Maintaining your Success

What put you over-the-top in your professional career? If you are always seeking to improve your productivity and get ahead at your job, then you will have continued success most certainly.

When certain individuals reach a level of success, they become complacent and become lazy. For example, if you take a professional athlete and they just struck a huge contract with a team, perhaps the following season their production falls off. Why would his or her production fall off when they obviously showed they had the talent to improve? Well, once you finally reach the mountain top there is no place to go but down. The athlete reached the pinnacle of their professional career, therefore, there is no need to seek improvement or even maintain their previous success.

Now, this athlete may not do this intentionally but it is just human nature to slack off when a certain level of success is achieved. This scenario doesn’t happen in every single case where an athlete earned a large contract, but it does happen.

You will need to remain disciplined and continue to set professional goals in your career. Since you reached professional success, you must have failed at one point or another. To continue with the athletic theme, Michael Jordan, who is the greatest basketball whoever lived, was willing to fail in order to achieve an extraordinary amount of success. In a famous commercial that aired some 10 years ago, Jordan stated that he missed thousands of shots. He was willing to take them because he wasn’t afraid to fail – and neither should you be.

Some professionals achieve success and just stop there. Perhaps you’re a co-manager now, but why can’t you be the sole manager some day? Are you afraid to pursue your desires and take that next career step because of the additional responsibilities you must undertake? You must maintain and continue your success by pursuing more goals – Why stop at co-management when you have the potential to ”run the show” by yourself?

It is not a crime to be satisfied with your current professional status. If you love your job, you love your co-workers, and you love your salary then by all means keep your current job and status in the company. If you are content with your current job then continue to perform at a high level and set an example for all those who work under you (watch your back in case they have their eye on your job).

In short, for you to maintain your success you should be willing to:

• Set goals on a regular basis
• Be willing to fail once again
• Continue to perform well at your job (as if your job depended on it)