The world is full of opportunities and the major mitigation of
opportunities is competition. If there is nothing and no one who can seize your
opportunity you can never lose it. Opportunities don’t just disappear someone
else takes it up. Someone faster, better, more fortunate, better position or
better prepared.
Business opportunities, promotion opportunities, job
opportunities, relationship, contacts, networking opportunities come up every
day and every day, someone takes it up.
As much as we have these opportunities revealed, they are still
insufficient compared to the number of people waiting to seize them. There is
scarcity of opportunities and only the best prepared and best positioned can
seize.
Come to think of it every time you lose an opportunity, your
start-off time is further delayed. For example if someone gets promoted in your
stead this year, you’ll have to wait for another opportunity maybe another year
or two, meanwhile time will not wait for you or wait with you for the next
opportunity; time waits for no one.
This means becoming very successful cannot be divorced from the
number of opportunities you seize and the frequency and speed at which you
seize these opportunities.
If indeed there are many rivals around you waiting for the same
opportunity you’re hoping to seize how do you outperform them each time, every
time. To elaborate, the top echelon of your business organisation has much
fewer people than the bottom, meaning the higher you go, the fewer you get. How
do you retain your place and a good pace; enjoying a steady, speedy glide to
the top of your organisation?
To enjoy your career journey, you must have a sense of charge
over it. And to do that, you must know how to create your own opportunities.
How do you do this?
This may sound strange and look almost impossible hence; many
have resolved to depend on luck and providence for career progress and success.
Without ruling out the efficacy of this mindset and approach;
I’ll in addition want to share the following to give you a role to play in
apprehending opportunities for success in your career. Please pay attention to
these factors:
1. Know and define clearly in your mind the opportunity
you’re waiting for. If you don’t know it, you can hardly recognize it when it
comes. For instance you can’t just say you want to become a director in your organisation; you must know which one. Is it HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing,
Supply chain which one? Know what you want and go for it.
2.Secondly, identify and be familiar with who currently
holds or is in charge of the opportunity. Who is occupying the position currently?
What are his qualifications, competencies, strengths and abilities? Also
identify his weaknesses, struggles, negative traits and faults. Be familiar
with the position. The good and the bad, the challenges and constraints.
Understand what you want. Don’t just dream of the pleasure and privilege,
acknowledge the frustration and challenges. Because even good things come with
their challenges.
3.Thirdly, have a plan, an agenda on how to improve on
what the person is currently doing. How much impact is he making currently, how
can you improve on it? How efficient and result oriented is his performance?
How do you outdo him? Know these things and write them down, then work on
yourself to be more suitable for the position.
4.Fourthly start working on you, to be better at managing
that portfolio than the current holder. Work on yourself, your speed,
efficiency, knowledge, skills and foresight. Read, observe and gather
information on how to surpass expectations in that office. For example as a
junior brand manager, begin to think of creative ways of outdoing the current
senior brand manager or your supervising marketing manager in terms of volume,
value, market share and equity. Think of ways to beat current records and set
new ones.
5.Fifthly, strive to surpass your own current records and
performance. Outdo your last performance with every new assignment. Introduce
something new and exciting each time you need to deliver on a similar
assignment. Don’t be predictable on your tasks. Create excitement with new tasks;
let everyone look forward to a new something you bring to bear on your work. Be
exciting and innovative, refuse to be bland and boring. Differentiate yourself
with your quality and quantity of work, what you know is not half as important
as what you do in career. Be better and faster on your assignments. The faster
you get the more assignment you’re given and with more assignment come higher
responsibilities. The higher your responsibilities the more valuable you
become, the more your value the more your relevance. Then you start attending
high profile meetings, selected as member of special project teams and
committees and then you begin to handle special duties. That’s how to beat your
rivals.
6.Lastly, never campaign and never lobby for that position.
Earn it! Once you start campaigning, lobbying and criticizing the person
currently in charge of that position, you diminish your moral credentials to
genuinely earn that position. You become a schemer and your motives and
intention becomes a subject to discuss in the organisation. Never let them see
you coming, keep your negative views to yourself. Always balance your
criticism; how do i mean, look for, and commend the good side of a matter
first, no matter how little before sharing your opinion on the negative aspect.
Never boast! Make your sweat and hard work look pretty easy. When you talk and
dwell very often on your effort in delivering your current assignment, you send
signals that you lack the capacity to handle greater assignments. Hence, you may
never be considered for a higher position; decision makers will conclude you
still need to grow up.
In conclusion, draw a mental picture of your next opportunity
and hold on to it. The more you think and meditate on it, the more you attract
it into your life. What opportunity in your office are you waiting for now?
Call it out. Think about it, meditate on it and romance it in your mind and
gradually it will eventually become your reality. Dear friend. Create that
opportunity today.
Enjoy your day.
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