How To Grow In Your Career: Be Better Tomorrow Than You Are Today

I’ve met a lot of people who have destination disease. They think that they have “arrived” by obtaining a specific position or getting to a certain level in an organization. When they get to that desired place, they stop striving to grow or improve. What a waste of potential!

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the desire to progress in your career, but never try to “arrive.” Instead, intend your journey to be open-ended. Most people have no idea how far they can go in life. They aim way too low. I know I did when I first started out, but my life began changing when I stopped setting goals for where I wanted to be and started setting the course for who I wanted to be. I have discovered for others and me that the key to personal growth is being more growth oriented than goal oriented.

There is no downside to making growth your goal. If you keep learning, you will be better tomorrow than you are today, and that can do so many things for you.

THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE MORE PEOPLE LISTEN

If you had an interest in cooking, with whom would you rather spend an hour—think of a big name in hotel and hospitality industry (chef, cookbook author, owner of several restaurants, and host of food TV shows) or your neighbour who loves to cook and actually does it “every once in a while”? Or if you were a leadership student, as I am, would you rather spend that hour with the president of your country or with the person who runs the local supermarket? It’s no contest. Why? Because you respect most and can learn best from the person with great competence and experience.

Competence is a key to credibility, and credibility is the key to influencing others. If people respect you, they will listen to you. U.S President Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” By focusing on growth, you become wiser each day.

THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE GREATER YOUR VALUE TODAY

If you were to plant fruit and nut trees in your farm, when could you expect to start harvesting from them? Would you be surprised to learn that you had to wait years—three to seven years for fruit, five to fifteen years for nuts? If you want a tree to produce, first you have to let it grow. The more the tree has grown and has created strong roots that can sustain it, the more it can produce. The more it can produce, the greater its value.

People are not all that different. The more they grow, the more valuable they are because they can produce more. In fact, it’s said that a tree keeps growing as long as it is living. I would love to live in such a way that the same could be said for me—“he kept growing until the day he died.”

I love this quote from Elbert Hubbard: “If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.” If you look back at past accomplishments, and they don’t look small to you now, then you haven’t grown very much since you completed them. If you look back at a job you did years ago, and you don’t think you could do it better now, then you’re not improving in that area of your life.

If you are not continually growing, then it is probably damaging your leadership ability. Warren Bennis and Bert Nanus, authors of Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, said, “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.” If you’re not moving forward as a learner, then you are moving backward as a leader.

THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE GREATER YOUR POTENTIAL FOR TOMORROW

Who are the hardest people to teach? The people who have never tried to learn. Getting them to accept a new idea is like trying to transplant a tomato plant into concrete. Even if you could get it to go into the ground, you know it isn’t going to survive anyway. The more you learn and grow, the greater your capacity to keep learning. And that makes your potential greater and your value for tomorrow higher.

Indian reformer Mahatma Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” That is how great our potential is. All we have to do is keep fighting to learn more, grow more, become more.

If you want to influence the people who are ahead of you in the organization—and keep influencing them—then you need to keep getting better. An investment in your growth is an investment in your ability, your adaptability, and your pro-motability. No matter how much it costs you to keep growing and learning, the cost of doing nothing is greater.

HOW TO BECOME BETTER TOMORROW

Benjamin Franklin said, “By improving yourself, the world is made better. Be not afraid of growing too slowly. Be afraid only of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you.” So how do you become better tomorrow? By becoming better today. The secret of your success can be found in your daily agenda. Here is what I suggest you do to keep growing and becoming a better person and leader:

• Learn Your Craft Today

You have heard of the saying that says, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today.” There is no time like the present to become an expert at your craft. Maybe you wish you had started earlier. Or maybe you wish you had found a better teacher or mentor years ago. None of that matters. Looking back and lamenting will not help you move forward.

You may not be where you’re supposed to be. You may not be what you want to be. You don’t have to be what you used to be. And you don’t have to ever arrive. You just need to learn to be the best you can be right now. As Napoleon Hill said, “You can’t change where you started, but you can change the direction you are going. It’s not what you are going to do, but it’s what you are doing now that counts.”

• Talk Your Craft Today

Once you reach a degree of proficiency in your craft, then one of the best things you can do for yourself is talk your craft with others on the same and higher levels than you. Many people do this naturally. Guitarists talk about guitars. Parents talk about raising children. Golfers talk about golf. They do so because it’s enjoyable, it fuels their passion, it teaches them new skills and insights, and it prepares them to take action.

Talking to peers is wonderful, but if you don’t also make an effort to strategically talk your craft with those ahead of you in experience and skill, then you’re really missing learning opportunities. In the corporate world, the most successful C.E.Os and Managing Directors meet regularly with retired multimillionaires so that they can learn from them.

I study good leaders by reading their books, studying their lessons, listening to their speeches, or whatever else I need to do. My goal is to learn enough about them and their “sweet spot”. If I do that, then I can learn from their strengths. But that’s not my ultimate goal. My goal is to learn what I can transfer from their strength zones to mine. That’s where my growth will come from—not from what they’re doing. I have to apply what I learn to my situation.

I also enjoy striking conversations and talking about leadership with good leaders all the time. The secret to a great conversation is listening. It is the bridge between learning about them and learning about you. And that’s your objective.

• Practice Your Craft Today

William Osler, the physician who wrote The Principles and Practice of Medicine in 1892, once told a group of medical students:

Banish the future. Live only for the hour and its allotted work. Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day; for surely our plain duty is, as Carlyle says, “Not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

The only way to improve is to practice your craft until you know it inside and out. At first, you do what you know to do. The more you practice your craft, the more you know. But as you do more, you will also discover more about what you ought to do differently. At that point you have a decision to make: Will you do what you have always done, or will you try to do more of what you think you should do? The only way you improve is to get out of your comfort zone and try new things.

People often ask, “How can I grow my business?” or, “How can I make my department better?” The answer is for you personally to grow. The only way to grow your organization is to grow the leaders who run it. By making yourself better, you make others better. Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. And the time to start is today.

Thank you for finding time to read this article, and I hope it will help you grow in your career. In our next article we shall look on, how to maintain a teachable attitude as you continue to grow. Stay tuned!