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Build Yourself For Success

Learn how to build yourself for success by developing your mindset, attitude, and soft skills.

Introduction

In today's time, growing and attaining skills have become essential to success. Along with hard skills and knowledge-based learning, developing your mindset, attitude, and soft skills has become just as important. Learning how to build resilience, a growth mindset, and increase productivity is a contributing factor to making your career.

Developing your interpersonal and communication skills

Active engagement and communication are essential aspects of our work life. Whether engaging with team members or clients, it is vital to learn how to do it properly. Here are some tips on improving your interpersonal skills.

1. Having a solid presence. Making eye contact and removing distractions helps show you are attentive to what they say and builds trust.

2. Active listening. When listening to what the other has to say, go with an open mind and eliminate any judgmental thoughts.

3. Show empathy. Learn to see from the other person's point of view and listen to understand.

4. Acknowledgement. This is part of active listening, where you do not just listen but also acknowledge what they are saying and ask any follow-up questions to show that you are listening.

A happy looking business professional participating in a meeting

Adopting a growth mindset

Attaining a growth mindset can help with self-development and help overcome challenges in your work and personal life. Here are a few tips on how to build on yourself and kick-start the year on a high note.

1. Reflect. Self-awareness helps one understand their strengths and weaknesses, which one can then work on improving and developing.

2. Learn something new. Challenging oneself to attain new skills and knowledge helps to keep the mind and body active whilst increasing life satisfaction and self-esteem.

3. Get feedback from others. Becoming self-aware can sometimes be challenging as one often may not notice things about themselves that others would. Asking for feedback can help one better understand themselves, including their strengths and weaknesses.

4. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Most of the time, people hesitate to try new things due to the fear of doing something wrong. One should understand it is normal and learn from it instead of avoiding it.

5. Challenge yourself. Getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things is a great way to gain confidence and motivate yourself.

Being productive at work

Learning to be productive with your work has become essential for completing your task quickly and efficiently. Here are some tips on how you can increase your productivity.

1. Focus on one task at a time: This allows you to give complete attention to your work and be more efficient with it.

2. Create a to-do list: This helps you to organise and order tasks according to urgency and priority and lets you tick them off when completed, giving you a sense of achievement.

3. Set small goals: To help achieve larger tasks, you can break them into smaller goals so it seems less intimidating and can be done quickly.

4. Use the Pomodoro strategy: Start by setting a 25-minute timer to complete your work, with 5-minute intervals. You can continue this cycle 3-4 times before taking a more extended break.

5. Limit distractions and interruptions: When focusing on one job, avoid getting distracted by smaller tasks, such as checking your email or messages, until your work is completed. Consider muting notifications for a short period to keep your focus!

Business professionals working at an outdoor shared office space

Practising mindfulness at work

Being mindful is a great skill, whether it be for your career or personal life. Here are a few tips on how to practice mindfulness for everyday work.

1. Acceptance. It's essential to acknowledge the present moment and understand that by accepting the current situation, one can think of solutions to move forward and improve themselves.

2. Be present. Instead of operating unconsciously, one should be awake and aware of their actions. Doing so can give your undivided attention to the task at hand, thus producing better work.

3. Slow down. Taking hasty decisions and rushing things can lead to bad choices. When you slow down, you can think clearly about what you need to do and how to do it best.

4. Embrace challenges. Rather than looking at challenges as a worry, try seeing them as a puzzle you look forward to solving. One can enjoy challenges and learn to overcome them by taking a positive approach.

Attaining a work-life balance

Learning to manage a healthy work-life balance can make a positive difference towards your mental and physical well-being, work and personal life. Some tips to consider when trying to maintain a healthy work-life balance include; limiting or shutting off communication tools after working hours, scheduling time to check emails within the day, and distributing work to respective team members when you're on vacation.

At the end of the day, one can only give their best performance at work when they have a balanced and healthy lifestyle that allows them to recharge and not burn out!

Improving your mental well-being

Protecting one's well-being can quickly become a challenge in today's fast-paced world of work. Here are a few tips for a balanced lifestyle.

1. Keep in touch. Staying in touch with friends, family, and peers can give you a sense of belonging and the opportunity to share your ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

2. Be active. Exercise is a great way to increase your self-esteem, and the release of endorphins can vastly improve your mood.

3. Keep Learning. Having a growth mindset is a great way to build your sense of purpose and boost self-confidence.

4. Spreading kindness. Being kind and helping others gives you a sense of reward, fulfilment and satisfaction, plus it's a great way to get involved in your community.

A woman having a yoga and meditation session

To conclude, there are many ways to build and prepare yourself for success. Attaining a growth mindset can help you get through obstacles in life, and helps to build your resilience, whereas practising mindfulness can help to boost your productivity and efficiency. Either way, all these methods can contribute to your growth and career one way or another.