5 Tips To Change Your Mindset For Career Growth

Cultivating the career you want is dictated by the mindset you have. This sentiment is a crucial one to have because you can’t succeed if you think you won’t. You can’t be what you want to be if you don’t believe you can be it. Positive thinking can help you improve professionally and personally by allowing you the confidence and agility to motivate yourself to get to your end goal. If you want to change or enhance your career and you’re not seeing any changes, this is for you.  

Changing your mindset for career growth can be challenging but easy enough if you’re ready to change to get the outcome. Meaning if you want a specific change in your personal or professional life, you have to be willing to accept the challenges that come with what you want. Getting a new job, a new career, switching industries, or enhancing your current role takes a lot of determination and understanding of who you are, what you want to do, and when you want to do it. This career growth or shift is dependent on you. You dictate your success and it’s this notion that helps you positively change your mindset for your growth. If your mind is stuck in the negative, enhancing, improving, and moving forward proves difficult. So here are five tips to help you change your mindset to help lead to more growth in your career and make your career shift process an easier one.  

Determining what you want to do is the deciding factor in how you go about your growth process. What job do you have, and what career do you want? This is an important question because it can help show you what needs to be done and what you need to accomplish before a career shift is possible. A ‘job’ is typically done out of necessity. It’s something that an individual knows they will stop doing eventually, and/or it’s a stepping stone towards the career you’re trying to get into. A career is something you work at building every day, over a long period in which you believe or know you’ll be satisfied, content, and prosperous. It usually starts with you being in a position for an extended period and leads to further growth.  

Knowing what you want to do will help you better understand what exactly you need to do or learn to get to where you want to go. Assess the skills you already have- Are you starting in a new industry or are you trying to go further in your current role? Knowing where on the spectrum of “career ready” you are is important to your mindset change process.   

Thinking about where you are in life and blaming everyone else for your hardships, failures, and mishaps won’t get you any closer to what you want to happen in your life. You are what you don’t want to admit. Your mindset is what led you to fail, recognizing this will help you realize what you don’t need to be doing and help you start incorporating more positivity into your career growth. Failure can be a scary word until you start to look at it differently. 

You are what you think you are, so if you think you are a failure, guess what? That's exactly what you are. Keeping yourself in that self-limiting mind frame doesn’t do anything but spread that negativity to your work, your current situation, and the possibilities and opportunities that could be waiting for you. Accept the past and move on knowing that the future is the only event that matters. Don’t blame others for your mishaps, and don’t make excuses for what you didn’t do. You are responsible for where you currently are in your career path. You are the owner of your destiny, so take accountability for what you have and haven’t done and decide what your next steps are.  One thing I like to tell myself is that I am part of the problem, but I am also the solution. I can change and improve to get what I want.  

What is negatively affecting how you work, how you learn, and how you accomplish goals?  Figure out what isn’t making you happy in your current work process and career.  What’s not working? How can it be better? What needs to be eliminated from your life work-wise? These are all important questions to be asking yourself during your career growth process. You won’t see improvements in your efforts if you are still holding on to negative feedback, circumstances, and workflows. Stop harboring the insignificant thoughts and circumstances and come to grips with the control you have over your situation. Nothing is set in stone- you do have the ability to change what you don’t like in your life and design the path you want to create for yourself.    

Those negative thoughts are not serving you. They are not serving anyone. Replace the negative with a positive. Try first in everyday conversation. Instead of saying “Sorry, I’m late,” say something like “Thanks for waiting for me.” Watch the change that happens as you start to incorporate this into your work process. 

Having a solid routine to get you through the week is crucial to your future success. A routine helps keep you organized and sustains positive daily habits that keep you productive and efficient. You don’t need to have a strict routine but having some organized time to get things completed helps you accomplish your goals faster, improves your stress levels and mental health, and in times of uncertainty your routine allows you to keep going and stay focused.  

Piggyback off of existing habits and routines to fit in something different. For example, want to learn something new? Block off time right after lunch to spend learning that new skill. Lunch is something we all have in our schedule already, adding this task right after it becomes a habit based on an existing trigger. Not all triggers are bad.

Ask yourself, “what do I need to do/ what do I need to eliminate to reach my end goal?” :   

• Do I need more training? More education?   
• Do I need to invest in the right equipment?   
• Is my current routine and habits going to get me to the next stage of my career?  

• What is adding the most stress to my daily routine?  
• Is my work process effective?  
• What can I work on to be better?  
• What do I need to add to my routine to help me be more positive?  
• Am I focusing on self-care?  

After you have figured out what you want to do, how you need to do it, took accountability for your failures, eliminated what's not serving you, and have figured out the routine and habits you need to obtain before changing careers, you can set your goal and now know you can reach it.   

• What’s your desired outcome?   
• What position are you looking to have?   

• How much money do you want to make?   
• How long will it take you to acquire the skills you need to do what you want to do?  

You have to work hard for what you want. No one else can achieve your dream for you. It’s up to you to come up with your plan for greatness. Your career growth and shift expectations are your responsibility to attain. Remember that your capabilities aren’t limited and that you can do what you are seeking to do. Allowing more positivity into your life will get you further than you realize because it is your mindset that will make or break your future goals & aspirations. You are what you believe yourself to be. With this type of thought process, the sky’s the limit to your capabilities, growth, and career shift.  

The struggles of career development, career change, and self-limiting mindsets are evident within the workforce. Stop limiting yourself from being what you want to be because of how you think. The problem isn’t that you can’t do what you want to do. The problem is how you are thinking about what you want to do. Stop thinking “I’m going to fail” and start thinking “I have everything I need to succeed.”   

Start with assessing your goals. Are they realistic, stretch, or impossible goals? Focus on the ones that make you feel a little uncomfortable. Maybe your goal is to be a CTO of a company with over $10M in revenue. That may seem impossible at the beginning of your career. Focus on that. Now, create a stretch goal. What is out of your comfort zone a little bit that will make you work hard for that goal? Maybe it’s becoming a team lead. Wake up every day, and spend every minute working towards that goal. Learn how to lead a team. Learn how to run a code review. Learn how to have difficult conversations with team members. Learn how to be empathetic. Learn how to be grateful for team members. Be the person you want to become. 

To change your mindset for growth in your career you have to try and put yourself in the shoes of the person you see yourself being- That could be someone’s career you want to emulate, or what you think you would be like or should be in your desired career. We hold the power to affect change in our lives- We are the holders of our future. The power you wield to create a difference for yourself is the greatest impact you need to change your life. Don’t let fear of failure or self-doubt keep you from obtaining what you deserve.  

Ready To Get Started? Start Changing Your Mindset with CODE Program’s One-on-One Coaching 

Personal growth in any industry can get complicated if you don’t know how to get to where you want to be. Knowing what you want out of life is great but how do you accomplish your goals? What is your game plan? How will you implement changes into your life to be greater than you are today? The CODE Program can help you answer these questions as well as help you come up with the strategy you need to be the best version of yourself by utilizing our customized coaching program. 

To get more information on the CODE Program’s one-on-one coaching, contact us today.