Am I reaching my full career potential? This question is a powerful one, and it can change your life. Achieving your professional goals takes drive, commitment, and honest self-examination. To help you get to the next level, we offer five valuable tips to unlocking your career potential.
Find the Right Career Mentor
According to Monster, having a career mentor is key to unlocking your potential. Having a mentor gives you the chance to ask how and why. It will also push you out of your comfort zone. Monster suggests that you make sure to learn not only what they do – but how they think. Understanding how your mentor analyzes situations and makes decisions will help you evaluate what you should be doing. How do you find the right mentor? Entrepreneur suggests starting with these questions:
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“Does this person have expertise in an area where I need to grow?”
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“Is he or she happy with his/her career?”
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“Does this person challenge me?”
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“Is he or she a good listener?”
Know Thyself
According to the Harvard Business Review, taking responsibility for your career starts with an accurate assessment of who you are and why. Taking a personality test can give you deeper insights into how you see the world and how you react to problems. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses empowers you to unlock your potential in life and work. Our SUM assessment helps you to dig deeper to uncover the details of your personality and behavior. We offer personalized reports to illuminate your characteristics, challenges, and biases. These results help find where your strengths lie. SUM also pinpoints what causes you stress and the possible hurdles in your life. Knowing these results will help reveal your true potential.
Is It Time to Find a New Career?
Changing jobs can seem like a bold and scary move. But sometimes it may be the one that’s important for unlocking your professional potential. Here are a few signs that you may be ready for a new career:
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You’re exhausted.
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Your work is no longer interesting.
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You feel that your skillset would be better suited somewhere else.
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You daydream of a different profession and find yourself browsing career sites.
Create a Professional Development Plan
Keisha Williams, of Duke’s Learning & Organization Development, believes creating a career plan is ideal for unlocking your potential. “Set goals and deadlines based on what you envision for yourself,” states Williams. “If you want to excel in your profession, you need to know the skills that will get you there.” The development department at Duke also suggests these tips:
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Analyze gaps and skills to be learned. It’s essential to think about the necessary skills for a career path. But it would help if you also played to your strengths. For example, if you’re an artistic person, enhance talents around design. But also remember to boost your technical skills.
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Create a development plan. It’s great to set big goals, but you also need smart goals. For example, if you want to be in management in two years, you should set aside time to sharpen public speaking skills. Duke also suggests focusing your professional development courses in more general areas like leadership or communication.
Ask for Feedback and Embrace Failure
“When we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both.” – Brene Brown
To unlock your potential and become great, you must fail. Failure teaches us how to be successful. You also need to embrace feedback – no matter the outcome. Indeed suggests approaching a manager and asking them to give you feedback on a recent project. Use their positive comments as well as their constructive criticism to find ways to improve. Sometimes you need an outside, unbiased opinion to get a different perspective.
Achieving your career goals takes drive and determination. It also takes guts and honest self-reflection. These five valuable tips will help you grow personally and professionally – unlocking your full career potential.
