Make the Commitment to Become Successful as a Young Professional

In order to be successful, you need to be committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve your dreams.  You must know exactly what you want to accomplish, know what it will take to get you there, have the desire to be great at everything you do and be willing to do whatever it takes to get you to where you want to be.  You will face adversity on your journey to success, but you must make a commitment that no matter what, you will reach your vision of success and do whatever it takes to get there.

The difference between successful people and everyone else is oftentimes that the successful ones know exactly what they want.  Consequently, each of their decisions reflects those goals.  Think about how difficult it would be in life to consistently make decisions that align with your goals and dreams if you didn’t have a vision.  Your decision-making process has nothing to be based on if it’s not going in a specific direction.  Those individuals without a vision are simply floating along without purpose or meaning because they aren’t working toward anything.  Would you rather have your decisions in life be based on a vision or simply based upon whatever is easiest and convenient at the moment?  Knowing exactly what you want in the future will allow your decisions to have a specific purpose.

As you develop a vision of your successful future, you must be aware of exactly what it will take to get you from where you are to where you want to be.  In order to achieve your goals, you will need to make sacrifices and some very difficult decisions.  Life is full of decisions and often you won’t be able to take the easy road.  It is crucial to be aware of the sacrifices you need to make and then having the commitment to do whatever is necessary on your journey to success.

In order to be successful, you must be the type of person who strives for greatness in everything that you do.  It doesn’t matter what it is; successful people always give their very best to everything that they do, whether it’s in relationships, careers, parenting, or volunteering.  You can’t be the best at everything that you do, but you can certainly put forth your best effort and be passionate.  Put your heart into everything that you attempt.

Make the commitment to being successful in everything that you do.  It seems so simple, yet very few people have the discipline to give their best each and every day.  Be one of those people who others can look at and admire for the hard work and passion you put into everything you are involved with.

Young Professionals – Establish a Vision of Your Future

As a young professional, it is absolutely critical that you develop a vision of your successful future.  You must have a clear idea of what you want your future to look like and then you can create a specific plan to get you there.  Nothing is more important as a young professional than knowing where you want to be in the future; aligning your actions to this vision will allow you to reach your goals and dreams.

The objective of this exercise is very simple – you will think about what your successful future looks like through your eyes on this day.  It has already been discussed that often as people get older they give up on the dreams they had when they were younger and become complacent.  By writing down your vision and aligning your daily actions to it, you will not allow your dreams to diminish as you get older and life becomes more complicated.  This exercise will force you to dream big, something that very few people in this world are capable of doing.

Read through the following and write down your answers to each of the questions.  Use these questions to help you clarify what your successful future looks like:

•    Do you want to start a family?

•    Will you ever support anyone financially (such as helping parents or putting children through college)?  If so, who will you be supporting?  How do you feel about this?

•    Do you want to actively participate in your religion?  If so, how would you like to be involved?

•    Are there any organizations you would like to volunteer for?  If so, which ones and when?  How many hours do you want to spend volunteering each week?

•    When do you plan on retiring?  How much a month, in today’s dollars, will you need each month to live on?

•    What type of home do you live in?  What does it look like?  How big is it?  How does it compare to the other homes in the neighborhood?  What are your neighbors like?

•    How many really close friends do you have?  How often do you talk to them?

•    How often do you travel?  Where do you go?

•    Who are the most important people in your life?  How close are you to them?

•    What kind of a car do you drive?

•    What will you need to accomplish personally in order to feel successful?

•    What are you doing to have a positive impact in your community?

•    Are you being financially responsible?

•    How important is it for you to have what you feel is a great career?

•    What are you doing each day to learn more about your profession?

•    How important is it to you that others perceive you to be successful?

•    Would you rather be unhappy making a lot of money or love your career making much less money?

•    Would you rather be unchallenged and bored while making a lot of money or making a lot less money while learning a lot and constantly being challenged?

•    Do you ever want to own your own business?  If so, when?

•    Will you go back to school to get an advanced degree/designation?  If so, what will you study, when will you do it and where will you do it?

•    How much money each year do you need to make in order to be happy?

•    What are you truly passionate about?  Are you doing this each day?  If not, what is holding you back?

•    What do you need to accomplish professionally in order to feel successful?

•    Who are you mentoring?  Who is mentoring you?

As you read answered the questions above, did you begin to have a clearer idea of what your vision of success may look like?  I strongly encourage you to take those answers and write a few paragraphs on how you visualize your successful future.  Make sure to write it down in present tense; for instance, you might say “I have three children, a great wife, a successful business and….”.  The more specific you are with your vision, the easier it will be for you to reach it because you will constantly be visualizing it while making any important decision.  Get started on your vision immediately – the sooner you start, the sooner you will reach your vision!

