5 Tips for Career Success — By Ada Onyeri

5 min readJan 30, 2021

Welcome to February! There is a lot of hope and aspiration for 2021 and so many goals have been set. It’s in that light, I will like to share with you my 5 tips for Career Success. You may also find these tips helpful for your personal life, outside the workplace. So, here we go!

Tip 1: On your mark, set…Milestones!

I have realized that what you don’t define, you can’t become or receive. As a baby grows, certain milestones are pre-defined and reviewed to see how healthy the growth is. Similarly, for our Careers, what Milestones have we set that serve as evidence of growth?

If for instance, today was the 31st of December 2021 and we were reflecting on our Career path in the year, what would be those achievements that would make us say to ourselves “ yes I have grown in my role / Function this 2021? It also is important that while setting milestones, you adopt someone as an Accountability Partner to help nudge you on to achieving them, staying focused. Remember the easiest way to not achieve anything is to keep it to yourself!

Tip2: Curiosity — turn up the Volume! Your Toolkit’s Relevance.

The world is changing rapidly, this is not a surprise for anyone who witnessed 2020! The Future of work was fast accelerated by the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. Remote work for example became the regular, not the differentiator in the world of work. Certain role types became redundant as a result of lack of relevance to the current reality.

Assume your skillset today is your toolkit, how RELEVANT is it for the world of work today? Or are you carrying along only skills that probably landed you a job 3 years ago but will not take you further along your Career? It’s a digital world today, what digital skills do you have and what can you do with them? To ensure your skillset stays relevant, you need to turn up your Curiosity volume! Join fora or groups related to (but not limited to) your field.

Follow conversations on platforms such as LinkedIn. Network beyond your Organisation and apply what you discover on the go. Learning Agility is a much sought after competence in today’s workplace.

Tip3: Be THAT Plug!

In Nigeria, there is a current slang word used called PLUG and it loosely means the “Go to person for xxx”. So let’s say whenever I have a need for some good books on Leadership, I call on Ms. Xxx and she quickly provides me a list as well as her reviews, chances are not only will I keep leaning on her for that need, I will most likely be referring others to her.

At the workplace, what are you known for? Whose PLUG are you? This year, determine to be known for something (positive I mean). Can you be known as the go-to for all things PowerPoint presentations or all creative designs? Can you be known as the Plug for information on your Business Competition?

Note you do not need to limit yourself to your job scope. Most often, our passion areas are the best place to start from. So find out what you are passionate about, are you good at it and then create or Plug into the need for it!

Tip 4: Focus on What is in your Control

To live an intentional Successful life, one needs to identify what is within our control and work on same. Focusing on what’s not within our control gives room for excuses and a very unproductive life.

This is very much applicable to the world of work. Reality is that a number of the things impacting our Careers are out of our control: Business strategy and changes to same, Organisational design, Reporting lines, Competition and external environment drivers, etc are all NOT within our control as employees but we often get so fixated over them and lose out eventually.

At my current place of employment, I often ask Colleagues after the yearly Business strategy cascadeTownhall, what they got from it? Besides listing out what was said, I am keen to see how they process what was communicated and what they can directly control.

In 2020 the world faced a global pandemic, while many people lamented what the governments were not doing, others focused on what they could make of the situation given current realities to stay alive!

At the workplace, we may not like the Organisational Changes announced, but how are we ensuring we remain relevant to the Business by focusing on what is in Our control, for example, our Performance using our toolbox/ skillset as I highlighted in an earlier tip.

As long as the decision for the Organisation Change is not yours, you need to save your energy for what you are empowered to do. Similarly for reporting to a Manager you may not like or who you deem not ‘qualified’ to be your Manager, what’s in your control is excellent delivery of your role deliverables and raising visibility to your key Stakeholders.

Make a commitment this year to stay really focused on what matters that YOU can control and do it!

Tip 5: Pause & Reflect

After all said and done, we need to be reminded that life is like running on a threadmill.

The days fly away so fast! To ensure we are still on track for our Career Success, I recommend we schedule regular timeout for what I call “pause & reflect” purpose. This can be an hour every month, 3 hours every quarter, etc to assess how much you have stayed on course, where have you deviated, and why?

Also, review what learnings you have had along the journey and where have/will you apply those learnings. As a popular phrase goes, if you keep doing the same thing, you get the same result. So dedicating time to reflect on our Journeys ensures we are not off course.

As with all tips, the magic only comes alive with practice. So as I wish you a very successful life/ Career in this year 2021, I encourage you to get in the Driver’s seat and OWN it!

Cheers

___________________________________________________________________

Ada Onyeri, SHRM-SCP, PHR is the Head of Talent Attraction and Acquisition, Europe & Africa Region at A.P. Moller — Maersk

____

Careerfort Africa is a one-stop platform that helps Early Career Professionals become effective at work. We help fresh graduates move from school to the Work Environment with Ease