• Home
• »
• Career Couch

• Home
• Executive Jobs
• Features
  • Focus
  • Career Couch
  • Radar
  • Water Cooler
  • Insight
  • Podcasts
• Place an executive ad

Race to the top

The right attitude can put you on the fast track to success.

Recently I wrote about my Beyond Personal Mastery approach to personal and career development. This approach is based on seven action steps and seven mind steps.

The action steps we covered were inspiration, patterning, emulating, combining, adding, strategising and doing. (Read the story here)

The seven mind steps that complement and support the action steps are optimism, openness, self-efficacy, vision, playfulness, flexibility and persistence.

1. Optimism: Simply put, if you do not believe that some things can get better, you will have no reason to try wholeheartedly (unless you are lucky enough to have a mentor swinging a large croquet mallet in your direction). The idea of "positive psychology" has been around at least since the 1950s and we are in the grip of it once more but don't let that put you off. Aside from some of the overblown claims and simplicities, learning how to re-frame your thinking into a positive cast of mind is a useful skill.
   
   
2. Openness: The curse of clever people is they too readily analyse new information and categorise it (that is, dismiss it) into their existing schemas and frameworks. In this way they can be blind to nuances and nuggets that can change their lives. The curse of stupid people is that they don't bother analysing new information in the first place. The result in both cases is a kind of content and complacent maintenance of the status quo. The result is no movement, no change and no hope. Note, this is not an invitation to fall for asinine schemes and behaviour. As Harold T. Stone said: "I try to keep an open mind but not so open that my brains fall out."
   
   
3. Self-efficacy: This is a concept pioneered by psychologist Albert Bandura and relates to one's belief that you can do something or achieve something. People who believe they can successfully complete a training course or diet are more likely to do so than those without this self-belief. Self-efficacy is not just about positive self-talk (though this can help) but also about engaging in the action steps set out last week, to provide the proof to yourself that you really can do it. This is why the emulating action step is so important. Once you master a task you can go beyond mastery of it.
   
   
4. Vision: Vision has received bad press because it has been overused and devalued in numerous vision statements ("We love to pursue everything with relentless honesty and integrity," from ABC Learning's website). However, vision is creating something akin to a mental movie in which you can see yourself doing whatever it is you seek. Can you see yourself acting and interacting with the other people in this desired domain? Do you feel comfortable? Are you succeeding? The other point to make is I am not advocating some form of visual goal-setting. The purpose of envisaging is to create some active engagement that may lead to other opportunities as you act.
   
   
5. Playfulness and risk: Children will often test their toys to destruction, or use them in "inappropriate" ways. It means coming to an idea without preconceptions to see it for what it is. It is a bit like throwing away the instruction manual. The Zen Buddhist term for this concept is Shoshin.
   
   
6. Flexibility: This is perhaps best summed up by Groucho Marx's quote: "These are my principles and if you don't like them, don't worry, I've got others!" It means most diamonds have flaws as well as brilliance and it depends on how you hold them up to the light as to what you will see.
   
   
7. Persistence: I'll bet the most important things you've done in your life involved a degree of risk that met with resistance from some quarters. It is amazing how many people fail simply because they lose the courage of their convictions. It's therefore important to recognise that giving in is ultimately your choice and yours alone.

Jim Bright, Jim Bright is professor of career education and development at ACU National and a partner at Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy. Email ladder@brightandassociates.com.au .