Taking Oprah Winfrey as an inspiration, she found every possibility to chase success even though she had to ‘keep her nose to grindstone’. It is staggering to see how she scrapped through challenges with all her efforts and dedication and she is where she is today. Are you game to be the next Oprah Winfrey? or maybe someone like her?
Picking up inspiration is a great way to kick start your aim on being a successful woman at workplace. Before you even step on to understanding the strategies of how to do it, ask yourself if you have the will, belief and an optimistic approach to take everything that’s served to you. Do you first need to understand what is your definition to success?
This article aims at giving you inputs on how to be a successful woman at your workplace. Take a look at some of the tips and be that successful woman you always wished to be.
Read: How to Step on to More Responsibility at Work
Tips on How To Be A Successful Woman At Your Workplace
Tip No 1 – A Plan Is Just A Wish Without A Goal – Set A Goal!
Your thought of wanting to be successful is just perfect, without this thought you wouldn’t have been able to get here. Take another step forward, reflect on what do you define success as an accordingly set your goal. A goal will give you a focused direction to begin.
Talking of setting a goal, register this in your mind that you should set a SMART goal. In short, it should be specific, measurable, attainable., realistic and a time-based goal. This is how you will begin.
How would you set a goal? For instance, if your goal is to become a team leader the next year you would need to have a strategy about how to set the goal. Talking of SMART Goals. Here is an example of how you would do that. Take a look at the points below
- Ask yourself if you are sure of the goal – Do I really want to be a team leader or do I look forward to another role? – Specific
- Think of how is the goal going to be useful to you – Is being a team leader going to help me learn and earn better? – Measurable
- Taking all parameters into consideration, understand if your goal is realistic or not – Am I ready to be a team leader now or do I still have to improve to get there? – Realistic
- Think of how much time do you want to take to achieve your goal – I want to be a team leader in the next two years – Time – based
Tip No 2 – Make It Happen – Build A Plan!
When a series of thoughts are put together to set a goal it does not come to a stand still right there. You need to put your goal into action by building your plan. How would you build your plan? Taking the same goal as an instance, as your goal is to be a team leader, how do you plan to be one?
- What are the requisites to be a team leader? Do you have those skills? Work on those skills if you do not possess them as of now
- Take help from your existing leaders by asking for their guidance
- Prepare yourself for the interviews
- Do a thorough research on how leaders manage their team, delegate work and how much knowledge do they first gain before leading a team
- Analyse possible expectations the interviewer would have from you
Having looked at the points above you must have got a vague idea about how to work on a plan and make it happen. Start planning if you really want to get to your destination.
Tip No 3 – “Know That You Will Do It” Be Confident!
If you want success you need to be confident. Confidence is not an inborn quality that’s in a person by default, you constantly work on it each day by facing all your doubts and fears. When you learn to ignore doubts and swallow your fear, you get brave and end up becoming a confident person. This is exactly what you need to be a successful woman at the workplace.
Quick tips on building confidence
- Think positive for yourself
- Trust in yourself
- Appreciate your strengths
- Workaround your flaws
- Build on your self-esteem
- Start to communicate as much as you can
Barricade negative thoughts such as am I capable? Am I good enough? Will I ever succeed? Stop right here! Be confident! Do a pep talk with your inner-self and be confident that you will learn from every challenge.
Tip No 4 – Do Not Run Away From Fear! Face It! Risk The Risk!
If you want to be successful you need to be open to taking risks. Only when you take risks you would be able to face your fear.
While it is common for most of us to doubt our potential although we know for a fact that we would do well if we take the courage to push ourselves a little more.
Even if you are afraid of taking the first step, just go for it, that is the only way to face fear. At most what would happen? You would either succeed quick or it would take you time to succeed. Failing ten times would help you rise once.
Ways To Face Your Fear
- Do not underestimate yourself
- Be aware of the risks involved
- Turn your fear into being open to face challenges
You will conquer your fears someday, keep up the spirit and keep going!
Read: 11 Realistic Ways To Beat Stress At Work – Get On The D-Stress Mode!
Tip No 5 – Running After Perfection Might Impede Improvement
When you aim at being a successful woman, trial and errors would happen and if you push too much to be perfect in the start you could miss on chances of improving.
That said, you learn only when you make mistakes and you improve only when you correct your mistakes. Nothing like attaining perfection after going through several phases of improvement. Do not let your quest for perfection dominate your journey for improvement.
Managing to improve yourself can be tedious because you have several things to take care of back at home as well as at work. Therefore, take small steps to improve yourself.
Ways To Improve Yourself
- Keep away distractions
- Do not rush into multitasking
- Let failure be your motivation to improve
- Do not procrastinate
- Keep yourself updated with knowledge
- Check how you are progressing
- Work on the loopholes that you come across
Do not get worked up if you are not attaining perfection, you are not meant to be a perfectionist always. Take it easy to concentrate on improving yourself.
Tip No 6 – Learn To Prioritize Work
Prioritizing between what is less important and most important is alone in your control. That said, learn how to manage all your tasks. If you give too much time to a task that is not important, it does not serve the purpose. At the end of the day, you are the best judge in identifying what requires your attention the most.
