We all have dreamt of outperforming ourselves at work and staying consistent and moving up in our career…
However, we have difficulties bringing our wishes and expectations to life.
Furthermore, in the fast and highly competitive corporate world, some of our attitudes, assumptions, values, flaws often render us completely ineffective.
They can obstruct the way of us being the best version of ourselves, from learning new skills and from developing our talents.
In reality, despite our best intentions, we are often our worst enemies.
We become unable to improve our career, to achieve our definition of success and to satisfy our higher purpose.
We thereby harbor dissatisfaction, self-defeating thoughts and resort to self-sabotaging actions.
Wondering how to become a better performer, a better contributor, a better leader in the workplace and control the self-sabotaging tendencies?
Most of the time, self-sabotage takes roots from collaborators sometimes abusing substance, and striving too hard for materialistic success.
Self-sabotage also stems from an inability to control extreme negative thoughts and emotions such as anger, guilt or resentment.
Furthermore, it also emanates from an inability to control other people.
Indeed, in the workplace, low performing employees and leaders tend to either:
- Be addicted to praise, complain too much about circumstances,
- Act impatient and avoid taking action or initiative,
- Misinterpret the image they have of themselves, doubt their capabilities or feel rejected or reject their own being,
- Struggle to live up to other people expectations. Not pursuing your true purpose and implementing somebody else dream cause you to subconsciously rebel against your current situation.
- Have difficulties following rules or respecting authority figure,
- Be incapable of handling the pressures of responsibility;
- Be busy or lack time management skills,
- Lack conflict resolution skills,
- Dread the unknown, change or success,
- Worry about criticism, looking ridiculous, being judged or embarrassed,
- Fear failure. Failures are usually blessings in disguise.
How to improve these bad habits and become an effective member of the workforce?
Becoming a better performer and contributor in the workplace doesn’t end at solely executing your duties and providing acceptable results.
It starts by working on your character and core values.
To enable effective performance in the workplace, it is necessary to:
1. Assess your strengths and weaknesses and ground them into reality.
I cannot stress enough how self-discovery is an important and long life process that allows to:
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- Upgrade your moral compass and create new ethical standards,
- Accept our unique distinctions,
- Evaluate your role and contributions at work,
- Assist, be assisted by coworkers or team members with a complementing set of skills.
2. Understand your interests and abilities.
This way you are able to develop your core capabilities, to choose the work that stimulates you the most, the workplace in which you best fit in and the team that complements you the best.
3. Keep learning, grow your knowledge and your emotional intelligence
Continual learning and an increase in emotional intelligence constitutes an interesting approach to increase satisfaction at work, to envision greater possibilities, to overcome obstacles and to be successful in every area of your life.
You can achieve this by:
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- Doing something new, something different, challenging your thoughts and your routine,
- Nurturing your natural curiosity about the world, about what you don’t know,
- Breaking routine and mindless actions to stimulate your imagination,
- Tackling your fears and negative emotions head and listing the consequences of your actions.
4. Adjust your self-image to reality by writing down
Adjust your self-image to reality by writing down:
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- The qualities you have about yourself and the ones you want to acquire,
- Your trigger points.
Don’t let identifying your trigger points to get discouraged and give up on yourself.
Noticing your self-sabotaging habits is actually beneficial to you: you are probably not in the walk of life that you wish or supposed to be in.
5. Act responsibility, be proactive, take initiative
You can always take on more responsibility and assignments or perform them with enthusiasm and motivation in order to become more confident in your abilities, autonomous, dependable, to demonstrate emotionally maturity and trustworthiness.
Indeed, the more you take on responsibility, the more you learn about yourself.
Proportionally, the more you understand the consequences of your actions, the faster you admit your mistakes as soon as you notice them.
Subsequently, the better you remain accountable especially when things go wrong, the more you grow, the more you gain competencies, the more you are willing to take initiative and even risks.
6. Discipline yourself
Disciplining yourself is a matter of inspecting and readjusting your thoughts, actions and behaviors to set standards.
It is also about dominating your immediate desires and impulses.
7. Stay authentic
Staying authentic is connected to staying true to yourself and avoiding comparing yourself to others and competing with others.
8. Give yourself time to think
Allowing yourself to think is the best thing you can do for yourself.
In silence, without looking for distractions, observing silence helps to
- Confront yourself,
- Make peace with yourself,
- Strengthen your decision-making skills,
- Observe bad habits, and therefore learn more about yourself,
- Find your true purpose, learn to trust your intuition and inner feelings.
In addition, meditation, quiet contemplation and introspection are the key to staying alert and to increase your performance at work
These methods can also help you to develop and recognize good ideas, to stay engaged and become more conscious of your life.
9. Set goals
Defining clear goals and seeking better methods are great ways to become more productive, more competent in the workplace.
10. Find a quiet place
Learning to insulate yourself from the noise in the workplace is important to preserve your energy and sanity.
11. Get out of your comfort zone
Varying your experiences and getting out your comfort zone is part of your personal growth and leadership development.
12. Exercise regularly
Self-care is all about taking care of your physical health and influences your everyday mood in the workplace.
13. First Impression is a lasting impression
Making a good impression from day one is more than useful.
Certainly, the first impression is indeed a lasting impression.
That is why authenticity is importance and there is no need to overdo it and run a political campaign.
14. Apply the Golden Rule
It serves a purpose to uplift people instead of bringing them down or being considered as a toxic coworker in the workplace, to develop relationships and properly manage people emotions, avoid imposing your emotions on others, and transform enemies into supportive friends.
At this point, the Golden Rule is valuable: Respect and treat people the way you would like to be respected and treated.
As a result, you can become a good contributor and a valuable team member.
15. Embrace change
To improve your work performance and climb up the corporate ladder, embrace change, renew your coping and self-defense mechanism.
16. Don’t avoid failure
During your journey of self-improvement, expect to make mistakes, to learn from them and keep it moving.
17. Avoid negative people
Avoid naysayers and haters like the plague.
Change your circle of friends if they are the ones bringing you down.
18. Service others
Finally, servicing others doesn’t mean that you have to submit to everyone and to every order.
This only means doing your best to get along with one another.
Last words of advice!
If you happen to abuse substance or are in emotional distress in the workplace, don’t be ashamed, you are not alone.
Please talk about it to your closest family and friends, or find the nearest Workplace Help Center.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
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