Girl's Guide to Kicking Your Career into Gear

You Are Here Guess what? If you're not looking out for your career, then nobody is. If you want to be passionate about what you do, committed to the changes you make, and successful, then you must takecontrolof your professional destiny. Only you can determine who you are, what you can do, and where you want to go. This chapter will hold your hand while you step back and evaluate where you started, where you are on the career path today, how you got there, and most important, where you want to be tomorrow. We will ask you to ask yourself the tough questions: What does success mean for you? Are your fears holding you back? Is your job still working for you? Where did you envision yourself at this point? What kind of employee or manager are you? By diving deep into what motivates you professionally and reading the stories of women who have taken charge of their own careers, you will be armed with a better understanding of yourself and able to take that first step on the road to changing your life. being the girl who makes it happen We wrote this book for every woman out there who knows she can do more and wants to tackle the challenge. If you are stuck in your career, frustrated with your position within a company, or bored with the professional path you have chosen, then it is time to change your thinking. Start with a simple question: At the end of your life are you going to be proud of the extraordinary amount of time you have spent on this work? If you've answered "yes," then use this book to get you to the next level by learning the skills to ask for what you deserve and confront your challenges headon. But if you've answered "no," then use this book to figure out what's missingand what you need to do to take charge of your worklife. If you have gotten into the habit of writing a negative script for yourself, we'll work on the rewrite. Don't accept that you are the girl whonever gets what she wants. Instead, become the girl whomakes it happen for herself. Think about this. According to a study done by the National Sleep Foundation, the average American spends forty-six hours per week at work. We'd bet it's actually higher than that, especially with inventions like the BlackBerry. And fortysix hours plus is a lot of time. Since the majority of our waking hours are spent working, we had better like what we're doing. The more we like what we do, the more energy we'll be able to devote to doing it well. The key to finding happiness in what you do is in accepting who you are and what you want from your work life. Comparing your path to others' won't get you anywhere because your skills, values, personality, responsibilities, and even your location are all unique factors that will affect the trajectory of your career. If you're frustrated with where you are right now, then finding the answers to what you should do about it starts from looking within. defining your own success Over the last few years, we've asked hundreds of women to define success. For the women just starting out, success was most often a title above their peers, and the income to match. Many women in the middle of their careers felt successful if they had jobs that enabled them the flexibility they needed to be successful working mothers. And women late in their careers defined success as loving what they were doing professionally. Wherever you are now, being aware of what success is to YOU will help motivate you to achieve the kind of career that is fulfilling and challenging and pays what you want, too. Being aware of your goal will also help you create the action plan. Here are a few factors to consider when you're trying to defineYorio, Kimberly is the author of 'Girl's Guide to Kicking Your Career into Gear', published 2008 under ISBN 9780767927666 and ISBN 0767927664.