Tracking your career

In the second installment in this series of posts, I will discuss some things that we need to keep in mind to make a successful career and maintain consistently high level of performance and motivation.

We have been brought up in the competitive age to ensure that we gain a competitive edge (pun intended) over others. Be it our neighbours, our classmates when we were young or our colleagues when we enter our professional lives. Nothing wrong in wanting more than the guy (or girl) next door mind you. That's the whole foundation of capitalism and free market. But the way in which most of us go about the task of making that happen is fundamentally flawed and leads to more problems than it solves.

What do you do when you want to be better or gain promotion? We work harder and harder to be better than the guy who is better than us or ahead of us. There are two things that could happen once we achieve that (Don't worry, I am not going into the "Two things will happen" story). You either lose your motivation to perform better and stagnate or target the next guy in hierarchy and before you know, you will have entered the proverbial "Rat-Race" because the next guy will also do the same thing and you will end up chasing each other. In worst cases, I have seen nervous breakdowns and people going into depression because of failure to meet up to others' expectations.

So then the question remains, how do you ensure your growth and progress in such a cut-throat world. The solution to me a very simple. I just opted of the rat race. Before you say that I must be crazy, consider what I want to say. I compete against myself. I believe I am only one I have to beat or surpass. I take my last year's performance and try to improve on that performance. That way I can work within my limitations and can reset my expectations / directions midway if I feel that I need to correct my course.

I was also in the rat-race for a long time. During that period I found myself working harder and harder to earn more money in lesser increments and it was taking a toll on me. Once I realised that, I started tracking my progress against myself. Because I understood that it my own performance over which I have complete control. I can't really control what others are doing or not doing.

Every company has a formal performance review process. In case there isn't any, get together with your boss and set goals for yourselves. Once you get your annual performance review, print it out or make a copy for yourself and identify the key deliverables and performance measures for yourself. That is very important. You might do a great job in some of the area, but if that is not what is expected from you, you still stand to lose a lot. Once you have the list of performance measures, start tracking your progress against it every month or so.

If you feel that you need support in some areas, feel free to go and talk to your boss for the help. Be it training, guidance or resetting of goals, if you go and talk to your boss and your boss is even half decent, I am sure there will be a lot to gain.

This is from the business angle. There also is the need for personal growth in technical areas. How I do it is that at the start of the year (or review period), I identify two sets of skills that I want myself to acquire during the year. Not one, not three, but two. That way I can focus on each skill without getting over burdened and still at the end of the year I am a lot better off that I was at the beginning of the year.

This is how I personally do it and believe I have found a lot of mental peace once I started this.

Remember: You have only yourself to beat