The 7P's of Career Success

We've all heard of the 7 P's of planning - Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents P$#% Poor Performance. Well, these are the 7 P's of career development:

1. Purpose - what is your purpose in life? Know yourself, be yourself and value yourself. And most importantly, invest in yourself and lever off your personal strengths to launch into your career.

A career built off your strengths will develop more rapidly than a career that demands you use your weaknesses. You can still improve on your weaknesses, but use your strengths as a catalyst for success!

2. Passion - what is your passion? Find it and live it. And passion isn't power, possessions or prestige, it's about 'being' and 'doing'. And if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life - but you'll still be rewarded with a successful career and an enviable life.

You want to be able to say, "Take this job and love it!"

3. Perspective - it's all about attitude. As Zig Ziglar puts it, "It's your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.

The brain is an amazing thing and you can 'trick' it into making you succeed just by the power of positive thinking. Many successful people swear by the use of positive affirmations or self-hypnosis as a way of training your brain for success.

You have probably heard of the placebo effect - an example of this is when a doctor gives a patient sugar pills, but tells them it's a cure for their ailment. And what do you know, the patient gets better! And no, sugar isn't the cure-all solution for all ailments - this is an example of how your brain can take control of your body just by the power of positive thinking. If your brain expects something to happen, it happens.

So if you want to be successful, expect success - and it will come.

4. Planning - of course, nothing comes if you don't prepare a plan. Afterall, the end result of any goal setting process is a step-by-step plan of how you are going to achieve your goal. It's the same for career development goals.

And include goals that will stretch you and get you out of that comfort zone, as well as the nice easy to achieve goals that keep you heading in the right direction and give you those little wins along the way.

But it is the 'stretch' goals that will make the difference between a good career and an outstanding career. Take risks and don't be afraid to try something new.

5. Performance - you need to perform. You need to be the best you can be, by keeping yourself skilled-up with appropriate training and delivering on your commitments.

Thrive on performance reviews and project specific feedback and use this information to leap-frog your career, by levering off your strengths and identifying relevant weaknesses that need work.

6. Perseverance and Persistence - many of the world's inspirational success stories are examples of perseverance in the face of adversity. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds in modern times, was told by is school teacher that he'd never amount to anything. Read the tab on Successful People for other tales of triumph through persistence.

Don't give up, just because the road ahead of you isn't well lit or is taking you into unfamiliar territory. Take the detours around those roadblocks if they still keep you heading in the right direction, but also know when you've taken a wrong turn and don't be afraid to ask for directions.

7. Priorities - careers can be made or lost depending on how you prioritise your work tasks as well as your career development tasks. Avoid tasks that are just not important to do, and prioritise tasks that are important first.

For more information, check out www.achieve-goal-setting-success.com - this site gives you all the FREE tools and advice for achieving your own personal success through goal setting. There's even a tutorial style workbook to guide you through the surprisingly simple process of goal setting.