I’m still enjoying writing this series of posts on the career advice in my latest book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less. I hope you are enjoying reading them. You can purchase a copy of Success Tweets at Amazon.com or your local bookstore – or you can get a free copy of the eBook at www.SuccessTweets.com.
Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 59…
Give so much time to building your self confidence and improving yourself that you have not time to criticize others.
This tweet has its roots in Point 9 of The Optimist Creed. “Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”
Like everything else in The Optimist Creed, this is great common sense career advice. I know that I have a lot to learn. There are many things about me on which I can improve. I’m just guessing here, but I bet that’s true for you too. That’s why I choose to focus on improving me rather than criticizing others.
I’m not a real religious guy, but I do remember a few bible stories. There’s one where people are gathered to stone a woman who is accused of adultery. Jesus disperses the angry crowd by telling them, “Let he who has no sinned cast the first stone?” I know I am in no position to be casting stones. I doubt if you are either. None of us are perfect. If we both choose to put our energy into building our self confidence and improving yourselves – not criticizing others for their failings – we will be happier, more confident and successful, and the world will be a less contentious place.
I first learned about Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs when I was in college at Penn State. The model was structured as a pyramid with “self actualization” at the top. Dr. Maslow defined self actualization as “being all that you can be” – something the US Army borrowed for its TV recruiting commercials several years ago.
According to Dr. Maslow self actualization is an unattainable state, because no matter what you achieve, you soon realize that you can achieve even more. You can take this one of two ways. You can see it as negative and frustrating because you’ll never reach the goal of being self actualized. Or you can see it as positive and inspiring because you’ll always have another dream to chase, another goal to reach.
I choose the latter. I was telling someone the other day that the whole web 2.0 phenomenon has been great for me, because I have begun really learning lately. I’ve always kept up in my field, but I’ve felt for the past few years that most of my learning was incremental. I wasn’t making any quantum leaps forward.
However, since I’ve begun blogging and tweeting, I’ve learned a lot – really a lot. And, as the ninth point of the Optimist Creed points out, I haven’t had the time, nor the inclination, to think about what others are doing, much less criticizing them. I’m busy learning and growing -– and that’s cool and fun and exciting.
The common sense career success coach point here is simple. If you want to build your self confidence, work on improving yourself and achieving your goals. Don’t worry about what others are doing, or comparing yourself to them. Be too busy with your own growth to worry about anyone else. Follow the advice in Tweet 59 in Success Tweets. “Give so much time building our self confidence and improving yourself that you have not time to criticize others.” This is great career advice. Criticizing others is a waste of your precious time. It robs you of the ability to set and achieve your goals and create the life and career success you want and deserve. Besides that, you’re probably not in the position to be casting stones anyway – I know I’m not.
That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 59 in Success Tweets. What’s yours? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
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