You have two choices, and you need to make a decision right now make four
simple strategy tweaks and get on the path to get promoted faster, massive
salary increases and getting the praise you deserve or continue to follow
the bad advice of working hard burning yourself out and waiting for your
turn for career advancement. Which would you prefer, I knew what would be
the first one, let's talk about the first thing that you need to do. And
that is to have to figure out what you want. Jennifer, this is so obvious,
maybe it is maybe you're already crystal clear on what you want in your
career and in your life, in which case you have a head start my career
bestie. But if you're like most of the professionals that I work with, it
probably goes a little bit more like this, I want to get to the next level,
what is the next level. At worst, you might be lying to yourself about what
you want, and focusing on what others want for you. Perhaps your parents
raised you with certain expectations, or you feel pressure from friends or
former classmates to follow a particular career path. Or maybe you're just
doing what you think makes sense. For example, if you've been in sales for
a while, you might think that it makes more sense to proceed into sales
leadership, even though you hate sales. And you can't imagine spending the
rest of your life selling things. You can also be limiting yourself and
holding yourself back from what you really want in your career based on
what you think is available to you. This is one I see all the time. Chad's
up for the promotion ahead of me as though you're standing in a queue
waiting to pay for your groceries, I can never get hired at Google, which
you use to stop yourself from applying to a job, let alone maybe networking
your way into a job offer. It's for all of these reasons that too often,
you're lying to yourself about what you really want from your career,
leaving you completely in the dark about what you really want, which feels
like something is wrong, that you just can't put your finger on and
describe Have you ever felt that way? If you have today, we're going to
start fixing it. For starters, we need you to own up to what you really
want. And we'll trick your brain into admitting it. First grab a piece of
paper or pen or open up the Notes app on your phone, whichever one you
prefer, because I'm about to ask you a question. And without even thinking
about it, let alone judging yourself for it, you're going to write down the
very first thing that comes to mind. I'm about to ask the question, and you
can pause when I'm done. Because whatever comes to mind immediately, is
your answer. Ready? Here we go. If your success was guaranteed, there was
no way you can fail. What would you want? So what's your answer? Do you
want to be promoted into people leadership position transfer from the
product team into marketing? Do you want to quit your job and earn an MBA?
Now there is a chance that whatever came to mind immediately that you wrote
down might have surprised you a little this instinctual and automatic
answer is your most likely path to success, happiness and fulfillment both
personally and professionally. But what if you think your answer is
something that's really out there? And I do get this pushback? Sometimes
when I asked this question, well, I said I want to be a rock star. But I'm
tone deaf and I don't know how to play any instruments and others to that
effect, I will tell you that there have been times where my tone deaf non
instrument playing self did want to be in a band. At one point in my life,
I genuinely was interested in becoming a top secret spy, of course, I'm not
that I can tell you about. And at one point in my life, I even considered
going to medical school, which sounds normal in total, you remember the
fact that my degree is in criminology, in my experience, when the answer is
somewhat of a snarky answer, like saying you want to be a rock star, it's a
self protective reflex because you don't feel worthy of the real answer.
And we'll come back to that one in just a few minutes. Or maybe that snarky
answer is in the realm of possibilities. And if you really look at it,
perhaps it's hinting at something is there a path where that can make
sense? For example, my momentary ambition to become a top secret spy wasn't
completely outlandish, given my area of study, and the fact that I was a
new graduate when I decided that that was a potential career path for me.
