Achieving your career goals in today’s highly competitive, global and constantly changing environment requires a clear understanding of what will get you good raises and promotions. In order to achieve your ultimate career potential, consider the following thoughts, as well as those in a second article “Advanced Career Success Strategies":

1) Focus On Delivering Results That Matter: There are a lot of distractions in the daily routine from e-mails, conference calls, meetings, etc. that are a part of getting your job done, but they are not your job in its entirety. You must have measurable goals, agreed on by your supervisor that can be quantified and measured for success. Every day, you must ask yourself if you are adding value to the organization by driving results or simply working at an exhausting, but ultimately unrewarding pace.

2) Manage Your Energy Against Your Goals: You must become comfortable owning your results against the outside forces coming at you and not try and attend every meeting, answer every e-mail, take every phone call etc. You must strike the right balance between doing all these things and doing the things necessary to hit your goals. Engage your supervisor as needed to make sure you are in alignment with time and focus.

3) Demonstrate Leadership: In order to accomplish this focus, make suggestions and engage your team and colleagues on how you can jointly become more productive. Focus on creating an environment for yourself and those around you of Empowerment and Accountability. Be clear on roles within the team to avoid redundant work and prevent gaps. Find solutions to the time killers of too many meetings and e-mails.

4) Embrace Change And Continuous Improvement: Global market forces are constantly creating new threats and opportunities for every business. You must remain open to change, particularly those driven by technology, but not create an environment of chaos where goals and strategies change so frequently that nothing is accomplished. Demonstrate a mindset for Continuous Improvement and lead productivity initiatives.

5) Be Respected and Trusted: If you are doing all of the above, you will certainly get some people angry at times as they will either have a difference of opinion on how to achieve a certain result or you are not blindly following their request. People will respect you and trust you if you are honest, transparent and act in accordance with the goals of the team. Don’t try and be liked by everyone, it won’t happen if you are driving results.

6) Understand How The Review Process Works: In any organization, from small to large, there is a finite number of promotions that can happen and a limit on total compensation increases. Please use this link on how to received an outstanding annual performance review.

7) Work / Life Balance: The science is conclusive that you must strike the right balance of taking care of yourself and working hard to succeed. Yes, there will always be peak periods, deadlines on big projects and trips, but if you don’t recharge you cannot be at your best. You will not achieve your ultimate potential for salary and promotions if you do not take time each day to recharge and then show up the next day strong.