What are the common elements in creating a successful and fulfilling career?
This question is at the heart of my work with professional musicians and arts leaders, as well as creative business professionals—in short, anyone who is committed to incorporating her passions into her work.
Here are the 6 steps to creating a career that is not only fulfilling but also more likely to be successful:
1. Embrace Happiness
The start of finding a fulfilling career is to embrace the notion that happiness. Research from psychology and neuroscience confirms that being happy and having positive emotions enable you to cultivate the mindset and behaviors that give rise to greater success and fulfillment. In other words, success flows from happiness.
2. Cultivate a Positive Attitude
Career success also flows from having the right mindset that starts with cultivating a positive attitude. Positivity stems from trusting your unique and authentic voice and vision. The mindset of positivity means that you inspire yourself from this place of inner trust, which enables you to radiate confidence and generate the kind of positive energy that attracts other people to your cause.
3. Tap into your Passions
Another important aspect of career success comes from tapping into your passions. If you do what you love, you are more motivated to make great work happen.
4. Honor your Values
Values are the principles that run your life that define who you are and what is truly important to you. Living your values is key to achieving career success because the more you shape your life in alignment with your values, the better your quality of life and the more motivated you will be to pursue your goals.
5. Play to your Strengths
Yet another precept of creating career success is to play to your strengths, rather than compensating for weaknesses. Not only does is it easier to play to your strengths but the more you develop your natural talents, the stronger they become. And, the more you use your strengths, the more likely you are to achieve your career goals.
6. Set a Career Intention
Once you have identified your passions, values and strengths, it’s time to set an intention for your career.
Setting an intention allows you to visualize your dream and describe yourself doing what it is that you long to do. To do so, select a period of time down the road and state what you are dong in that future time:
In _____year, I am doing____________________________________.
If you are able to visualize what it is that you want to do and capture that thought in writing, you are likely to seize the opportunities that will make that dream a reality.
To hear more about these 6 steps, I invite you to watch a webinar that I recently did for the New York Bar Association Committee on Lawyers in Transition: Finding Happiness and Passion in the Law: The Keys to Creating Career Success
Here’s to your career success!
© Astrid Baumgardner 2014
