Written by: Hina Siddiqui, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I work with corporate professionals all the time. Honestly, it’s sad to see that over 80% of them are sabotaging their career growth just unknowingly.
I have been there in my corporate career for a long time so I can resonate. It’s freaking painful. I felt stuck and misaligned in my corporate career for ages. It's no more a secret by the way because I keep talking about that. I was doing everything that I thought I should be doing but within the boundaries of my logic. Nothing was giving me an escape from my;
Boring and exhausting job
Toxic people including my bosses and colleagues, and;
Paycheck that looked like peanuts.
Deep down, I knew that I deserve much better and so much more, but how to figure that out was a mystery. I took some bold and scary steps to transform my awful work life to an awesome one, and it worked. If you are unsatisfied with the way your career is progressing, now is the time to get off the fence, make an authentic career plan, and execute it as fast as you can.
In this article, I am giving you a foolproof and fail proof career development plan that you can put in action immediately after you finish reading this.
Why Career Growth?
This is a powerful question to start with. You are going to spend about 90,000 hours at your work. It’s totally normal and safe to expect at least 2 things from your career:
Big Money and;
Good Growth.
If you are stuck at a job position and your income has not at least doubled in the last 2 years, you need to give it serious attention.
If you think it’s normal because of COVID, recession, companies laying off and shutting down, that’s not the case. Your career expansion does not depend on any external factors. There are always lucrative high-paying job opportunities for fabulous people who believe in their power to help change the numbers for the company they work with. And companies are waiting for such employees. So, be one. The question is “HOW”?
Follow the following career growth blueprint in 3 phases, and you will be ready to move into your power!
Phase I: Be specific. Know what you want.
Our society teaches us to settle with what we get.
“It’s not good to ask for specific things”.
“That makes us look greedy and insensitive”.
How many of us as a child have got this privilege to be really specific about what we wanted for birthday gifts, or any occasion like that? Most of us (including me) were scared of asking as we were not sure if our parents could afford that. And we, in the quest of “being nice”, learn this at a very early age that it’s bad to be demanding. No surprise that ‘settling’ behavior shows up in all areas of our life, even our jobs. Of course, you may not be consciously aware of this fact, because that’s hidden in the deep layers of your subconscious mind and inside your body. There’s a big difference between being demanding and being specific. Now it’s time to change, and be really specific about what you want for a job, and in your corporate career.
This starts with being in the right place.
There’s no point climbing up the wrong corporate ladder. It’s going to keep you stressed and craving for job satisfaction. And you will not be able to fully play on your strengths.
No matter how many steps you are up there, pause and ask yourself:
How does your job make you feel?
Do you feel proud of your work when you come back home?
Can you freely and fearlessly express your feelings and opinions with your bosses and colleagues without fearing judgment?
Do you feel underpaid?
Does your work thrill you or drain you?
If your answers don’t match your expectations, it’s time to plan a Job Switch or perhaps a Career Switch.
What do you want your job to look like? Feel like? Live like? Release the handbrake, and let your imagination go wild. It’s safe to have a bigger vision than you think is possible for you. Now is the time. And trust me, you are powerful enough to achieve anything. Yes, any big thing.
Phase 2: Be in Total Alignment
After you are clear about what you want, it’s time to be in total alignment with your corporate career vision. The ONLY reason most people struggle in their careers (and life) is that their own tools are in conflict with each other.
What tools am I talking about?
These tools are your body, mind ‒ the conscious mind which is less than 5% and the sub and unconscious which is more than 95%), emotions and energies. You need to align your body, mind, emotions and energies in one direction for things to happen your way. And yoga is the best practice to achieve that perfect alignment. So, I invite you to use Yoga to heal, and progress fast and high in your career.
By the way, what comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Yoga’? If you’re like most people, you just envisioned twisting and turning your body in uncomfortable ways. But guess what? In the yoga philosophy, there’s only one small sentence about Postures or Asanas: "Sthira sukham āsanam" which means holding your body in a way which is steady and comfortable.
Yoga is NOT JUST a physical activity.
It’s about taking an aligned action that needs to happen at 4 levels:
Physical
Mental
Emotional
Energy
If your action at these 4 levels is not aligned, you will keep on struggling. Whatever amount of hard work you do, the results are going to only frustrate you. So, the first step is to heal yourself, and remove the obstacles from your path of career growth.
A few of these obstacles may be:
Your mind(set) [Thoughts and strong opinions that we call beliefs]
Your energy field [Aura that surrounds your body]
Your pain body [where your negative emotional stories live with comfort]
After you clear these obstacles from your way, your actions will start rewarding you.
You just can’t avoid the healing work.
Pay close attention to what you think, strongly feel, and say? On what points do you debate with people? What do you have strong opinions about? When you closely observe yourself with a good amount of awareness, you’d begin finding the patterns. What are those limiting stories that have held, and are holding you back?
Notice your emotional patterns. Every emotion makes you feel a certain way, and has a specific frequency. What makes you feel good and high? What makes you feel terrible, low, and a victim? Once you know the enemy, you can handle it. You can either do that by yourself, or seek help from a professional coach.
Or join me in my Next ’Yoga Infused Corporate Breakthrough Retreat’ in Bali.
Phase 3: Tune into your Inspired Action Moves
The bigger the vision, the harder you’d need to work to make it real!
Right?
Wrong!
I am not a big fan of hard work. If you can be strategic and open to new ideas, behaviors and mindset, you don’t need to bust your ass to achieve that ‘big vision’. I know two ways to work
Inspired work, and;
Busy work.
And I have tried both.
Before I broke up with my idea of hard work, I was continually putting too much effort into my everyday tasks. I was not delegating my tasks. My cover up story was that I do them the best. Of course, I can do my work well, but I can’t do everything myself. Then one of my coaches helped me bring my attention to the fact that the underneath belief was that money comes with hard work. This finding was so eye opening for me. So, you don’t have to do “hard work” to reach your ‘big vision’. Yes. It would take work. But that would be joy-filled inspired work that you will enjoy. Set an intention to ‘avoid busy work’, and do ‘aligned work’. Trust your intuition to guide you through. You’d need to quiet your ‘mind chatter’ to listen to your intuition. And then take action that inspires you. Take small consistent steps everyday without being attached to the outcome. Have fun. Meet new people. Enjoy your life.
Your corporate career growth planning and success is all about 80% being and 20% doing.
The biggest mistake corporate people make is that they probably reverse it. No wonder that doesn’t work. Because that can never work. Your journey of corporate career growth is much more about releasing the unneeded than it is learning and acquiring. I would personally love to support you in your Corporate Career Success Journey.
Hina Siddiqui, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Hina Siddiqui, is a Corporate Life Coach, Author, and Podcast Host at The Corporate Life Podcast. For over a decade, her various corporate jobs were an everyday struggle for her, because she was misaligned with what she was doing. As time passed, she realized that doing a job can be fun if we love what we do. She’s passionate about supporting corporate professionals to find ‘Right-for-them’ Jobs and Work Cultures.
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