Career Mentor
To achieve anything in our professional life, we require Aims. They are like a compass, which guides us towards our destination.
Without an aim, we are a drift in an ocean and at the mercy of its tide. Aimlessly, one day it pulls us over here, and the next, pushes us over there. We are in the hands of the choices made by other people and the influences of circumstances beyond our control.
It is rarely our own choice which leads us.
A goal gives you the opportunity to shape your own future, to create the Professional Career that will fulfil your potential. With right work, you can make all of this possible for yourself.
When you’re directionless, it's impossible to develop a value system with which you can judge and choose what behaviors are appropriate for any circumstance or interaction. This lack of direction gives the same value to all your behaviors, whether productive or unproductive, useful or harmful.
Only once you have a Goal can you achieve some level of clarity. It is this clarity which gives you Right Understanding and the opportunity to develop a value system by which you can clarify which behaviors are necessary to lead you to your goal, and which are unnecessary behaviors that will steer you away from it.
Right Understanding also gives you the opportunity to develop a balance between your Ability, which is the set of tools and skills you posses with which you execute your work, and your Ambition, which is the drive towards what you wish to have and what you wish to achieve in your life. If your Ability is greater than our Ambition, you will never challenge yourself sufficiently enough to grow and learn Professionally. On the other hand, if your Ambition is greater than your Ability, you will constantly fail in your efforts because you will take on tasks for which you don't give yourself the time needed to develop the necessary skills and tools.
The psychology required for your Optimal Professional Growth is finding this balance between both, where your Ambition is a few steps ahead of your Ability, so that it can give you the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop without exhausting yourself in such a way which constantly puts you in a position of failure.
A plan
Once you have clearly established a Goal, you move on to the next step, which is to Formulate a Plan. A Plan is like a map, a map that clearly outlines the timeline of the roads you need to take to reach your destination. This timeline is important because it allows you to have not only a clearer picture of how you're going to achieve your goal Tomorrow, but also where you should be by the end of the Day and what you should be doing Right Now.
More often than not we fail to reach our Destination not only because our Ambition is much farther ahead than our Ability, but also because we’ve tried to take the third step without first taking the first and second steps. We cannot jump ahead.
Everything has its time and place.
Focus and Discipline
Setting a Goal and Formulating a Plan are, so to speak, the theoretical side of the work. Like with everything that is theoretical, if you don't put it into practice, it can never create change in your life.
Focus and Discipline are how you bring your ideas to life.
A Goal and a Plan provide you with the direction in which you must move.
Focus and Discipline are the practical tools that move you along your path. Focus is how you keep your mind centered on your goal when facing challenges, and Discipline is the behaviors with which you overcome those challenges.
Focus and Discipline are our Capacity to calmly face challenges that aren't within our expectations.
When I talk about Discipline, I'm not just referring to physical discipline, such as creating a healthy psychology through exercise, diet, and sleep. This is a necessary aspect of the overall discipline required, but by itself, it is insufficient. The Discipline I speak of also involves Intellectual and Emotional Discipline.
The challenges you will face along the way will never be challenges requiring just physical strength. They will also be problems which you have to solve, which requires Intellectual Discipline, or circumstances and people you must learn to understand and find the best way to engage with, which requires Emotional Discipline.
You develop Psychological Resilience once you Discipline all three parts of yourself.
Culture
The final piece of the puzzle is understanding the Culture of the company you work for, or the business you would like to establish. The Culture of a company is the system of values that all its employees and employers adhere to and participate in. Understanding this value system is key to understanding which behaviors are rewarded and sought after in an employee, because these behaviors will help you succeed in that culture.
Similarly, if you are an entrepreneur starting your own business, the Culture you create is the most important factor in the perceptions your employees will have of you as a leader, the work environment, and your company. You can only expect your employees to be Loyal and Trustworthy when the psychological environment of your business is healthy.