With Matthew 7:7- Life will be easy...

What A Wonderful Life....

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Successful professional development requires the ability to reflect and self-critique. To progress you need to challenge yourself to improve. Start by asking yourself some key questions to identify the areas you need to work on, and then look to someone who's already "made it" for inspiration

 First, identify what you are aiming  for. Do you want to gain expert knowledge in a particular area such as sustainable purchasing or outsourcing? Do you want to achieve exceptional motivational skills, demonstrated by a highly productive team or performance improvement from a particularly challenging staff members? It could be excellent presentation skills, evidenced by consistently high levels of attention and interest by attendees. Or perhaps you'd like an enviable track record of successful negotiations, which encourages non-purchasing colleagues to ensure you are on their team whenever significant expenditure or investment is required. 

Next, you must consider what you need to do differently to reach this position. This includes considering how much additional training or experience you need and whether you should conduct yourself differently in front of your peers, staff and managers. Question how much you need to modify your current behavior, attitude and approach to both your day- to-day activities and important events. How much more tolerant of others' shortcomings would you have to be? Do you need to improve your listening skills? What about your appearance? How might you need to alter your dress and the manner in which you carry yourself? 


An effective way of determining how to implement positive change is to model your behavior and attitude on someone you admire- someone who is already where you want to be. Think about people you know who demonstrate all or some of the attributes that you've identified you need to succeed. Why do they stand out? How do they open conversations and presentations? Pay attention to details such as how they sound and the types of things they say or don't say. How do they  think? How much attention do they give to people in various positions of importance? How trustworthy are they? Do they consistently do what they say they are going to do?


Think about what it is that makes them look and sound confident and in control. How well do they use the expertise of the team around them rather than believing they have to know the answers? What else can you learn from them? If they had to handle a tricky situation , what would they do? Consider how differently you would see the world if you were in their position and how much clearer your career direction would be.


To reach the top in your career you need to ask yourself the right questions, recognize in others the characteristics of success, and be bold enough to regularly and consistently take action to reduce gap between where you are now and where you really want to be.