Talk to any student, and the hint of optimism in their voice tells one that they are hopeful of getting to their desired careers after graduating. However, this fairytale always almost comes to an end as soon as they get to the real thing. Being successful in one’s career isn’t as easy as one may think. It’s a rigorous process that will see students work twice as hard, not just in terms of academic performance but also on personal traits. Students need to develop what we may describe as “winning habits” to get them to attain career success.
A lot of us desire to be successful in life, but only a few of us get to enjoy the success, the reason being that most people don’t put in the right amount of effort into attaining this goal. Students need to work both hard and smart, it’s the only way to get success. Students need to develop habits that can guide them to success and get rid of traits that can make the dream unattainable. So, which are these habits that scholars need to let go of?
Procrastination
Don’t put off what needs to be done right now to later. This is a habit that a majority of students develop along the way, evidenced by how they tend to push assignments to later and end up doing them when the time is almost running out. Most people don’t realize that they have this problem until it’s too late and they are swarmed with a lot of work. This can be detrimental to one’s career since they won’t be able to fulfill their duties as expected.
The effects of constantly procrastinating work include elevated levels of stress because students will be forced to complete the task at hand at a time less convenient for them, and often end up clashing with other activities. Stress isn’t good for attaining success as it has a way of putting one off their game.
Being Disorganized
Being disorganized is one of the major hindrances to attaining success in any aspect of life. When students lack a clear plan of action to work on attaining academic success and ultimately getting their dream job, chances are that it will remain to be just that – a dream job. Being disorganized makes accomplishing any task that we may have set out to do impossible. Going into the workplace with this trait will affect your career success as you’ll probably always be at logger heads with management or colleagues.
Office Gossip
Office gossip can seem to be a harmless pass time engagement but it’s very dangerous and can harm your professional reputation. On a general perspective, gossipers are well known throughout the office and are not trusted by their colleagues. Gossip is majorly comprised of rumors to hurt someone else’s reputation. Liars will always not be trusted on their word because of the misleading ideas that they spread around the office and work place.
When you spread lies about your colleagues, you will most definitely hurt the relationship between you and that person. This will result in lessened productivity for the both of you because it will strain the professional relationship that should have ensured maximum productivity. On your side, other colleagues will isolate you and this will bring about a sour working environment.
On the respect of time management, you will score poorly because the amount of time that you put into spreading gossip could have been put into work. Taking time away from your work is a definite way of ensuring that your career is unsuccessful. Even participating in listening to these rumors is equally hurtful to the work environment. So, if you detect any form gossip creeping up out of normal conversation, better stop it dead in its tracks!
Multitasking
Multitasking can sometimes seem a viable course of action and at times unavoidable. The end result is reduced productivity overall. This is not a desirable condition that you could wish for on the score card of your career. When you put all your concentration on a single task, you will achieve better results than when you handle two or more tasks at the same time.
This policy undermines the basic protocol of modernization-specialization and division of labor. If you can’t get help from a colleague to handle your other task, it will be advisable to tackle them one at a time. This will ensure that you achieve maximum productivity for your duties. Take an example of the fireman horse spray jet concentrated on a single target. If the fireman could try and divert the jet to another target at the same time, the result could be less than desired.
A good way to avoid multitasking is through time management, scheduling your tasks into manageable time blocks, and avoiding distractions at all times. This will sharpen your focus and increase your productivity by several folds.
Indecisiveness
This is a career killer! You should never try to think about tolerating indecisiveness at any cost. When you do this, you will lose all you professional reputation and worse of all your superiors will put you in their bad book. Who has ever had a successful career whilst in their boss’s bad book? Can’t think of anyone!
This bad habit can be identified early in the school days when, for example, you have tasks of tackling persuasive paper topics. When you fail to deliver your papers for no reason at all, you are being indecisive. This habit might creep out of your school days and into your career if don’t snip it in time.
When you are indecisive in your career, your boss will feel that you’re unreliable and unhelpful to the organization. You will be considered extra weight that needs to be shed off for them to move forward faster. When this scenario comes into play, your career will be on its death bed.
Conclusion
A successful career takes effort to achieve. The bulk of that effort is directed at isolating and eliminating the negative practices that can dent your reputation and performance. This process should start early in your school days when you’re being groomed for career days. Follow these tips and your career will be on the highway to success.