Are you proud of your achievements?

Go beyond expectations and start to fill your career history with achievements that matter.

Look at your resume. Which part of it are you most proud of? Is it the section on your career achievements? Do you secretly wish you had a few more achievements listed in your resume?

In any organization, everyone has a role to play, responsibilities to shoulder, tasks to perform and targets to meet. But if you do all that, you are doing what others are doing -- that is, meeting expectations.

If, however, you go beyond the expectations, you enter into the zone of performance called achievements. You create achievements when you go the extra mile. Achievements are those performances that you never forget and always feel proud of.

Achievements are important to you for three reasons:

Scarcity
Scarcity is the very foundation of any economic system. Look around and you will realize that there are always fewer jobs in the market and fewer higher-level positions in an organization than the number of aspirants.

This means that whether it is getting a new job or growing within an organization, you need to stand out in the crowd.

One sure way to move up the pile is to have achievements under your belt. Achievements add the silver lining to your resume. Employers love employees who constantly think, perform and value-add beyond their expectations.

Self-worth
Recall how you felt when you last did something extraordinary. What were those feelings? When you deliberately strive and perform beyond the routine expectations, you enjoy greater self-worth, which is no small matter.

Personal growth
Doing repeatedly what is expected of you is a recipe for capping your own growth as an individual. You will never know the limits of your own potential unless you keep on stretching the limits of what you do.

So how can you create achievements? The process requires a deliberate effort on your part. Here is a roadmap:

• Understand expectations: First, fully understand the expected outcomes. Only when you are clear about what is expected of you in a particular project, task or situation can you think about doing it better.

• Think beyond: Ask yourself in what way you can exceed the expected outcomes. Can you finish the task sooner? Can you do it at a lower cost or with fewer resources? Can you bring some innovations into it? Can you suggest some improvement to the process for the future? Can you simplify it?

• What matters most: As you brainstorm about what to do, you will be flush with ideas. Identify an idea that would matter most to your organization. Sometimes, finishing a task at a lower cost can matter more than doing it faster and vice versa.

Also, start with small achievements instead of trying something revolutionary at the beginning.

• Imagine: Leave aside everything and imagine what it would take to accomplish what you are thinking of doing. Feel the excitement of creating such an achievement. See it written in bold letters in your resume.

• Stretch: Next comes the hard part -- doing it. You may have to put in extra hours at work or face unexpected problems, including resistance from others. Persist with your plan and do it.

• Savor the process: The process is as important as the result. Enjoy the journey of moving towards the intended outcome.

• Celebrate your achievement: After reaching your destination, celebrate your achievement.

Finally, even if your superiors do not recognize your efforts and achievements, don't let the disappointment dampen your spirits. Any achievement is one more nugget to add to your resume. It will pay off in multiple ways, even if you cannot see it now.

Every day that you spend at work, you are actually writing your career history. How will you feel when you look back at your career in, say, five or 10 years from now? Will you feel more proud of your career than you are today? Start doing something about writing your career history today.

Copyright © Atul Mathur, 2004
This article first appeared in The Straits Times on 16 July 2004.

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