A Year Without Fear: Stay Above the Fray and Win the Day!

If you want to seize the day and capitalize on your window of opportunity to move up in your career you have to be fully prepared to jump at the chance. Opportunity doesn’t linger; it knocks and then moves along to the next person’s door. These are scary times. People all around you are being downsized, passed over, or saddled with more work but compensated with less pay.

But the biggest mistake that you can make, experts tell us, is to succumb to inertia. Humans tend to either freeze like a deer in the headlights when faced with uncomfortable situations or to push through their apprehension and discover new courage, greater capability, and untapped confidence. Adversity invites advancement, so use this year to develop new skills, grow your professional network, upgrade your brand, and exhibit your performance as a leader who knows how to adapt and succeed in tough circumstances.

The choice is yours to say “No!” to forces that have the negative potential to dilute your power and handicap your career. Rise above the workplace fray and negativity. There are specific, tangible things you can do – behaviors you can model and attitudes you can project – to be that positive change agent every organization wants to hire and promote.

Be the encouraging person in the office, on the team, or behind the podium, for example, and watch as that influence becomes contagious and helps to inspire performance and raise morale. Ignore the gossip but do not hesitate to create or repeat praise of others. Focus on the task at hand and the quantifiable outcomes that you can control – rather than speculating with gloom and doom about things that are not within your control.

We can let circumstances dictate to us, or we can exert our personal power to influence those circumstances and leverage them to our own benefit. Doing nothing means that others take over and manage your career destiny for you – and none of us wants to let that happen. But being positive and proactive in the face of challenges separates you from the herd and distinguishes you as the natural leader on your team and within your organization.