It is terribly troublesome for any of us to be totally realistic regarding ourselves. Yet the nearer we tend to come to a state of realism regarding our strengths and weaknesses, as well as our problems and our opportunities, the higher our possibilities of achieving our career goals.
We never will hit the bull's eye so long as we have a tendency to overshoot or undershoot the target.
There are a number of samples of the point.
Tom Lincoln was a competent general counsel for a Fortune 500 company. He distributed these duties as the chief legal counsel so well that he soon earned a grip on the corporation's board of directors. Buoyed by his success, he soon began to cajole the CEO, his boss, and board members for greater responsibilities in making selections concerning how to control the several businesses of the large conglomerate and create acquisitions.
He failed to appreciate that he had no experience in such matters. He soon overextended himself and lost his position.
Contemplate the plight of Steve Freeman, who lost all sense of reality when ownership of the medium-sized service company that utilized him changed hands. When he learned concerning the sale of his company he went immediately to the new house owners and demanded a promotion on the grounds that they could not do business without him.
As a matter of reality, the new homeowners had already determined that that they had no want of the young man. When he delivered his ultimatum, rather than getting a bigger position, he was given 30 days to seek out another job.
Those who are inclined to challenge the requirement to attempt for realism will immediately argue that career success requires the dreaming of big dreams and therefore the setting of stretch goals.
A Foundation In Reality Is Necessary
However to be attainable, career goals should have a foundation in reality.
Nothing can be gained, however a waste of time and frustrations, by daydreaming regarding a career path that bears very little relationship to skills and resources.
On the other finish of the scale, there are as many career shortfalls occurring every day as a results of individuals being unrealistic and underestimating their abilities and resources.
Most sales managers agree that their major challenge typically is getting sales representatives to comprehend just how good they might be and how many additional sales they may create by applying their full energies and abilities.
Do not Sell Short
How several people do you know who constantly sell themselves short as a result of they cannot - or won't - face the facts concerning how abundant additional they may attain?
While we tend to could never be totally realistic concerning our own abilities and our opportunities we can move closer to that goal by taking some sensible steps.
It follows that if it's nearly not possible to see ourselves objectively, then we tend to would like to find someone else who can. This suggests finding a mentor who will be candid in serving to us to work out the realities of where we are and where our would take us.
Take a Reality Check For Career Success
A pencil and sheet of paper are vital reality tools. Write down an inventory of our gift situation and then describe our career goal. Do these elements match? Do we extremely have what it takes to get what we have a tendency to want? If not, what do we have a tendency to need to try and do to form a winning association between our abilities and our goals? Do we want to scale down our dreams or improve our assets?
Author Resource:
Carey Howard has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Career-Advice, you can also check out his latest website about: