Gauri Chhabra
Are career blunders embarrassing? Yes. But are they valuable tools to help you improve as a professional, build confidence, and advance your career? Absolutely. Like the famous ad,” Kuchhdaag ache hoteinhain”, some mistakes are worth making-make them early in your career so that you can learn from them.
Mistakes that ‘make’ your career…
Looking to find answers to the question, ‘What are the valuable mistakes everyone should make in their career?’ Mistakes that help you grow in the long term…
Agree to do everything.
It’s a common mistake, especially early in a career. We are so obsessed with the dream job that we start saying ‘yes’ to everything that comes our way. It can make you tread virgin grounds and it can actually lead you to failure. Nevertheless, you would have a fast learning curve. You would not only learn how to draw a line in the sand, but also where to draw it. You would become indispensable to such an extent that no matter what the problem, or the deadline, or the situation, you would be able to find a solution.
Later on, however, you learn to appreciate the opportunity costs of time and spend this capital wisely. Not only time, there is an opportunity cost associated with everything and as long as you understand this and make wise choices, your mistakes will become apparent, and they will decrease in frequency and cost.
Get the bad boss:
Bosses are a great influence in our lives. They act asgreat filters for showing us both where we don’t want to work, and how we don’t want to treat people. It seemed like a mistake at the time to accept the position because I had heard the manager was horrible. But, I really wanted to gain the experience.
And, I learned a lot more about myself than I ever expected.
Get fired:
Not all of us will get tested in this area. I have. I got fired from my job because I refused to compromise on ethics and refused to use underhand means to allot training contracts to vendors without consideration of merit. I was made to leave by the system, strangely I felt happy and free.
I learnt the lesson-“If you don’t stand up for something, you will fall for anything”.
Be a ‘know it all’:
We all want to know all or that’s how we want to appear to our colleagues and customers that we know everything about our company, service, or product. But, the truth is, none of us know it all and we do not realize how valuable it is to have our ego crushed. Why is this a great mistake to make? Because, once you know you can be wrong, you approach work differently knowing that your next decision might not be correct, but it will be a learning experience that leads you closer and closer to finding the most efficient and innovativeresult.
Mistakes that ‘mar’
Of course, the most glaring ones are we aren’t going to gossip about our boss, fail to meet our deadlines or do anything else to jeopardize our jobs or careers … knowingly.
It’s that “knowingly” that’s the problem. We can easily avoid the professional pitfalls we know, but what about the ones we don’t? Are you making these mistakes that might mar your career?
Going an extra mile:
When it comes to bonding with colleagues, going an extra mile can mar your career. It is always good to bond with co-workers and attend work happy hours, and other forms of group bonding, because while these people are your colleagues, they’re also the people with whom you spend most of your time. But bonding becomes problematic when you become very close to some co – workers and not others. It’s a mistake to align yourself with one person or one camp. While it’s tempting to align yourself with a strong person or group, in doing so, you separate yourself from everyoneelse. Then, as is the norm at workplaces, professional equations change, someone falls out of favor, or you need support from someone not in the chosen group? Then you are in a soup.
Take some simple steps to keep things friendly across the board: Go to lunch with a group of people, or different people each day; sit next to people who aren’t your deskmates already at meetings; mix up your routine a bit-stop by the kitchen for a brief chat at different times of day, to run into different people.The higher up in the organization you go, the more important it is to be observant and prudent. Remember that while having allies is extremely important, so is having people who will challenge you.
Moon lighting:
There’s no shame in taking a gig unrelated to your ultimate career path to make ends meet while hunting for other opportunities, or to make a little extra money on the side. Plus, your scrappiness will show future employers that you’re hardworking and ready to hustle, right? Not exactly.
As a job seeker, you should be looking at yourself as a candidate through your potential employer’s eyes.And to an employer, a side job is a distraction from your primary positionInstead of trying to bulk up temporary jobs by explaining how they taught you “tenacity” and “reliability; minimize such positions down to only a line on your résumé or eliminate them altogether while bulking up your more relevant past positions. The only time you should include a job like this on your résumé is if it furthers your career objective. If you spent six months working at an eating joint and are now applying for a completely unrelated corporate job in ad sales, eliminate your make-ends-meet job from your résumé altogether. If youremployment gap should come up in an interview, explain that you were devoting your full attention to finding the right job in a difficult economy.
Not relying on the gut:
Have you ever made a pros and cons list about a potential job or project? It’s the sensible move, you’re laying out all the reasons you should and shouldn’t take on a new venture in order to make an informed, rational decision.But informed and rational isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you are getting a bad gut feeling about working for a certain boss, a ‘pit in the stomach’ sensation about a dicey work environment, or are self-rationalizing over taking a major pay cut, you should never ignore the little voice in your ear warning you that something is wrong. If you’re getting a bad feeling about an opportunity that seems promising on the surface, it’s time to get more information. Dig deeper, and either reassure yourself that your impressions are wrong, or back away from the offer. This is true even for choosing your first career track-trust yourself. That’s not to say that a few nerves means you should bail on a second-round interview, but if you can’t shake your anxiety and can’t alleviate it with more information, it might be time to take a step back.
If,after doing your research and networking, the career, industry or job you’re exploring doesn’t feel right to you, reconsider. Follow your gut.
Being always ‘available’
Are you the Ms.24X 7?
If you are, it’s a mistake rather than a virtue. Chances are, your current employer values face time that is, how much time you’re in the office, working away at your desk. And when you aren’t face-to-face, you’re accessible by phone, email, text or carrier pigeon, whether it’s midnight, or midnight on Saturday during your trip with your family.
When you’re refusing to delegate responsibilities it shows that you aren’t a mentor,which is criteria for promotion. And when you don’t take vacation, he says, it can create an air of superiority like you feel nothing can get done without you.
To err is human, you will commit mistakes as you climb up the ladder of success, but make sure they make a better person out of you…
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