Are the people in your life helping or hurting you? Unfortunately the people you surround yourself with can hold you back from achieving your goals and growing into the best version of yourself.This was the case for me. I have long been a people pleaser, groomed from my childhood and school days to be the quiet, sweet girl who goes along with everything. When I started talking about going after my goal of becoming an entrepreneur I got a lot of unsolicited feedback. It really started to bug me because I was always so positive with people when they were going after their goals...
How often in school did you spend time actually learning about the big picture of who you want to be and how to get there? I'm not talking a loose career goal, a major, or a GPA but the actual qualities and characteristics that you want and need to be successful as both a person and a professional. When you walked out of college with your very expensive degree, did you have all the skills that you needed to be truly successful? If you are anything like me, life after college has been a constant experiment in learning about yourself, the world, and how to be truly successful and happy. For the past ten years, this self-development process has been the driving force for all of my decisions. School never gave me the tools to do this; I had to figure it out for myself.
As a seasoned business strategist, I've made a career out of creating growth strategies that revolve around the business's value propositions. Now, I've come to adopt that strategic mindset when it comes to career advancement as well. How have I done that? Simply put: I remove the personal and strategize myself as I would a brand. I document short-term goals that balance my skills and my values. I hold myself accountable for growth in designated areas of my position outside of company-specific performance metrics. And I maintain a level of self-awareness and acceptance by analyzing my professional self as I would a potential target market. All of that professional strategic planning is used to create a roadmap to growth and, from there, advocate in a way that provides gains: financially, promotionally, and personally.