Five Tips to Help You Become Your Best Professional Self

Despite how it might look sometimes, no one is born successful. No bridge was built, cure discovered, or technology invented by someone sitting around waiting to do it. Anyone who has achieved anything did so through a combination of luck, intelligence, and good old-fashioned hard work. So what can you do to perform better in your professional life? Here are five strategies to help you reach peak performance.

Create goal clarity

One of the most oft-cited ways to improve job performance is through goal-setting. Critical to goal-setting is the concept of “goal-clarity,” or setting for yourself a clear and specific objective. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you can better determine the right course of action to achieve it. When your end result is not clear, the steps to accomplish it become confusing. The more specific the goal, the easier it becomes to accomplish. Create a vision of your end goal, complete with every detail. Once done, if you do not feel that this is the right end goal for your project, perhaps it is time to rethink whether the project is worthwhile.

Play to your strengths

Perhaps the most obvious reason successful people are successful is that they select a role that is suited to their passions and strengths. It is unlikely that a super-talented athlete like Michael Jordan would have replicated his success from an office cubicle. Likewise, even those without Jordan’s athletic gifts can experience success when they are passionate about what they do. Finding a role you are interested in and enjoy is therefore crucial to career success. Sometimes, this means taking a risk, such as leaving a role you are currently in and pursuing a new one, but the risk of failing is almost certain if you have no interest in succeeding.  

Have confidence

However, let’s say you know exactly what you want to achieve and the steps necessary to get there. Regardless, you still need to actually take those steps, which means you need to believe you can do it, and workplace confidence can be tricky. After all, no one truly works for themselves. Every day, there are factors beyond your control which sow doubt and fear, crippling your ability to take risks. It is important to identify these “confidence killers,” like a perfectionist coworker or a micromanaging boss, and take steps to mitigate their influence.

Be resilient  

Even the most successful people experience failure. Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history, was responsible for some spectacular missteps. One of his first major inventions, an automatic vote tally system for the U.S. Senate, was rejected wholesale, but Edison did not let his failures define him. His philosophy towards failure is summed up in his famous quote about the development of the incandescent lightbulb: “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.” To achieve career success, it is important to accept that you will not succeed in every venture. Learn from your failures, instead of letting them destroy you.

Take ownership of your work

If there is one thing which successful people do, it’s that they take ownership of everything they do. This means more than simply being confident in your decisions. It also means being willing to accept the consequences of those decisions, no matter how negative they may be. Nobody wants to follow or even work with someone always deflecting blame onto someone else. By taking ownership of your work, you remove fear and self-doubt from your decision-making process.

Success is not predetermined. Implementing these strategies will help you set goals and obtain the confidence necessary to reach peak performance. Performance First Marketing offers a vast knowledge of the digital marketing world, and we can help your firm achieve peak performance as well. Call us at (818) 949-2618 or contact us online to learn more about our services.