Get Ahead

Gauri Chhabra

Life is like sitting in a train. At times, whenanother train is moving, you feel that you are moving when actually your train is standing still. This is what happens when we lose ourselves in small mundane chores and feel that our careers are moving ahead whereas actually we have stagnated. Instead of getting ahead, we are just getting by.
Do you feel the same way in your careers? If yes, here are some ways to move from just getting by to getting ahead.
Cotton candy to
sugar and spice
We want a sense of achievement and accomplishment. When we get a lot of things done, it feels good. But just knocking to-do items off the checklist is not the progress we should aim to have. Only doing small tasks is the equivalent of only eating cotton candy. You may end up with a quick sugar high but will soon crash and need more sugar to get you back up again. Your larger projects are like meat and vegetables: they take longer to chew and digest but leave you with a lasting sense of satisfaction.
To make it easier to make progress on these items, cut them up into as small of tasks as possible. That could mean listing out activities like sending an email to someone or editing the document after writing it. By dividing a big win into small celebrations, you’re still getting something of substance completed and making it easier to make progress.Another reason that you jump on little items immediately is because you fear you’ll forget to do them if they aren’t done now. Most likely you blame this on having a bad memory, but in reality it doesn’t matter how good or bad your memory is if you have the right systems in place. When you have a powerful to-do list, calendar system and email processing system, you know that you’ll get the right prompts at the right times to move items forward. By developing the right structure, even if it’s as simple as a notepad where you write down and review all your current to-do items, you can relax and focus on the bigger items at hand.
Maze to gaze
If you arrive at work, take a glance at your calendar, open your email and then just start bouncing through the day like a ping-pong ball hoping that you’ll land in the right place at the right time, you’re not alone. Many people take this sort of reactive approach to their work. There are times when you get caught up in the maze of things and you aren’t aware of your priorities nor are you clear on when they need to get done, it’s incredibly hard to justify not taking care of the small stuff all the time.
To overcome this reactive tendency, you review your projects and tasks lists on at least a weekly basis so that you can know what’s most important now. You should gaze at them hard enoughand slot in time to get the key items done on your calendar. You may stare at your goals and ask yourself, “Is this task aligned with what I want to accomplish and who I want to be?”
Others to self
By nature, we are a helpful lot and hate to say no. We are so focused on pleasing people that we forget we have an obligation towards our own self. There’s a time and place to help your colleagues. But in almost every position, there’s also a time and place to focus on getting the work done that you need to do for yourself. Problems arise when external requests come at a faster rate or quantity than you can handle and you start to squeeze out the other work that you need to complete. This can lead to some people – especially people pleasers – feeling guilty for taking time to do their own work before everyone else is taken care of. But the truth is that if you don’t wrap up the projects only you can do, you’re not providing the most value for your company.
The key to overcoming this challenge is to pace the workflow. This means setting aside some time each week to drive your key projects forward, which then allows for work for others to fit into the remaining time slots available. This may mean that you don’t move ahead as quickly on other people’s projects, but in the larger picture that’s alright if you’re moving ahead on the goals you had set for yourself.
Deadlines to Headlines
Remember when you started your career. You were so hell bent upon impressing upon your bosses that at times completing deadlines was your sole agenda. You felt that quality can be sacrificed when it comes to completing a task within the time frame. While the significance of timeliness still holds good, if you keep on being too much of a stickler to it, you would find yourself just checking out the check box items.
To get ahead of the game you have to move from deadlines to headlines. Try to get out of the rut of just responding to mails and doing tasks. Try to think out of the box- stretch a little and see if you can do something- which may sound disruptive initially but is helpful in the long run.
Feedback to feedforward
We all crave for feedback. But the moment we get it, and if it is meant to point a flaw in the way we do things, we become defensive. So much are we scared of criticism that we just do things that are low risk and become’ do as directed’ . Gradually we feel we are moving along but we are not moving up the ladder.
In order to move up the ladder feedback or any review on the work done by us should make us take a step forward. Feedback has to make us step forward. That can happen when we view feedback as an opportunity to improve and move forward. Once we get rid of the defense mechanism, we would have the confidence to step forward, explore new ideas and above all overcome the fear of failure.
Above all- get comfortable with discomfort.
More often than not, the reason why we just manage to scrape through is that we just get too snug and comfortable in our comfort zones that dare not move out.
If you have to race against time and get ahead in life- get used to the idea of cutting the comfort. When asked to make a presentation, there are two ways of looking at it. One easier way is to just put some slides here and there and let them speak their own language. The other extreme is to make it as no one else has ever made it. Tell yourself-“If I pull it off, it’ll be brilliant, and if not, I’ll bomb, and there’s not a lot in between”. Remember, the best performers are the ones who take the biggest risks, and the performer who raises the stakes high enough is the one who is generally most compelling.
Life is melting in your hands like snowflakes, before the whole of it melts away, take stock of it.
Get ahead instead of just getting by…

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