How to prioritize work?
- Make a list of all the tasks you need to do
- Attend to the task that needs your immediate attention
- Complete what is easy first
- Check on what you need to eliminate from the tasks
Effectively learning how to prioritize your work is always a way of determining your success. Say suppose you have been given the task to plan a lunch party with your team.
You would need to learn how to prioritize things, you would first check for what is your company’s budget and then choose a place that is within the same budget, is it not? Or would you choose a place and then adjust the budget? You understand the importance of prioritizing tasks?
Tip No 7 – Distract The Distraction! Focus On Your Goal!
Distracting your distraction is possible only when you concentrate on your goal. Having 100 percent focus 24/7 is slightly difficult. There would be instances when you would be totally distracted, when that happens, you are just supposed to get back.
You can drive out distractions if you truly want to be successful at the workplace. Take a look at few of the effective ways to keep away distractions at work
- Leave your home stress at home and let your office stress remain in office
- Do not get carried away by your phone when you are busy working
- While you are learning or focusing on an important task just imagine that it’s just you and the task that exists and no one else does
- Do not get carried away with workplace politics
- If you feel the need to take a break, just go for it
- Manage time correctly
- Do not think of the past while you are working hard in the present
Once you have control over how to handle distractions, one of the blocks that is stopping you from being successful gets off your way.
Tip No 8 – Look For A Role Model – Be The Change!
When you want to make your identity in professional or personal life, role models come into the picture. Hard work alone is not enough to be successful, you need to look up to someone who can motivate you to transform.
The reason we form a role model is that we end up liking their personality or actions and it persuades us to apply the same in our life as well. It is just as good as making the best of a secret mantra to climb the ladder to success as it influences our growth and success.
What would you gain from being influenced by a role model?
- A Positive outlook
- Strength to withstand obstacles
- Learning from all the mistakes
- You become a completely new person
Think of who fits in best to be your role model and remake yourself to one day become a successful woman at your workplace.
Read: How to write a Career Development Plan
Tip No 9 – Build Cordial Relationships At Workplace
It is important to have cordial relationships to be successful because only when you can open up and get along well with everyone without being biased, you would get to know, share, experience, inspire and get inspired better.
If you do not maintain a good relationship with your colleagues you would never be able to learn and grow. If you do not want to be stagnant, make sure to mingle with everyone. You should as well be wise and be sensible about what to talk and in front of whom to talk. Avoid getting too friendly with anyone and at the same time do not keep too much with anyone.
Ways to Build Cordial Relationships and Become Successful
- Be proactive in delivering more than what is expected out of you
- Look at the positive and speak about the positive more than the negative
- Get involved in a project besides your work and get visibility
- Earn appreciation by performing and proving yourself to your boss
- Ask as many questions as you can
- Interact with your leaders often about how are you progressing, they can give you their valuable inputs
- Participate in other activities apart from work
- Have the attitude of gratitude when someone helps you
- Share knowledge and never step back from learning
Tip No 10 – Don’t Wave At Opportunities That Knock Your Door
If you get an opportunity that is aligned to your goal, just take it up without thinking twice. This means, even if you are not confident about how would you perform to the roles and responsibilities given to you, you must still take it up. Reason being, you never know how one opportunity can shape your future.
There are times when we take opportunities for granted thinking that it is not my cup of tea and we usually forget that there is no harm trying instead of letting go of the opportunity. The more you learn to grab opportunities the quicker you would attain success.
Giving it a shot boosts confidence, you get to assess yourself, you get the visibility you need to be successful and opportunities are always scarce, you cannot get lucky always because they do not come often. Keep your energy levels high and have the zeal to learn out of every opportunity.
For instance, your manager wants someone to volunteer and take responsibility to handle a project, be the first one to go forward and give your name. Your duty was to get enrolled, whether your manager chooses you or not is totally on him. You just need to grab the opportunity that comes your way.
Tip No 11 – Self Care Is The Best Care
There are certain things in life that we cannot do without, it refers to a sound mind and a fit body. Can you imagine having a terrible headache the day you have to prepare for a presentation? Will you be able to focus? On the other hand, if you have had a bad fight with your mom and you left to work being mentally disturbed, will you be able to concentrate at work?
What happens is, your day goes for a toss and so does your time. Understand this point clear that you cannot afford to fall sick or being mentally affected. Take good care of yourself, eat well and have the right food, sleep in time, follow your passion to keep your mind calm. See what works best for you and do that. You will not be able to enjoy success if you are unwell.
In a nutshell, everyone woman wants to be successful at her workplace but it turns out that most of the women give up halfway. It is either because of getting distracted or the fear of failure does not allow those women to reach that tower of success.
To all the women out there! Do not give up if you are halfway through. Fight, work hard, stay focused, keep away distractions and at the end of the day just keep going. If today is not your day to celebrate, that’s because you have a better day that calls for a bigger celebration. You can enjoy the bigger celebration only if you hang in there.
Stay Committed To Your Goal And Touch The Sky!
