SELF MOTIVATION - How to determine if you're in the right job

By Brian Tracy

Only the truly competent individual can be free of politics in an organization. When you're really good at what you do, you can rise above politics. Think about it. It's the mediocrities at work who have to play games and every study shows that although they sometimes succeed in the short-term, they invariably fail when everyone figures them out.

Do What You Have To Do

Select your work carefully and if you don't love what you're doing enough to want to be the best at it, get out! Flee from the boring or unsatisfying job as you would from a burning building. Working at something you don't care about is the very best way to waste your life. Remember, this life is not a rehearsal for something else.

Look for Pay for Performance

One key to getting onto the fast-track is for you to work for the right company and the right boss. The right company is one that respects its people and practices pay for performance. The right company is dynamic, growing, open to new ideas, and full of opportunities for people with ambition and initiative.

How to Make Progress

A woman spoke to me at a seminar recently and reminded me that she had asked me a question at a seminar about two years ago. She had told me that she was very ambitious and hard-working but that she wasn't making any progress in the large company where she worked. She felt it was because most of the senior executives were men in their fifties and sixties and that women had a hard time getting into positions of responsibility. What could she do?

Change Jobs When Necessary

I told her quite frankly that there was nothing she could do. The senior executives and the company were not going to change. If she was really as capable as she said, I told her to find a job with a young, growing company that wouldn't care whether she was a woman as long as she could do the job.

A Success Story

She told me that she had followed my advice, quit her job, much to the disapproval of her co-workers, and found a job with a small growing company - and it was exactly as I had said. She had been promoted twice in the last 14 months and was already earning 40% more than her best year with her previous company.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to assure that you are in the right position.

First, make sure that you really enjoy your work and that you do it well. You will never be successful at a job that you don't like.

Second, be sure that there are lots of opportunities for you to grow, develop and advance in your company. Your future is too valuable to waste where there is no future.