Stop and Go

Sue Hawkes is an award-winning keynote speaker, seminar leader, business coach and entrepreneur. She is founder and CEO of the professional training and coaching firm Your Extraordinary Success Strategies and author of Chasing Perfection: Shatter the Illusion, Minimize Self-Doubt & Maximize Success.

Moving up doesn’t have to mean doing more. Read on for ways to work smarter, not harder, and get recognized for it along the way.

Stop always saying yes.

Taking on projects and opportunities is part of growth and moving up in a company, but you don’t want to take on so much that you can longer execute to the best of your ability. Saying yes to two things and doing them well is much better than saying yes to five things and not giving your all because you were spread in too many directions. If you do say yes, focus on saying yes to activities that that truly matter and excite you or will bring you recognition and new opportunities. If a task won’t do at least one of those things, consider saying no.

Stop doubting yourself.

The first step to getting over your self-doubt is acknowledging that you are experiencing it. Share your feelings with other trusted colleagues, who can provide useful insight, remind you you’re not alone and share how competent and strong they believe you are. Getting a positive boost can go a long way in upping your self-confidence. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. It’s a key leadership skill, so you might as well start practicing now.

Fake it until you make it! Enter rooms with confidence and don’t second-guess your contributions. Next time you catch yourself spiraling into self-doubt, try reframing your thoughts into objective questions about what is needed to bring solutions.

Write about what you know best. You feel the soul of a writer, but you do not know what to write? If I can give you advice, first write about what you know best. Robin Cook’s medical thrillers work so well because he himself was a doctor. Ditto for John Grisham’s legal thrillers, having first worked in the legal profession. To each one to take inspiration from one’s own life, experiences and those of others. You will only be more credible. No need to have an extraordinary destiny for that. As far as I’m concerned, my strong point is imagination, hence my taste for the wonderful genre. I could also write with credibility on the theater, the web, the handicap or even the protection of childhood; topics that I know well. Each year, between 65 and 70,000 books are produced in France (all genres). And it is estimated from http://essaysinformation.info that less than 1% of the manuscripts received are published. So, far from balancing these numbers to discourage you, I ask you the question: what do you have to bring different or original? If you want to write a detective novel, for example, start by mastering the subject well if you want to be credible (see above) and then ask yourself two questions: what have I already read or seen? I like? What have I never read or seen that I would like? From the answers you will get, there is a good chance that a book will emerge that will be out of the ordinary. For my part, I love Jules Verne’s adventure novels and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger’s exploits, and I’ve never read a book about centaurs on the scene. It is from this, among others, that the idea of The Land of the Centaurs came to me.

Stop putting yourself last.

To take care of your company and family, you have to take care of yourself first. Self-care comes in many forms, and it doesn’t require complete overhaul of your life or calendar. Even small changes can create big results. Try cutting out sugar, abstaining from alcohol during the week or taking a walk during your lunch break. These are all small things that add up to a much healthier you, and this better version of you will produce better results.

Stop doing it alone.

Even the best leaders need help. In fact, knowing when they need help is what makes them so effective. Ask for help from your colleagues or employees by inviting them to participate in the work as a teammate, not a follower. They might even see it as an opportunity to contribute that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

I encourage delegating things at home as well. Most likely there’s someone who wouldn’t mind doing that task you hate or would at least be better suited for it. Delegating things at home frees you up to spend more quality time with family and friends and leads to more rest, more time for relationships, less guilt and better results. Ask yourself if you would pay someone what you make per hour to clean the house or go grocery shopping. If not, outsource it.

It may seem counterintuitive to your professional growth to say no, make yourself vulnerable, put yourself first or ask for help. It’s time to change the rules.