Your career trajectory can be impacted by your attitudes and your perspectives. Doing great work is just not good enough anymore.
I have coached a wide range of career seekers, and one of the most common misperceptions I’ve seen is that they expect their bosses and those around them to recognize the amazing work that they have accomplished. Regardless of how they got it done. Regardless of whether they took a positive approach or a negative approach in dealing with issues. Regardless of whether they believed in themselves are not. Belief in yourself and your attitude toward your career are necessary keys to getting ahead.
We talked about this at our final 2016 “Coaching at The Corner” last week. Interesting discussion, to say the least!
Here are five points to consider:
Own your attitude.
Belief in yourself and your capabilities can escalate your progress, and speed up your success. Looking to others for how you should feel about yourself or being impacted by others’ opinions of you can hold you back. You are in charge of your positive attitude, no one else. It’s important that you guard against any feelings that can hold you back. Instead believe that you can move ahead, do great work, and be fully responsible for your own success.
Be in the moment.
One of the keys to owning your attitude is to stop living in the past or worrying about the future, and instead to be fully present in the current moment. People spend way too much time worrying about things that have not happened yet, and lamenting things that have been in their past. This is wasted energy and wasted emotion. By living in the present, and being in the moment, you can control your attitude and regulate where it should be for you to accomplish the work product you seek.
Self affirmations.
Many career “hold ups” involve our having a negative self-image, feeling like we 
don’t deserve success, or worrying about whether we are good enough. Self-doubt can come from many sources, but it shouldn’t come from you. Using positive affirmations – telling yourself that you did a great job with a certain project, that you handled and interaction skillfully, that you made an effective sales call – can instill your belief in your own capabilities. The way you talk to yourself is very important. And unfortunately many times the talk is not about what we did well, but about the one thing we screwed up that day, despite the fact that we may have done 89 things right.
I like to recommend to people that they find a regular time every day to do at least five positive affirmations. Consider doing this while driving to work, while brushing your teeth, or taking your dog for the daily walk.
Visualize your success.
As you seek to grow in your career, visualize yourself in the next position. Visualize yourself giving that great speech. Visualize yourself accepting the award. When you visualize success, that vision attracts you to its reality. Instead of just talking about your career goals, picture yourself sitting in the corner office. Picture yourself opening the new business. Or picture yourself making that big sale. When you visualize, it helps you not only see that you can do it but can energize you toward forward progress.
Take action.
Successful people take action. If you have an attitude that promotes action, your success will come better and faster. We all know people who will talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it. So the next time you think about it, or talk about it, trade that out for actually doing it. Successes come to people who take action. When you have an attitude of action, it will enable your success.
And that’s why I like to say your attitude determines your altitude!
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