Credit to HBR and specifically Dorie Clark. Brilliant. Young people need to hear this.
Don’t Focus on Your Job at the Expense of Your Career (hbr.org)
Summary: "The gap between what we have to do today and where we see ourselves in the future can be vexing. We’d like to advance toward our goals, but we feel dragged down by responsibilities that seem banal or off-target for our eventual vision. In this piece, the author offers four strategies you can try so that you can simultaneously accomplish what’s necessary for the short-term while playing the long game for the betterment of your career."
- Analyze the strategic value of your activities.
- Enlist allies.
- Manage your brand.
- Be willing to experiment with “120% time.”
IMHO - This is what I tell my own teenagers and students in college:
- Put in the time when you are young because you have the energy, mental capacity, and the greatest amount of neural plasticity.
- The world and the workplace are not fair. Position yourself to capitalize on opportunities. That can be many things - training, visibility, kindness, someone others want to be around and emulate.
- Embrace the opposite of Imposter Syndrome. Be confident and go for it. Why not you?
- Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
More excellent articles by Dorie Clark:
