Determination is Essential for Success!

I’ve been asked to write a blog post about what I feel is the “most marketable skill” and skill that is essential for success. Right away the first word that came to my mind was “determination.” There are many definitions out there for the word “determination” so I want to be clear on what I mean.

Determination: a quality that makes you continue trying to do or achieve something that is difficult.
or
Determination is a positive emotion that involves persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles. Determination occurs prior to goal attainment and serves to motivate behavior that will help achieve one’s goal.

This word has defined me all my life and is the reason for my success in both my professional and personal life. Coming out of college and entering the workforce I thought I had all the skills and education I needed to succeed at obtaining a job and a job in my chosen career field. But, I was completely misguided. Maybe several + several + several years ago it was that easy. But, it’s not anymore and that’s why you need determination! Chances are it will be difficult, but you can’t give up!

I was fortunate enough to listen to a great presentation that talked about Career Security, and it mentioned how it’s no longer provided by the employer, it’s something we create for ourselves. This is a direct quote from that presentation: “It’s created through a process of updating skills, networking, and looking at wherever we are at the moment as a stepping stone to the next stop on our career journey.” Also: “Individuals possessing Career Security feel in control of what happens to them in the workplace. They have become the master of their career, rather than its victim!” You also need “foresight” the ability to predict and plan for the future.

Your never done learning and never done obtaining skills that you need to be successful. So, you need to stay determined through out you life. However, you also need to be certain of what you want. Determination also means a fixed purpose or intention. You need to figure out what your strengths are, what type of company you want to work for, what type of culture is important to you, and most importantly what will make you happy. Determination to achieve something without direction won’t get you very far. I know this from experience. Right out of college, I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do, and I was determined to be successful, but I really had no concept of what would make me happy. I’m going to tell you what I should of done. I should of interviewed employers at companies I wanted to work at to find out what it would be like to work there. You don’t ask them for a job; you just ask them what the culture of their company is like, how things work, and what skills they look for in new hires. Research, Research and Research! If you want to be successful you need to research the jobs out there, the types of companies, the culture, how to do effective resumes/cover letters, how to interview well, what are the latest trends in your career field? You should always be learning something new. I recommend reading lots of articles and books on success and happiness. It’s really helped me! Also, having an internship experience even if it’s unpaid. I had to do an unpaid internship at one point to help move my career forward.

Determination is outlined as a most important trait in the book “Think and Grow Rich” which highlights some of the most successful people throughout time, and how they achieved their goals because they never gave up and kept trying even after they failed over and over again.

How do I know all these things? Because, I was always afraid of failing in the eyes of other people so I’ve always been determined even when I didn’t have any clear set goals in my life. And my determination helped me to succeed at many things. I’ve always had high expectations for myself. I have suffered from horrible self-esteem for most of my life. My last job I hated, and I took it just to be making money, but when they laid me off and it was the best thing that could of happened. You can view my blog post: Lessons Learned from Being Unemployed. After two months of not getting anywhere with applying to jobs I started trying everything and anything that was suggested to me. I did a ton of stuff that I was uncomfortable with like networking and interviewing employers at companies. I attended a networking group, I read a lot, spent a lot of time defining what was important to me, defining my skills, I researched and researched, read about interviewing, created a portfolio, and looked for ways to improve my resume by asking other professionals. I became the definition of determination and was able to be more positive then a lot of my peers. I improved my self esteem the more I learned, and the more I started to realize I was in control of my career and I was the only one in control! I stopped worrying about what my husband thought, what other people thought, because I had all this knowledge pointing out that I was following the right path. Now my husband is looking for a new job and he asks me question after question about resumes, cover letters, ect.. Now I’m trying to help him be positive despite all the stress and aggravation of finding a new job.

You need to define you strengths and skills and not let any one job define you. When you find a passion for learning new things and continue to be determined you will find your way. Through my determination I have come to accept just about everything about myself. My self-esteem has done a complete 180, along with my satisfaction with my job and my life.

Be determined to be happy and you will find success as well.

This post is a contribution to the “Most Marketable Skill” project in honor of the class of 2014 for http://www.webucator.com/. They offer free Microsoft Office courses: http://www.webucator.com/microsoft/index.cfm

To Be Lucky and To Feel Lucky

Roughly a month ago, I wrote a post called “Are you living the life of a lucky person?” If you haven’t read that post it’s about a book I read called “The Luck Factor,” and I said I felt I was neither lucky or unlucky. I set out over the next month to change my luck by following the principles and exercises in the book.

