PATTERNS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY CAREER

Your career is a field of pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement especially in public, professional or business life. To build your dream career there are traits and combination of your strengths that must intersect; your core competence, passion and opportunity must intersect to create your sweet spot.



Passion

Competency

Opportunity

· Passion: a very strong feeling or drive for a believe or action.

· Opportunity: a possibility done to a favorable combination of circumstances.

· Core Competency: the quality of being adequate or well qualified physically and intellectually.

To enhance your career and achieve this sweet spot, you must develop the following:

1. Self Awareness: you must show awareness of your own values motivations and emotions.
· Understand your strengths and weakness; do a SWOT analysis of yourself.
· Understand the values and the lens through which you view the world. “ understand the true intent of people”
· Learn to regulate yourself; your judgments are made from a list of underlying values and beliefs.

2. Competitive Advantage: There are over 4million applicants in the labour market and a large percent are been injected each year. Also given the current downsizing in the nation’s banking industry, there is no doubt that more people than usual are going to be competing for employment opportunities this year and employers have a large option to chose from.
With the terrain so tough, it is a case of the survival of the fittest. It is your ability to be...

· 1 in a million
· 1 of the few chosen
· The chosen one.
That determines your success.

People pay you for the value you create and the problem you solve for them. The business world is now a stiff competition that employers are no more interested in paying large chunks of money to employees who just do the duty assigned to them but they are ready to pay even any amount for that employee who can increase their competitive edge and make them stay in business.

To succeed in your career, you need to learn to be a problem solver who can use initiative without being told. To develop your competitive advantage you need to:

a. Build your IT skills; we are now in the information age where information is power and a great one at that. You will have an edge if you know how to use the computer and not just the basic Microsoft word but the more you know the better. Imagine, if you are vast on the internet, it saves you time to get things done and make you give informed decisions compared to someone who gives suggestions that are already outdated. Know that you are in the age where new information today may be outdated by tomorrow or next and which if implemented, may lead to disaster. Therefore, you need to keep abreast of things.

b. Develop your Employability skills; there is need for you to develop your communication skills, your interpersonal skills (how you relate with people), your skill to work under pressure and your ability to work with a team. You need to increase your ability to make things happen.

The whole bulk of job seeking is determined by how well you communicate and relate with people. The decision to employ you or not starts from the first day you go to a company to ask if they have a vacant position or not.

To ensure that you are ahead of the game in your career it is necessary to show your employer “what you can deliver when the chips are down”.

3. Preparedness for change: To sky rocket your career development you need to recognize changes in circumstances promptly and adjust plans and activities accordingly.
· Watch out for the small signs.
· Be willing to accept shifting priorities.
· Make appropriate changes in manageable chunks.

4. Multitasking Ability: To stay abreast in your career
· You need to address multiple demands without losing focus or energy.
· Focus on the important things.
· Understand your energy circles; know that today’s workplace do not focus on what’s merely important but what’s worldly important.

5. Quality Delivery: The quality of job you deliver would paint a vivid picture of who you really are. Therefore, it is important you crave a niche for yourself by deploying the right methodology in advancing and accomplishing your task.

6. Consistent and Reliable performance: Ensure that to achieve a reliable performance you always develop a habit of excellence and be armed with an alternative course of action. Do not be afraid to negotiate. Be sure to understand how the achievement of an objective affects your overall goal (Business, personal. Spiritual etc).

7. Leverage on your Strengths: Recognise your own strengths and use alternative strategies to minimize the impact of your limitations. Learn to always put your best foot forward. Lead with strengths at all times.

8. Prioritize: Plan your task to be accomplished and focus on executing the task with the most results first. Focus your energy on accomplishing the tasks that will yield the overall best results.

9. Optimize Resource utilization: Make best use of available resources and proactively seek new sources of support.

10. Reflect on experiences: Reflect regularly on your experiences and use it to inform future actions.

Utilizing this traits to the optimum level ensure that you achieve your sweet spot and lead to a rapid career advancement. To know more about how to maximize this traits visit: http:// d-spels.blogspot.com.