A couple of weeks ago I had the awesome opportunity to participate in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” training. This training is based on the research, teachings, and books of the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey. As participants, my colleagues from across our organization, and I were challenged by our awesome facilitator, Lisa Lewis-Fears, to achieve the private victory of self-control so that we can ultimately enjoy the public victory of working more cooperatively with others to achieve outcomes that benefit all involved.
As my regular readers already know, my journey of becoming a blogger is a spiritual calling for me. Throughout my career, I’ve had family, friends, and acquaintances look to me for career and career search advice. The more people I helped, the more people I wanted to help. Thus, my blogging career was borne. So, needless to say, the tenants of this powerful training made me think about how I can intentionally choose the path to meaning and greatness to increase my capacity to become more effective and achieve my goals.
I found my answer in habit #2 of the training. You see, habit #2 is based on vision, mission, and purpose. So, you begin with the end in mind and in order to do this, you have to first get a mental image of where you want to be at the end of your journey…whatever your journey is.
My vision is for you and everyone else to live your best career lives. My mission is to educate as many people as possible on the successful career search process, through my blog and my training courses, so that you can strengthen your ability to tell your career story in a confident, appropriately-informative way that enables hiring managers to envision you performing your dream job as a member of their team. As the saying goes, you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. So, from this point forward, I will put more effort into helping you. I will measure my effectiveness by each new blog subscriber and/or new student that I gain as a result of my renewed intentionality. I will set performance goals for my business, such as 1) publishing blog posts consistently on a specific day of the week; 2) concentrating more on the motivation piece of my blog to help you eliminate self-doubt and negative speaking; 3) developing a consistent marketing schedule so that more people can take advantage of my resources; 4) making my Facebook Group, “Career Success Champions,” more active, 5) I will lead by example by taking better care of myself; and, 6) holding myself more accountable to these standards.
Keep in mind, though, that you must also have your own vision of success. Is your vision for yourself to live your best career life? If so, your actions towards bringing your vision to reality must be intentional and as long as you are breathing it is not too late to change your approach. Don’t approach your next career search like a person who is blindfolded. Approach it in an organized, systematic, planned manner. Don’t get caught up in the quickness race. Quality trumps speed or quantity every day. Your goal should be to embark on your career search journey in the right state of mind and make a lasting positive impression on each potential employer to whom you reach out.
I think you’ll agree that we are often our own biggest obstacle to our success. So, over the past couple of days that I’ve been writing this post, I considered it a confirmation when I jumped in my car to run errands and heard “Wanna Be Happy,” by Kirk Franklin. If you listen carefully to the words of the song, you’ll understand what I mean. The song says in part, “Wasted time, but now I can see. The biggest enemy was me…If you’re tired of being the same. If you’re tired of things not changing, it’s time for you to get out the way.”
So, my challenge to us all is to stop merely existing or thinking that things are as good as they can get. Make it a goal be intentional and become more effective in all of our doing. God’s blessings are unlimited. I cringe when I hear someone who has suffered a setback ask how much worse can things get. I am a firm believer that the power of life and death are in our tongues, and the minute that we speak something into the atmosphere, we give it permission to manifest. So what have I taught myself to do? Ask, “How much better can my situation get?” This is what I did in 2016 when I embarked on my journey to live my best career life once again. My situation then had gone sour and I couldn’t get any more lemonade out of that lemon, so I sought a change. Did I have disappointments and setbacks? Absolutely; however, I have learned that if I give up, my circumstances won’t change, but if I keep trying, sooner or later, I will achieve my goal or at least get really close to it. I would rather miss my goal by a little than to stay stuck in a no-win situation because I didn’t try to make a change. So come on. Take that first step on the path to meaning and greatness. Get out a pen and paper, your laptop, tablet, or voice recorder and write your vision. Where do you envision yourself? Then work backward to your starting point, which is now. List the steps that you will have to take in order to make that vision your reality…your plan of action. Each day, do at least one thing on that list to move you closer to achieving your goal. You won’t believe how quickly you’ll progress. If your vision involves career success, I can help you with that. All you have to do is reach out to me via my blog or my FB Group. Be mindful that this process works equally well with achieving other goals as well. Don’t waste any more time. Step out of your comfort zone and progress to your success zone. What have you got to lose?
As always, Success to You!
Original post on HR by Nnamtique (nnamtique.com)