To be completely honest, I didn’t follow all of the exercises like I had planned on doing. Partly, because my summer has been so incredibly busy, I lost my focus on this. But, despite my loss of focus and way of seeing things as neither lucky or unlucky, I do feel luckier. I realized that when so called “bad luck” occurred I was always looking at the bright side of things rather then looking at occurrences as “bad luck.” To give an example of this, I had dropped my credit card at a gas station near work, and was already home when I had realized it. But, I didn’t freak out like I would of in the past. I realized I could easily call my bank and they could deactivate my credit card. I was also optimistic about someone finding it and turning it in. I then proceeded to call the gas station, and found out I was lucky because some nice person found my card on the ground and had handed it to the clerk. Lucky enough my husband and I had also planned on driving somewhere that night and it wasn’t completely out of the way.

I’ve also come to realize even more now how lucky I am to have met my husband in the first place, because like I mentioned in a recent post, he accepts everything about me and all my weird little quirks. And through him I’ve made a lot of great friends that I would have never met, if it weren’t for him.

I’ve also been practicing relaxation techniques and continue to learn more about meditation. I’ve found the relaxation techniques to be truly helpful in reducing my stress levels, along with clearing or organizing the thoughts in my head.

I’ve been reading a lot, and learning new things about myself over the past month. I feel like I’m on the right path toward great satisfaction with my life and myself. To have the time to do that, and a husband who cares more deeply about my happiness more than anything else makes me feel unbelievably lucky.

I have found that the biggest obstacle in my life is my emotions and how I deal with them. I tend to feel emotion about everything that happens to me and everything I do day in and day out. At times it can be very exhausting. But, I’m figuring it out.

The principles in the book “The Luck Factor,” I plan to continuously utilize throughout my life. I do recommend this book to other people who want to increase their luck/general happiness with life.

We weren’t Promised Much Here on Earth…

You ask why did she die so young? Why do I have to suffer so much pain? Why is there so much suffering? Why is life so unfair? Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Who promised you any of those things? Hopefully, no one did. That’s LIFE. If your religious then you know that with the exception of the promise that someday you will die, the only other promise that life has in store for you is that if you live it right you get to go to heaven. That’s where there’s no pain, no suffering and no life cruelties.

So yes life is painful, and it can be absolute mess for some people. It can be utterly cruel and completely unfair. I wanted so badly to be anything but me during my childhood. I felt totally out of place. I had barely any self confidence, I felt alone and some days I wished it could all be over. But, I always reminded myself that if I get through all this I get to go to heaven. I told myself that one day I would find a guy who would accept all the things about me that no one else did. Even before that happened, I met someone who is also highly sensitive, a shy, introvert and if not an INFJ..pretty close. I think she is, she says she’s not sure. I didn’t figure that out till much later, but having her as a friend was just what I needed. Sometimes life does give you something great, if you choose to see it.

Because among all the pain in this world there are good things happening all the time. There’s miracles and good people who are making the world a better place to live. There can even be a person out there who quite possibly can accept everything about you, especially if you can accept it about yourself. I found someone, and I can’t imagine my life now without him. All my quirks from being an INFJ, higly sensitive and just plain me he doesn’t see as problems. He sees me as incredibly unique and he’ll do whatever he can to keep me happy. I had spent a week in cottage with my in-laws and I love them, but I was done with being around other people, I was incredibly home sick, and I was begging him to get out of there right away! I felt like such a pain. I thought he would be mad at me. But, he wasn’t. He surprised me with his compassion for how I felt. I’m understanding more and more that I’m not wrong for feeling the way that I do day in a day out. Even though I feel so incredibly different from everyone else, I have complete acceptance and unbelievable respect from him. No one promised me I would fall in love and meet someone so incredibly amazing. I only promised that to myself.

We are not promised that bad things won’t happen, but were not promised good things will happen either. The best thing is we get to choose to see things in a positive light, and not let all the negativity weigh us down. You can feel like your on top of the world!

People like to blame God for things. But, he really never promised you any of those things here on earth, in life. He has promised good things after life. In that sense the good really does outweigh the bad.

If you can remember that through out your life, you will learn to see more good in life than bad hopefully. I haven’t lived long enough to say that’s true. But, if I believe it…