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"Unlocking Your Potential: 15 Practices for Career Success"

  • Writer: Rishika Sharma
    Rishika Sharma
  • Mar 3, 2024
  • 4 min read

You don't have to spend years or bag multiple accolades to make a place for yourself at your organisation. Practices that you take up on a regular basis will ensure you keep growing. I am sharing my own list of habit-shifts, behaviour towards your boss/colleague and a few actions that you can take to be recognised and remembered. If you aren't doing these, you might be putting your career and current job at jeopardy.




  1. Never underestimate what you bring to the table. If you weren’t deserving enough, you wouldn’t have been in the organisation. Now that you are in, focus on how you can make your time worthwhile and your contributions stand out.

  2. Never doubt yourself or your opinions. You won’t be invited to a discussion if you didn’t have a voice of your own and had to agree with people in the room.

  3. Don’t hesitate to get involved in healthy discussions/discourse/arguments.

  4. Don’t buy or swallow down what people throw at you. Have the courage to question, the will to research and the attitude to challenge facts. This is to ensure you don't get influenced into adopting practices that do not favour you in the future.

  5. Always accept work criticism, it helps you grow. The best advice is to not take anything personally.

  6. Define your boundaries and flag things that you consider as crossing your boundaries. Example - Your colleague/senior/manager gets personal while commenting on your work, let them know politely that they are going out of line and you would not tolerate any snide comments. Example - "Hey, I am open to hearing what you have to say about this task, however, I would really appreciate if you can keep the personal remarks out of the conversation."

  7. Set goals to achieve and discuss them with your manager. Showcase results in the defined timeline and seek help for your next goal.

  8. If your success/contribution is not being measured, ask your manager to build a foundation to be able to do that. If they don’t act upon it, raise it with other teams and seniors.

  9. Do not rely on the system to gather your achievements. Stack them yourself and keep them handy for your next appraisal meeting. Also do not hesitate talking about them. The subtle skill of sliding in your achievements in casual conversations might take you a long way.

  10. Ask your manager about your trajectory of growth in the company. If they refuse to answer or if they are repeatedly being evasive, set up a 1:1 with them and clearly communicate. Example - “I have been working diligently and accomplishing my tasks on a regular basis and I’d really like to know what opportunities I can expect my way. Is there a direction that you could show me that motivates me to continue working hard. I am under the assumption that you are uncomfortable answering this and I’m afraid without this I won’t be able to continue working in a harmonious manner."

  11. If your manager is skipping 1:1s and isn’t giving you any feedback(good or bad), hold them accountable for their actions. Be upfront and tell them that their involvement as a manager needs more time and dedication and you feel they can work together towards a better collaboration.

  12. Be an excellent documenter. Create documents of your own SOPs, your first week, working with you doc etc. Document your meetings with your juniors, seniors, mentors. Jot down MOMs and keep a record of every meeting you have had. These help you in building solid credibility and accountability within your organisation.

  13. Communication is the key in the post-covid work era, wherein we have teams working from the office, remotely, across different cities or countries. Over communicate with your team and your manager. Examples are : Updating them about what you are working on, asking for their help/thoughts on a subject, highlighting roadblocks you are facing, sharing your achievements etc.

  14. Ask for help - You are spending an entire day trying to figure things out while the girl next to you has done it already. Well, you lost a few hours and an opportunity for a connection. I am not promoting quick hacks and being lazy. Of course the first thing I'd recommend is to make an attempt which allows you to tell the other person, "Hey, I did x and found y, would you help me with how can I get Z done?" So do not be afraid to approach and ask for help.

  15. Be disciplined - Yes, work for most of us are flexible these days. Your workplace claims they don't care much about how you get things done, whether you come to office or work from home, whether you are late or early unless you are making progress. But there is always someone who is watching what you are up to. Besides, being disciplined has it's own old school charm of making you stand out from the crowd.



If you have tried it all : setting up 1:1s, talking about your growth, opportunities, highlighting roadblocks, but you have still been struggling to make any progress with your bosses, management or your growth. It's time to change your job.



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