Three Key Strategies to Thrive As An Organization Professional

As an organization professional, there are numerous avenues which one can take to advance one's career.  And there are three key strategies which can help any organization professional achieve extraordinary results.  Curious, then read on...

Strategy #1:  Avoid Comparing yourself to others

As soon as you reach the top of the mountain, you'll see that there are other mountains even higher.  In fact, some mountains will seem higher even though they are not.  One of the surest ways of crushing your achievement is to compare yourself to someone else who on the surface appears to have more of fill-in-the-blank.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" is a crippling exercise, leading to jealously and envy.  One person's path to achievement is uniquely their own and often one doesn't really know what it is that they do/have done to achieve the success they have in the first place.  The successful organization professional learns to appreciate and celebrate others' successes and stops there; they know that they have their own particular success code -- and focus on executing to it.

Strategy #2: Avoid Advancing your lifestyle ahead of schedule

Another deadly action to avoid is to advance your lifestyle in lock step with your career advancements.  It's not uncommon to find an organization professional who's recently received advancement in the form of promotions and bonuses to increase their overhead by 10, 20, 50 percent or more.  The effect of this is they move from the emotional joy and satisfaction from being recognized financially for great performance, to feeling burdened and pressure dealing with the "aftermath" (new "toys," too much "house," to large a lease/car payment, etc.).  If your salary is $75,000 annually and you try to live a $100,000 lifestyle, your paycheck will never be enough and you'll never really get ahead. 

To really get ahead- reverse it.  

Every time you get a raise or bonus or promotion-bank it.  Use the proceeds to crush your expenses AND invest.  The smart organization professional invests in things that will make them money, and invest in themselves in the form of education (such as the type of training one might find at NASP). 

Get in the habit of measuring what you have & not what is missing

The most savvy organization professional learns to condition themselves to appreciate what they've accomplished and what they now possess -- and NOT on what they want/don't have because "wanting" is never enough.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to create a "gratitude journal."  At first, you'll probably list all the "things" that you are grateful for (your car, house, etc) but as you make journaling a habit, you'll begin to list the skills, experiences, friends, peers, mentors, role models and other non-material things that positively impact your life.  And as you begin to focus on what you have and are grateful for having, you'll start to see more things to be grateful for, including new opportunities, situations and experiences that reflect these things.

Eventually, this sense of gratitude and appreciate will be reflected in the way you speak to, treat and interact with others -- both personally and professionally -- and you'll achieve more.