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Article
PowerPlays
for Career Success!
 By
Felicia Davis
In today's competitive environment, you must pay special attention
to your personal and professional development. You must be intentional,
proactive and creative in developing ways to continually hone your
skills. You must also be prepared to take on new and challenging assignments
before the need arises. When companies do this, they dub it
'Succession Planning'. Take charge of your career and do not wait
for your company to 'unofficially' appoint you as the chosen one.
Being a part of a company's succession plan gives you access to opportunities
that may not be available to others. You may be 'hand-picked' based
on your performance to receive increased visibility by putting you
on special projects and focusing on and preparing you for that next
career move. You can take a proactive approach to preparing yourself
for being a successor for the job that you want by following some
of the tips and strategies below. Used appropriately, these tips can
truly help to propel your career exponentially.
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Daily
Reflection
Reflection is a powerful and effective tool
for developing yourself. We often get lost in the day-to-day
shuffle and forget to take inventory of our own accomplishments
and opportunities for improvement. As the CEO of your career, you
must put a plan in place that will allow you to become laser-focused
on you and your success. Making reflection a part of your daily
plan gets you fully cemented in the process and increases your chances
for success. Give yourself a five-minute daily dose of development
through reflection.
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Get
a Mentor/Professional Coach
Serious Goals require Serious Action.
Put your career growth strategy in overdrive by getting a mentor
and/or professional coach. The difference between the two is that
a mentor is volunteering their time to assist you on an informal
basis while a professional coach is being paid to assist you in
developing a roadmap for career success. Don't let a small fee prevent
you from working with a coach who will be committed and dedicated
to seeing you reach your potential. Mentors are a great resource
as well and if you manage the relationship and expectations properly,
it could result in you making that next career move - whether it
be within or external to your current employer.
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Create Your Own Big Bang! (Bold, Ambitious, Noble, Goal)
You must create a visionary goal that employs
excellence and empowers great performance on a grand scale.
In order to successfully create and execute a Big Bang, you have
to have a raw ambition that shows you are ready catapult your career
to new heights. You must have an internal sense of urgency about
achieving results. First, you must stop settling for less and develop
a disciplined breakthrough mindset that allows you to move out of
your comfort zone create opportunities for exponential professional
growth. Start by asking yourself this question: What ambitious goal,
circle of influence or objective must you achieve in order to create
a Big Bang? From there, you must take decisive action to make that
ambition a SMART goal. (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic
and Time-bound).
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Ask
for and proactively seek feedback and feedforward
Feedback & Feedforward are gifts - Use
them to your Advantage! While it may be a tough task to ask
for and accept at first, soliciting feedback from your peers and
colleagues can prove to be very rewarding. However, you must be
careful to ask for feedback from those who you trust and have your
best interest in mind. Feedback typically focuses on past behaviors
and allows you to reflect and learn. However, when you pair it with
feedforward you have a true formula for success. Feedforward is
a term that was coined by Marshall Goldsmith and he developed it
on the premise that you can not change the past but you can certainly
influence the future. Feedback helps you learn and grow from your
mistakes while feedforward helps you focus on positive actions for
future development.
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Own, Execute, Recalibrate and Have Fun!
Now that you are motivated and determined to take full ownership
and accountability for your success, you must implement the plan,
check for any bumps along the way by inspecting what you expect,
recalibrate where necessary and keep it moving. But most importantly,
you must fuel the process with energy, excitement and fun. The only
way to do so is to have a relentless passion for whatever you are
pursuing.
What
do you think of this article? Let us know Click
Here
Felicia Davis is the President of Davis Consulting Group and founder
of the WomenCEO Network
- a free membership based organization for female entrepreneurs. To
learn more about the network, please send an email requesting more
info to new_members@sendfree.com
She also publishes a monthly newsletter entitled NextLevel
Leadership targeted for people who want to grow both personally
and professionally. For more information on professional coaching
or establishing a successful mentoring partnership, please send a
note to Felicia at PowerPlays@feliciadavis.com.
USE
MY NEW TESTIMONIAL LINE!
Use my Testimonial Line to give me feedback, feedforward, comments
or request more information - 214-231-2905 Ext. 5769.
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