stimulated by learning something new. Learning can take place in formal and informal situations. The main idea is to grow professionally.

• In meetings concentrate on any information related to your position and duties. Think of ways to apply the information to your tasks.
• Be open-minded when others propose ideas even if those ideas do not pertain to you. Perhaps a variation of the ideas can be applied to your tasks.
• Listen to and ask questions of coworkers who are more experienced than you.
• Attend professional organization meetings and seminars.
• Research online.
• Listen to news programs and read newspapers and company newsletters.
• Learn as much as you can about your company and its products and services.

To attain career success, it is important to grow and develop by continuously learning new things.

Be Enthusiastic About Your Job and Your Career

Did you see the recent Academy Awards acceptance speeches? Now those actors and actresses displayed enthusiasm for their jobs. The smiles, the tears, the thanks--all reflective of the heart and soul poured into a job and the culmination of it over a career. Too bad we can't be as enthusiastic about our jobs. Or can we? What would make you gush about your job? Can you do something to get that feeling if you don't have it? If you have lost it, can you get it back? Yes. Enthusiasm is something we control by making up our minds and doing it.

• Look for ways to project enthusiasm--smile, speak positively, surround yourself with upbeat people, etc.
• Find ways to enjoy your work.
• Create passion in all you do and say.
• Embrace work and life with an open mind.
• Excite others about what you do and how you do it.
• When you feel your enthusiasm fading, rejuvenate yourself by taking time for yourself, having fun, spending time with friends, relaxing, and appreciating yourself and all you have accomplished.

Create your own passion; and show it with a winning smile, enthusiastic voice, and positive words.

Continued Career Success

Here are additional ideas for making yourself indispensable to your employer and increasing your career success.

• Do more than is required of you. Be willing to take on additional responsibilities. Offer to assist coworkers and your supervisor.
• Update your skills. Keep up with the latest technological developments that affect your skills and the way you do your job.
• Think quality in all you do--your work, your dealings with others, your attitude, your dress and mannerisms, etc.

Little things often make the difference when it comes to building a great career.