However, if you're like most people, what you found through your automatic
answer was something that is both feasible and attainable, assuming you're
ready to admit it. Because it's one thing to know what you want and to be
aware of it. But you need to do more than that. You need to accept it. And
even more importantly, you need to give yourself permission to pursue what
you want in your career. Too often, I see people write off their career
goals and their career ambitions. I can never reach that level. People like
me don't get hired there. You write yourself off because you don't want to
play games that you don't think you'll win. But who says you won't win that
you won't get that promotion that you think Chad has dibs on or that your
dream company isn't going to offer you a job or that you wouldn't get hired
by your dream company. If you pursued an application. There is a role that
I've observed in life and in your career, and that is no one will get in
your way more than you will get in your own way. Instead of blocking
yourself. You can choose to Give yourself permission permission to talk to
your boss about what it'll take for you to get that promotion to the next
level or permission to apply for that job that you never thought you would
be able to get that said, simply wanting something in your career doesn't
mean it's going to happen. I can write down I'm a best selling author in my
manifestation journal all that I want. But if I don't do the work to become
a best selling author like shamelessly promoting my Career Glow Up book,
it's not going to happen. action is required to attain your desires. Which
brings us to the second step to upgrade your career in the next 90 days. Be
intentional. When you implement this stuff. You can go from being
overlooked being passed over for promotions to highly visible being praised
by leadership and having career opportunities handed to you. This is
something that we can look to Chad and to Avery for my five workplace
villains video to learn because this is something that they know very well
versed, be intentional with your time treat it like it's the most precious
resource that you have. Because it is and of course we know by working
hard, what we're really saying is working all the time doesn't work to get
you ahead. We've talked about how being the person that everyone knows that
they can go to for help to dump their work on is going to get in the way of
your career advancement. And of course, we've also discussed how pointless
it is to overachieve on everything. When no one else notices you have a
limited amount of time, spend it like it matters. This begins with knowing
the biggest impact that you can make and being clear on what your unique
awesomeness quotient your UAQ is. If you don't know it yet, you can
download my free UAQ Starter Kit, knowing the real priorities at your
company also makes a big difference, and particularly how they intersect
with your UAQ. Anything that isn't on those two lists are things that you
should just meet expectations and move on. This also applies to how you
spend your time on professional development and professional growth. You're
here watching this video right now, because you want to upgrade your career
in the next 90 days. And if upgrading your career, whether that's getting a
new job, getting a promotion, or just raising your visibility at work is
something that is truly important. I'm going to tell you something that
you're really not going to like watching free videos and using free
resources online isn't going to do the trick. I'm not saying that you need
to enroll in $150,000 MBA program. For most people, that's not actually the
best step to take. It's about understanding the priorities of your
different growth areas, and what resources you can use in order to get
there faster. And even if you want to get there faster, I have a simple
framework that I use personally, and I think it's really helpful. I'll put
a deep dive over on my Instagram and feel free to ask me about it in my ama
Wednesday. But here's some general principles to help you understand what
resources you need. And that includes time and money for low priorities and
for skill expansions into brand new areas. This is where you want to get
the most out of your freebies watching videos like this reading blogs, or
maybe even taking an open learning class. medium priority is something that
needs to happen within the next year in order for you to reach your career goals,
whether that's techniques, strategies, skills, it's where your investment
is really going to start to have a payoff at this level. I think books like
my career glow up book I just mentioned, workshops and even mini courses
can be extremely helpful. And finally, we have the high priority things,
the things that you want to happen right away that you refuse to wait for,
and you're going to cut in line to make it happen. You're not going to wait
around for the next two years while you figure it out on your own. Give me
a shortcut for things like this courses, programs and coaching are
incredibly helpful. And to be clear, some of these things can cost 1000s of
dollars, but some of them are going to be much much much more accessible
than that and still help you jump the line. The next thing that you need to
bring a lot of intentionality to is your professional reputation. Highly
successful professionals know that one of their most precious assets is the
reputation that is your personal brand. What do people say about you when
you're not in the room, and it's actually a bigger problem if they're not
talking about you at all. But that's a discussion we can have another day
Your reputation is going to precede you throughout your career. It will
frame expectations about you impact the opportunities that are presented to
you or created for you, and it will heavily influence your compensation.
That's right. This shows up in your bank account. Big time. For example, if
you're known for being the best in your team, or one of the best in your
field, companies are going to know that they need to bring their most
competitive offers and increases to get and keep your attention cultivate
and protect your personal brand and your professional reputation with the
attention it deserves. And the third thing you need to be highly
intentional about to uplevel your career in the next 90 days is how you
show up at work. What vibe Are you putting out to the world this does
include how you present yourself to the world and no I'm not talking about
meeting antiquated Standards of Professional and unprofessional here,
because in my opinion competency does not require a business suit, which,
if you've been hanging with me for a while is not going to surprise you at
all. What I'm really asking here is, are you showing up confidently? And
are you showing up powerfully at work? Especially in those crucial moments
that matter? Are you doing the things that the people in the positions that
you want are doing? are you prioritizing career advancing strategies like
them? Are you investing in yourself like them? Are you creating the
impression and reputation of having high potential to everyone around you
like they are, and this actually brings us directly into the third step?
