Donna Dunning - 10 Career Essentials: Excel at Your Career by Using Your Personality Type

10
Career Essentials

E XCEL AT Y OUR C AREER
B Y U SING Y OUR P ERSONALITY T YPE

D ONNA D UNNING

First published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 2010.

www.nicholasbrealey.com

2010 by Donna Dunning

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and MBTI are trademarks or registered trademarks of the
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-85788-542-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dunning, Donna, 1955

10 career essentials : Excel at your career by using your personality type Donna Dunning.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-85788-542-2

1. Career development. 2. Personality and occupation. I. Title. II. Title: Ten career essentials.

HF5381.D86 2010

650.1dc22

2010008493

Work is a central part of our lives, with an enormous influence on our lifestyle and personal satisfaction. If you work full time for 40 years, you will spend more than 80,000 hours on the job. Since it consumes a significant part of your life, your career should be interesting, motivating, and rewarding.

There are books that teach you how to paint with watercolors, bake gourmet food, or fix a bicycle, but few that show you how to build career success. Thats where this book comes in.

In the following chapters, you will learn the ten essential career success strategies. Each chapter describes one of these essential strategies and provides self-assessment tools, questions, and tips to stimulate your understanding. Mastering the essentials is key to your career success.

Career success means something different to everyone. It occurs when your career direction aligns with who you are and what is important to you. To build a successful career, you need to determine what success looks like for you. After you define success, you can set and meet your personal career and life goals. When you master this success strategy, you channel your efforts in the right direction to ensure that your career brings you personal and professional satisfaction.

People quickly judge you based on what you do and say and how you look, walk, and talk. When you take care of yourself, manage stress, and demonstrate a positive attitude and confidence, people enjoy interacting with you and value your contribution. Optimizing your outlook improves both your health and your career success. When you have a positive attitude and believe in and take care of yourself, you can reach your goals more easily.

When you put yourself in charge of your career, you take ownership of your mistakes and accomplishments. You stand behind what you say and do. When you take responsibility for your words and actions, you link your efforts to success and learn from your mistakes. Others count on you and see you as determined, dependable, reliable, and dedicated, all qualities much needed and rewarded in the workforce.

Everyone can teach you something. To be successful, you need to pay attention to what others have to say. You benefit when you listen carefully, gain a clear understanding of others expectations, and respond positively to feedback. When you strive to learn from anyone, you begin to embrace multiple perspectives, benefit from corrective feedback, and develop rapport. If you are open to, and eager to learn from, others, many opportunities will come your way.

Your career success depends on your ability to express yourself clearly, directly, and diplomatically. When you share your perspectives and provide information and constructive feedback, you leave little room for miscommunication or misunderstanding. When you relate to everyone, you resolve conflicts and problems so that everyone benefits. You accomplish your goals by working cooperatively. Mastering this career success strategy provides you with a network of contacts willing to support your career development.

Our information- and Internet-focused age offers a wealth of facts and ideas. When you cultivate your curiosity, you manage the large amounts of information available and become a lifelong learner. You are interested, up-to-date, knowledgeable, and aware. You use what you learn to help you work more effectively. You understand your learning style and use learning strategies to retain important information. Others are confident in your ability to learn new skills and apply new information, and they will think of you when opportunities or challenges arise.

To be successful at work, you need to hone and direct your thinking to deal with the situation at hand. When you disentangle your thoughts, you can consider and then select the right approach, strategies, and tools for making decisions and tackling tasks and problems. You make well-thought-out decisions and solve problems effectively. Others see you as resourceful and strategic. You use a flexible combination of thinking modes: practical, creative, global, logical, and humanistic.

Others need to know they can count on you to achieve exceptional results. To exceed expectations, you must prioritize, plan, organize your time and activities, and persist. When you work to a high standard and continuously look for ways to improve your work, people see you as results oriented, productive, persistent, efficient, and effective. When you show pride in your work and take initiative, others know you will do a good job, and they feel confident offering you new and important tasks and projects.

Those who are successful in their careers accept that the world is changing rapidly. To thrive in uncertainty, you need to take a heads-up approach to work, observing patterns and trends and anticipating change so you can quickly adjust. When you thrive in uncertainty, you make the most of opportunities by being adaptable and proactive, and you position yourself for success. Others see you as flexible and versatile, and they are confident in your ability to cope with unexpected changes.

To create your success, you need to let others know your goals and aspirations so they can assist and guide your progress. You can also promote your skills, interests, experience, and other valuable personal qualities. Self-promotion opens the door to opportunities by showing people who you are and what you can do.