Moving your career forward can sometimes be a frustrating process. Seeing colleagues get promoted when you feel stuck in the same role can get you down and leave you wondering what you are doing wrong and why you are being overlooked. Nobody likes to feel that their hard work and effort are being ignored. This is something that can leave you feeling demotivated and restless. If this all sounds familiar to you and echoes how you have been feeling lately, then you should find these tips help you to break out of your work rut and progress your career:
Reassess Your Career Ambitions
Before you do anything else, you may find it helpful to give your career some thought. If you are unsure what you want from your career or feel uncertain of your next steps, the best thing to do is to ask yourself some questions to clarify your thoughts. Are you working in the industry that you want to stay in? What would you like to achieve in your career? What is your ambition for the coming year? What would be the next logical progression for your career? Asking yourself questions about your career will give you prompts that encourage you to think about your career from a new perspective and to gain some clarity.
Put Yourself Forward
In the work environment, attitude counts for a lot. No matter how good you are at your job, if your attitude is bad or doesn’t fit the company mindset, you may struggle to progress your career. Having a positive attitude in the workplace can sometimes help you outshine colleagues even if they have more experience than you.
Staying positive and having a can-do attitude can go a long way to helping you progress your career as it helps you stand out. People like to work with colleagues with a positive attitude; anyone that has ever worked alongside someone with a negative disposition can confirm this! Putting yourself forward for opportunities that enable you to showcase your skillset and bring your enthusiasm to the task will help you get noticed for all the right reasons.
Boost Your Qualifications and Skills
When you strive to make your way up the career ladder, you need to ensure that you are equipped with the knowledge and skills you need to secure your next promotion. Boosting your qualifications is especially important and will help your resumé stand out from other candidates. Continuing your professional development demonstrates to your employers that you are committed to your career and willing to refresh your knowledge to stay at the top of your game.
Enrolling on a training course to increase your qualifications is always an excellent idea, and the knowledge that you gain will also give you a significant advantage over your colleagues. Ensuring that you are equipped with the latest knowledge, and most up to date skill set will enable you to contribute this knowledge in the workplace, making it an excellent way to raise your profile.
Get a Mentor
Have you ever considered having a mentor? If not, it is well worth thinking about. A mentor will provide you with the benefit of their knowledge and experience as you work your way up the career ladder. Your company may have a formal mentorship scheme that matches employees with an ideal mentor. If there is no formal mentorship program, you may need to arrange a mentor for yourself.
Your mentor will be able to discuss your next career steps with you and also provide you with feedback, which you can use to refine your knowledge and soft skills.
Increase Your Experience
If opportunities to increase your experience at work are few and far between, then you may need to look outside the workplace. Think about the skills that you would like to work on, and then consider how you can best obtain these. Looking beyond the corporate environment could involve you working with a charity or volunteer organization to help you obtain these skills.
Final Thoughts
Progressing your career may not always be straightforward, but a proactive approach is always the best method. Your first task should always be clarifying what you want to achieve from your career. Once you know what you want to achieve, you can begin to make firm plans on how to make this happen. Working on developing your skills and gaining new qualifications will give you a distinct advantage over your colleagues and will help you to stand out from other candidates.