Because when you have this one in place, you can roll into any meeting in
sweatpants and a stained t shirt, and everyone would still stop when you
spoke to pay attention. The third step to upgrade your career is to
cultivate confidence. Do you want to know why Chad gets away with slacking
off having questionable competence in his job and theory little knowledge
of what's going on around him? It's not just because the higher ups like
though that doesn't hurt, but that's also influenced by this Chad has high
confidence in himself. Chad doesn't question his ability. He believes in
himself and his abilities, whether it's merited or not, Chad trusts himself
to get things done, whether he will or not, God is not getting
opportunities because he has demonstrated his competence, Pat is getting
opportunities because he is confident at work and confidence is contagious.
The reverse is also true. Do you ever doubt yourself at work question if
you have the right skills, abilities, or experience to take on that career
advancing project, when you doubt yourself, the people you work with
notice, including the people that are making decisions about whether you
get that opportunity or not, perhaps you express your concerns out loud,
but most of the time professionals don't do that. Typically, self doubt is
communicated subconsciously through body language, tone of voice, etc. In
any event, whether it's subtle or overt, your lack of self confidence will
make others question you. And I know it's frustrating. So I want us to take
a step up and think about it from a leadership perspective. Because if you
want to be a leader, we need to start thinking like a leader too. If you
were the boss, would you give a high visibility high priority project to
someone who wasn't sure if they had the ability to do it well, whom you
constantly had to reassure when if they fail, it would reflect poorly on
you potentially even impacting your job stability? Or would you trust the
person who had high conviction that they can absolutely knock it out of the
park make you look good? Make them look good? Make the company look good?
make everyone look awesome?
The answer is simple. You are going to choose the person who is confident
because it will make you more confident in them. Luckily, cultivating
confidence at work is not as complicated as it sounds. It simply requires
you to know yourself your skills and your potential because when you
believe in yourself, your abilities and your potential and you trust
yourself, your abilities and your potential. Everyone you work with from
your boss to your co workers is going to have that trust and confidence as
well. If you have been struggling with confidence at work to make sure that
you are on my career bestie Insider List. I have something special plan
just for my insiders coming really soon. Career confidence is not optional.
Rear confidence is essential for career success. As we've discussed, it can
compensate for shortcomings and help you establish your reputation as a
high potential employee giving you the opportunities and benefits that
status affords. Chad should not be the only one benefiting from it is what
I'm saying. Without confidence, especially in your potential others are
going to struggle to see it because how can you expect someone else to see
potential in you that you don't see yourself? Which brings us to the fourth
step to upgrade your career in the next 90 days, it's time for you to quiet
quit the right way. Over the years we've actually talked about this
endlessly on my channel. We've talked about it in the context of being lazy
at work as lazy as typically been defined as a co worker who does the
minimum that they need to to get by and probably has some strong work life
boundaries, they're not willing to go the extra 100 mile and that's exactly
what quiet quitting is. I like to think about it as a throwback to a
simpler time. And while there's a lot I would like to leave in our
antiquated workplace culture of years before, there is something that we
can learn from the time before smartphones before the Always On expectation
at work. And when working hard didn't mean working all the time. And I am
going to do a really deep dive video in the next few weeks on quiet
quitting exactly how to do it. And the biggest mistakes that people are
making that are actually putting their jobs at risk when instead they can
be working less and advancing their careers. So make sure that you're
subscribed with the notification bell if you're not already, but right now
I want to highlight a new Once that I haven't seen discussed that I
actually talked to Newsweek about last week why acquitting doesn't require
that you opt out of career advancement or that you have to give up any
career ambitions you have, in my opinion, quite the opposite. Quiet
quitting is what is going to allow you to save time, energy and effort on
things that you're doing that aren't actually impacting your career
positively, or even negatively, you know, the tasks that you do that your
boss never notices that you get so frustrated that you're working all the
time. thanklessly. And when you figure out the difference of what just
needs to be done, so you don't get in trouble for it versus what is going
to help raise your profile and advance your career. It's in the time that
you save from leaning back on the things that are having zero impact on
your career that is going to enable you to focus on the high visibility
work that can help you accelerate your career while you work less, which
can bring you more interesting work and a bigger paycheck. Who doesn't want
that? Don't believe that it's possible. Well, your lazy coworkers are
getting promoted all the time. Go and watch this video right now for some
tactics you can steal from them right now.