Guaranteed steps to positive career advancement

Career advancement involves everything you do from the time you start your career, up to the time you choose to retire. Career advancement means different things to different people. For some people, it means climbing the corporate ladder until they reach the office with the big wide desk (the window office), and for others it means doing a great job and being recognized for it. There are yet others for whom it means learning as much as they can while they are employed by another person, until such a time that they can start their own businesses. Whatever advancing your career means to you, It is my desire that this article will help you identify and implement practical steps that will Advance your career to the next level! Do a little research and you will find that 75% of the time, there are at least two persons seeking a particular position in a major corporate office. When such is the case with you, and performance levels are about the same for the two candidates, what is it that will make you get the spot? It is your ability to be liked; better yet your ability to Sell Yourself Right. So how do you go about doing that? The following steps will help you in the process: 1. Finish before you start In his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey points out that the first habit of a truly effective person is to "begin with the end in mind". It is no different here. You must spend a good bit of time figuring out what it is that you want at the end of the day. Having the knowledge that you will one day want to ascend the ladder will guide you as to the rest of the actions you must take to ensure that you realize your dream. As simple as it may appear, this one major step in your career advancement quest could make it or break it.

2. Equip Yourself Imagine this: Your faucet in the kitchen is leaking badly. You do a quick local search on Google and find a plumber nearby. This guy comes to your home to fix your leaking faucet; you see the van parked outside and you get excited- until he enters and opens up his tool box: Instead of seeing spanners, and PVC pipes etc, you see pliers, electrical testers and tapes. What do you think will happen next? Well, I'll leave that open as every individual’s reaction in such a situation is different. The one thing however that will be the same is that you will come to the conclusion that this guy is not equipped. So even though he may have come with the intention of fixing your faucet, the fact that he was not equipped took every chance of him achieving that dream.

The analogy here is for you to do all that you can to ensure that you are not that "plumber". Anyone who has spent the necessary amount of time studying their path for career advancement will know that equipping him/herself with the right education, skills and experiences significantly increases their chances of achieving the desired advancement.

The next three steps are part of a system I've developed. It’s my “1-EYE” system for absolute career advancement: In all situations, you must understand the factors and principles affecting advancements in career. The first of the factors is something that people do not pay attention to, but has a great impact on the level of advancements your career experiences:

So what makes up the “1-EYE”? Empathy, Youthfulness and Experiences:

In my next posting, we’ll look at each of the components of the “1 EYE” system individually.