Life Skills for a Professional (Part II)

This is continuation of the blogpost I started as essential for survival in today’s world for working professional

Networking:

It is not what you know but who you know will take you heights in career. There are many talented folks waiting for opportunities while there are many others who get just because of the connections they have made. There are many other benefits of networking.

Being a part of good professional network grants you access to wealth of information easily, which otherwise takes painstaking efforts to gather. An informal connection can help break the barriers of bureaucracy helping us in accomplishing our goals. If you have a strong connection with some powerful person in the organization, your image among the people would change.  

Reading:

In today’s world not knowing is perceived as a crime. In order to know the best avenue is reading. Selective reading about your area of business is minimum required where as a more generic reading can broaden your mind and though process and makes you a better person.

Well, the common question asked is, can this be monetized. Sometimes yes but most often it gives us intangible benefits that cannot be really quantified. A well learned person gets respect from others. He also will find his confidence levels improved and will be ready for challenges in life. It also gives him maturity to deal with difficult situations life throws at us. This is one unique skill that can be cultivated without help from anyone.

Introspection:

We all rely on Annual Performance Appraisals, for identifying areas of improvement. Its experience that the feedback we await for year is grossly inadequate, outdated, and sometimes not even correct. Also it happens in some cases that we work under selfish bosses who care only about themselves and have no interest in our development. How do we tackle this shortfall? Introspection at regular intervals can help in bridging the gap.

What is introspection really? It is critically reviewing our performance against the goals we had in our vision. Here we have to be brutally honest about it as giving benefit of doubt in our favor is not going to help really. This has to be done at regular intervals such as biweekly, month or quarter. We need to make sure we note down the corrective actions and work up on them before next review. This process when done on a sustained basis, can provide magical results to your life and career.