Young Professional Success Tip – Treat Your First Opportunity Like an Internship

I always find it amazing how hard people are willing to work at an internship but somehow this work ethic mysteriously disappears when the opportunity is a career and not an internship.  In my first book, The Course They Forgot to Offer, I talk about the importance of treating your first career opportunity in the exact same way that you would a prestigious internship.  A great intern will always do the following:

•  Asks a ton of questions so he can learn as much as possible
•  Emulates the behavior of their successful co-workers
•  Learns about the industry
•  Takes on as much responsibility as possible
•  Shows up early and stays late

If you didn’t have this attitude during your internship, start displaying it immediately as a young professional.  You need to be willing to go above and beyond the average person’s work ethic if you want to become successful quickly.  I am assuming that you are an ambitious young professional, otherwise you wouldn’t be taking the time to read this book.  Because you don’t want to wait around for things to happen, you must go out and create your own opportunities for yourself; a great way of doing this is by simply bringing the attitude of an intern to your career.  Show up early, take on as much responsibility as possible, build relationships with the most successful people in the company, understand all aspects of your industry and ask a million questions!

Young Professional Success Tip – Identify the Positives in Everyone

When I was in elementary school, I wasn’t exactly the best-behaved, most mild-mannered kid in the classroom.  I liked to talk when the teacher was talking, mess with the people sitting around me and occasionally crack a joke out loud.  How do you think most teachers would classify me?  Maybe as the class clown, obnoxious, rude, poorly behaved or annoying?  Back to this in a minute.

As a young professional, you must be willing to see the positives in every one.  You need to see the positives in your friends, family, co-workers and those who are smarter than you, dumber than you, younger than you, older than you and absolutely everyone else who you come in contact with.  Being able to see the positives in everyone around you will make you a better person, manager, leader and teammate.  Very few people in this world are able to look at the people around them and see positive characteristics in everyone – I challenge you to be the person who can instantly identify the positives in EVERY person you interact with.

Alright, back to my story…  So I wasn’t the best behaved student in class and let’s be honest; most people wouldn’t want someone like me in their class.  In second grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Natali who took a different approach, which made ALL the difference in my life.  She saw me as an enthusiastic student with a great deal of passion.  She also showed me how to love writing and how to have the desire to become better at it.  Her approach, which was different than any other teacher’s I have ever had, was to see the positives in every student and have each of them focus those strengths to become great people and students.

The point of the story is simple: see the positives in every one.  It may just make all of the difference in their lives.

Young Professional Success Tip – Always Be Positive

The reality is that most people in the workplace dislike what they do for a living.  Plenty of studies have been done that reveal this and it only seems to be getting worse.  If you haven’t noticed, most people display some or all of this behavior:

- Have a negative attitude about everything
- Are constantly pessimistic
- Are always avoiding additional work or responsibility
- Have a negative outlook on everything that happens

The best thing that you can possibly do is have a positive attitude and ignore these people or else they will suck you right into their “club” of people that sit around complaining about everything that happens.  While these people are sitting around the water cooler complaining or screwing around on the internet or taking two hour lunch breaks, you must continue to have a positive attitude and give your best effort each and every day.

Which of the following people would you rather have working for you:

Person A – shows up early, stays late, always is willing to take on additional responsibility, treats everyone with respect, has a positive attitude even when he is having a bad day and never reacts negatively to a situation

Person B – shows up on time, leaves right at 5pm, tries to get out of additional projects, treats some people better than others, is moody and often takes a bad day out on someone else and has a negative response anytime something is going wrong

You may think that this is an exxageration, but I’m sure you know some people that fall into the “A” category and some that fall into the “B” category.  Our current economy is presenting some interesting challenges and many companies are consolidating/restructuring/downsizing…  If they are eliminating people, why would they keep the “B” people around?

Do an honest assessment of yourself and determine which category you fall in to – if its somewhere in between then make sure you are doing your best to improve yourself and get closer to the “A” side as soon as possible.  Those that have a great attitude and are constantly positive will give themselves a much great chance at success.  And remember to always react positively to a situation, no matter how upset it makes you feel initially.  Take a deep breath, walk away or do whatever you need to do so that you can make sure to always react positively to every situation you face!

Young Professional Success Tip – Find the Right Career Opportunity

Many young professionals are unhappy with their careers simply because they did not take the time and put in the effort necessary to find the right career opportunities.  Chances are their unhappiness was caused for one of two reasons:

1.  They were too lazy to search for the right opportunities, do internships in their fields, network with successful individuals in their industries and all of the other steps necessary to find the right careers
2.  They chose career opportunities for the wrong reason, such as it paying slightly more than something they would have enjoyed much more

So how does a young professional know what the right opportunity looks like?  The right opportunity must fit the following criteria:

1.  You must have a passion for it and enjoying doing it every day
2.  You will work exceptionally hard and strive to become great at it
3.  You have a desire to learn as much as you can about it because you love it and want to get better
4.  It will lead you towards your vision of success – in other words, you see this opportunity taking you one step closer towards your vision of a successful future

The right career for you will absolutely have the four characteristics above.  If yours doesn’t, then you must begin looking for the right opportunity.  The longer you delay finding the right opportunity, the further you will be from your vision.  Think of all the time you will have wasted doing something that isn’t right for you.