Free eBook: Career Success Recipe for Newbies – Pushing for Career Success (Part 5of 5)

Is there a recipe for career success? Well, the answer to that question is both “yes” and “no”. Yes, because there are steps you can take that can increase your chances of success. No, mainly because very often when people start asking questions like that they seek a shortcut rather than the actual hardworking way to success. If you are sincere in getting off to a great start in your career and need to be pointed in the right direction, then this book is for you. It has the career success recipe that you need.
Career Success Recipe For Newbies is a compilation of 5 articles:
Part 1. Career Success Recipe – What Do You Want To Cook?
Part 2. The Key Ingredients For Your Career Success
Part 3. Planning Your Career Success Dish
Part 4. Enjoying the Process of Career Success
Part 5. Pushing for Career Success

Striking a balance while pushing for career success is the last part of your career success recipe. You have now seen an overview of what a career success recipe consist. From knowing what to cook, to its key ingredients, planning the dish to understanding that it is a process.
I have seen it too often especially among young graduates on a first job or even seasoned employees joining a new company. They are all too eager pushing for career success that they crack under their own pressure.
Understand that your career success is like a good dish, it takes time to cook. You cannot rush it. Give yourself time to work on the finer details and enjoy the process. The more you push yourself the more mistakes you will make. That will only delay your career success plans.
Your Best is Good Enough
Taking time to enjoy the process of your career success isn’t about not planning for success. It means understanding that career success takes time and effort. It also doesn’t mean that you do not push yourself. The question is how much do you do while pushing for career success? When is it good enough?
The answer seems fairly simple but in practice it isn’t at all. The answer is this – when you have given your best, that’s when it is good enough. In order to answer when is it that you know you have done your best, you need to know your own definition of success. Remember the first part of the success recipe? Knowing what you want to cook?
When seeking for that answer, you will have to confront what are your values and motivations in life. That will lead you to realize your priorities in life. And hence, how much time and effort you are willing to allocate to each aspect of your life. Once you do all these, you will intrinsically know when you are giving your best in pushing for career success.
When you give your best that’s when it is good enough. Think of your career success as a banquet you are cooking. There are many success dishes you will cook. Each successful dish and each failure adds to your experience. It also increases your chances of succeeding.
When Good Enough is Not Good Enough
When cooking your career success recipe, you need to constantly remind yourself that good enough is not good enough. So, when is good enough not good enough?
It is when you do not do things with Pride, Passion and Belief.
Pride
Just as a good cook takes great pride in cooking a dish, you should approach each and every assignment with pride too. Pride here means self-dignity, not arrogance. It is when you take personal responsibility to each job given to you. Knowing that everything that you do has your name on it, you give it your best. When you do things with pride, you will not do just good enough. You will give it your best.
Passion
Spice up your dish with a generous helping of passion. When you are driven by passion for the work and pride as the foundation, your work will always smell the best. When you do things with directed passion, you know you are giving your best.
Belief
Work with a belief. Doing something without a belief is just a fool at work. When you act upon a belief with pride as your foundation and passion to fuel you – you know you will be giving your best.
Balancing Pride, Passion and Belief
Pride, Passion and Belief will ensure that you deliver your best in everything you do. However, in order for your best to propel you to higher grounds or in this case cook the best success dish ever, then you need to balance your pride, passion and belief.
Skills and Knowledge
Skills and knowledge must be the backbone of your pride. When your pride is not backed by an equal amount of skills and knowledge, you become arrogant. For you to be productive in cooking this success recipe, your pride must be balanced by skills and knowledge.
Direction
Passion must have a direction. When passion does not have a direction, it is wasted energy. So, when you are cooking this success recipe know your direction. Where are you heading with this? In other words, have a focus. Concentrate all your efforts on one single point. Then you have higher chances of achieving the success you seek.
Action
Lastly, belief must be backed by action. Believing in something yet there is no action to back it up is just fantasizing. You can keep believing in your success recipe but if you do not take steps to cook it, it isn’t going to happen.
Have Fun with Your Career Success Recipe
Your career success recipe is like cooking for a banquet. It takes a long time. The successes along the way tell us what we need to repeat and keep our constant efforts on. The failures tell us what to avoid and makes us smarter as we proceed to cook this dish.
There will be spills but there will be successes too. When there are spills, soak it all up along the way. Don’t rush it in a day. When there are successes, savor it and know that more successes are possible.
You Succeed by Not Rushing nor Lazing Off
Your career success comes to you when you do not rush yourself through it. But this also means you do not laze off. When you rush you start to be careless. You forget the important ingredients in your career success recipe. You may add too much of a good ingredient. If you rush through your success recipe, you risk overdoing it. On the other hand, if you laze off – you won’t put in the appropriate effort needed for success. For success to happen, you need to be moderate in your pursuit. There is a saying:
Hurrying makes things too tight,
Slacking off lets things get too loose,
By not hurrying and not slacking off,
We can succeed at what we do.
You Are Your Own Competitor
Very often I see young graduates in the working world competing against their colleagues and peers. They spend too much time thinking how they can beat them at the race to promotion. They forget that it is more important to sharpen their own skills. In this race, you are your own competitor. I leave you with this thought from Dao De Jing:
He who knows other men is discerning, he who knows himself is intelligent.
He who overcomes other is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.
He who is satisfied with his lot is rich.
He who goes on acting with energy has a firm will.
He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long.
He who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity.