Rob Yeung - The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests & Exercises To Assess Your Skills & Potential!

First published in Great Britain by Kogan Page Limited in 2003

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

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Copyright Rob Yeung, 2003

The right of Rob Yeung to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn www.biddles.co.uk

To my parents for creating me - in all senses of the word. To my editor, Jon Finch, for giving me the opportunity to stretch my wings with Kogan Page. To my colleagues at Kiddy and Partners for keeping me grounded with their humour and supporting me in my writing endeavours alongside my consulting work. Special thanks to Brian Baxter for reading the draft and making constructive suggestions. And to Steve Cuthbertson for bringing me Swiss chocolates to fuel late night writing sessions.

There is no magic formula to achieving a better career, I am afraid. You cannot simply wave a magic wand and hope to have a more successful and satisfying career in a few easy steps. You cannot simply read the book from start to finish and expect your new life to appear. In fact, any book that claims instant results is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. It is going to take hard work.

I would recommend strongly that you do not read this book all in one go. There are many exercises and questionnaires for you to complete, contemplate, and come back to. You may read a section, go have a coffee, start an exercise and leave it for a week before finishing it. You might then need to take a few days to talk the implications over with colleagues, friends or other confidantes. Advice that is written in a book can never provide you with all of the answers, especially when it concerns something as momentous as your work and life. This book is only meant to stimulate your thinking and give you a handful of ideas: but you need to invest the time, thought and energy to reflect on how those ideas could help you in achieving your personal career goals.

But this book is not just about analysis and logical thinking to determine what you should be doing in the future. Your feelings and intuition have an important part to play in helping you to get the most out of this book. There are quizzes and exercises in here that are designed to make you think, but they are not aimed at pushing you in one career direction over another. The ultimate test of whether a career decision is right for you is whether you feel that it is the right thing for you. For some people then, the hard work comes in using their intuition and tapping into their feelings as much as using logic and planning.

The hard work does not stop there. You may need to challenge beliefs and assumptions you hold about yourself or have to face uncomfortable truths. You may have to address interpersonal issues at work, training or retraining may be necessary, and maybe you will need to spend evenings and weekends studying. And it is certain to take months rather than days or weeks to see any real improvement in the quality of your working life. However, if you stick with it, this book will put you on the right course to having a more enjoyable and profitable career.