Whenever you want to advance in your career, what are the things you consider doing? Perhaps you want to learn a new skill, build a strong network or maybe engage in a side gig.
There are numerous options to get ahead at work. Expanding your knowledge and building new networks can help you to extend when you need to get a promotion or be more marketable for your prospects.
Just as your plan for advancement comprises of things you need to build and grow, there are a few things to consider that you must let go. You always think that a lack of something must be the cause that is holding you back. But most of the times it is the refusal of letting go something that has become irrelevant and outdated that suppress us from achieving things.
Here is a list of things you should let go to bring some space in your career for new skills and relationships over things you do not need anymore.
Unhelpful Mentor
There are some people who help you professionally. There are many top performers who take help from coaches and mentors for making a decision in complicated situations or key changes.
But relationships evolve over the time, it is quite possible for someone to be highly influential and beneficial at one point and later become problematic.
You progress in your career and the person you looked up as a mentor once may turn competitive. Or maybe the person is still caught up in an outdated mindset while you, your company and the industry moves on. No matter what the reason is, once you notice that you have outgrown your mentor it is wise to let go of that relationship.
It is not about cutting ties with the person completely or ending a friendship. It is about not depending upon that person as your career guru from here on.
Irrelevant Goal
You know the importance of each goal as you have grown from where you started. It is the reason why you and what you work towards rigorously. Yet being flexible in order to achieve those goals may cause trouble in some situations.
There can be a change in leadership, a new opportunity, a transfer or any kind of other unpredicted events that can affect the possibility of achieving a goal.
For instance, if your goal is to increase the revenue of a product line but your manager tells you that they want you to increase the revenue of a different product line then you cannot do both. You have to streamline your goals to match with the goals of the company or you might end up in a conflict.
Obviously, you should not let go of your goals every time you feel stressed about it but evaluating your goals regularly can help you understand which ones are still significant and which are not.
Outdated Approach
An organization should not be stuck with a, “we have always done it that way” kind of mindset. Nor should your work pattern. You need to find ways to have a new and effective approach towards completing tasks better with time.
Reflect yourself, are you stuck with a routine, a practice or a software system because you have grown too familiar with it. The moment you start feeling scared of changing with something you are so familiar with is the time you should realize you have turned to, “we have always done it that way” approach.
It surely is an advantage to know a particular thing in and out. You work quick and confidently with a process or technology making things easy for you. But does it make things too easy? To a point, you are trapped in the system and it becomes dangerous to accept change.
Commit yourself to explore at least one new thing each year in your industry to help you avoid getting too attached to a system or practice that are growing up to be outdated.
Technology
It has always been a debate about how much of your productivity you lose over perpetually scrolling on Facebook. You do not want to give up on the app completely but it is about how much time you spend on these social networking apps or sites.
Before your manager takes note of your distractions compel yourself to use less of these technologies. At the same time, you will witness a greater rate of productivity.
It just doesn’t stop at that. It is not just the social networking technology that you need to ditch. But also the use of texts and emails over face to face conversations that you need to ditch. Have you ever thought back to an interaction you had with a colleague or friend which was so profoundly impactful? Do you think a text or an email could make that kind of impact?
Perhaps you want to make a convincing argument, conduct a difficult discussion, offer assistance or apologize. Technology can help you but cannot become the mode of communication. Make an effort to move up from your desk and engage with people in person.
