How to Take Control of Your Success

The difference between employees who move up the corporate ladder and the ones that don't is initiative.

In addition, those with professional success are dedicated to finding the opportunity to learn new things constantly, while others are content with the status quo. Some are scrambling to address problems and turn them into opportunities, others shirk a challenge. Some see ideas and plans to implement them while others prefer to be told what to do.

The result is that some progress quickly, while others seem to get stuck and move very slowly or don't move up at all.

Today, more effective employees take control of their own life and career, and make plans to learn and develop professionally in their work environment. They decide where to go, and plan to get there. Instead of dreaming about their plans they take the initiative to take action.

Successful people release an extraordinary force that shoots forward in their career and their life, because they constantly open a whole new world of options.

Life is nothing but a series of choices. Every choice that you make gets you closer to achieving your goals or farther away from them. You can choose to take control of your desires or let life and circumstances take your desires away from you, regardless you are responsible.

By taking the lead, you assume the leadership of your existence and you can bet that it will be prosperous if you take charge of your career.

How many times have you dreamed of learning a new skill and apply it in your organization or to become an entrepreneur who starts a new product or service in your company, or to move to another department, division or country? Can you admit it? Most of us want progress in our career, we seek to be appreciated and rewarded for our ideas, skills and contributions.

Whether you aspire to move up the hierarchy of your current organization, or switch to another one, you can take your current career and find more rewarding and satisfying things to do with it. The key is to take responsibility for your own career, rather than waiting until someone else takes it from you.

Remember the old Sioux proverb: If you do not know where you are going, any road will serve. In other words, a life without goals is a life without direction, a life that doesn't demand any effort to get anywhere in life or in business. However, to reach success we must first know where we want to go. Once we choose, we can plan how to get there.

On the other hand, setting goals will also give you power. For example, in 1953 there was an investigation among those who were graduating from the University of Yale, and it was concluded that only three percent of the graduates had a habit of setting goals in writing.

When the researchers returned in 1973 to see how things had gone with the graduates from 1953, they saw that the three percent that set written goals had amassed a fortune in comparison to the other 97% of the graduates. This example showcases the power that comes with setting goals.

In Gary Joseph Grappa's book The Top 10 Career Strategies, he gives a blueprint for success that can be very useful for anyone that wants to have the right guidelines to achieve success: Update your attitude, research which industries will grow in the future, develop the right skills that will be needed, learn how to sell yourself like a company learns how to sell its product, assemble a network or chain of contacts, change jobs frequently and act as an independent contractor.