I was driving down the road the other evening listening to a country station – near Boston of all places — and I heard a song with these lyrics…
“Ain’t as good as I’m gonna’ get,
But I’m better than I used to be.”
I thought to myself, “There’s some great life and career success advice. It’s all about focusing on what you’re becoming – not what you are or were.” Tweet 41 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Focus on what you are becoming. This helps you believe in yourself and builds your confidence.”
I love the idea of “becoming.” It’s really a positive concept. And it’s similar to a couple of the ideas in The Optimist Creed. The sixth point of The Optimist Creed says, “Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.” The ninth point says, “Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”
Tweet 41 in Success Tweets and points six and nine in The Optimist Creed reinforce one of my career success coach points – success is a journey, not a destination. Keep moving forward in your life and you’ll succeed.
I’m going to be 62 this year – old enough to get Social Security — and I keep learning, growing and moving forward. To celebrate my 62nd birthday, I am releasing a new book called Climbing the Corporate Ladder. I am becoming a better career success coach because of my writing and my blogging. But I’m nothing compared to Peter Drucker. He wrote 39 books in his long and distinguished life and career – two thirds of them were written after he was 65 years old.
“Becoming” is not a function of age. It’s a function of your willingness to look ahead and see the opportunities life brings your way – and then to act on them. Take it from a career success coach. When you focus on what you are becoming, you will be building the life and career success you want and deserve. Keep becoming and you will succeed. I guarantee it.
I like the idea of “becoming” so much because it gets at the idea that all of us can always become something more, no matter our age, or our previous successes or failures. There is always more to do, more to accomplish, a way to become more remarkable.
Becoming and thinking go hand in hand. Your thoughts determine what you will become. It’s true –you become what you think about most. That means that the quantity and quality of the life and career success you will achieve will be in direct proportion to the size of your thoughts. If you allow your mind to be dominated by trivial matters, your achievements are likely to be unimportant.
If you discipline yourself to think about things important to your life and career success, you will achieve great things. Take my career advice; keep up with what’s new in your field and with what’s going on in the world. Create a list of good ideas that you can use anytime you are searching for a creative solution to a problem. Remember, people with small minds think and talk about other people. People with medium-sized minds think and talk about things. People with great minds think and talk about ideas.
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Just like the country song says, build your life and career success by focusing on what you are becoming. Career success is a journey, not a destination. Treat it that way. Use the career advice in Tweet 41 in Success Tweets. “Focus on what you are becoming. This helps you believe in yourself and builds your confidence. Confidence is important to your success.” Commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career. Set high goals; then do whatever it takes to meet or exceed them. React positively to the setbacks, problems and negative people and events in your life. Keep at it. Don’t let a day when you come back empty handed in your quest for building a remarkable life and career get you down. Get up the next day with optimism in your heart, focused on what you are becoming and keep working. If you would like a copy of The Optimist Creed to frame and hang in your office, go to https://budbilanich.com/optimist and enter your name and email address.
That’s the career advice I took for a country song. What do you think? Please share your thoughts with us in a comment. Also, if you know the name of the song and artist, send me an email (Bud@BudBilanich.com) and I’ll send you a downloadable copy of my new book Climbing the Corporate Ladder. Thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained. The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less. The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
PPS: I opened a membership site last September. It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations. You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb
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