Sometimes you have to do some personal housekeeping to get your career on track for success. By personal housekeeping I mean examine the people you are surrounding yourself with. Are they supporting or discouraging you in meeting your goals? Do they respond like a resource or a deterrent when you look to them for advice on meeting your goals or overcoming obstacles?
If you are seeing a pattern in your answers to the above questions, you need to start focusing your attention on people who can give you the support you need, even if they are imaginary. This doesn’t mean disregard all the people you know and care about, it means creating your own personal support system.
In his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins refers to the “first who”. This means surrounding yourself with the types of people you want on your side. These are the people that you admire and in my mind poll the personal board when I was wrestling with tough questions. If I was really stuck, I might talk to some of them. It’s sort of like a group of tribal elders that you create for yourself “.
Think about who you want to be on your “personal board of directors”. If you feel a little stuck thinking about this, think of all the people you admire or want to work with. Write their names and keep them in mind when you are faced with challenges. How would they support you? What advice do you think they would give you?
Of course it’s always great if you can find a person you can meet with in person or on the phone to bounce off ideas and what you want, you will find them.
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