How we behave at work every day slowly and eventually decides our personality and habits. Here are some poor habits that chip away at your career every day, without you even realizing it.
- You love to gossip: Talking behind someone’s back is not just a sign of weakness and cowardice, but is highly unprofessional. Gossip destroys your reputation quicker than you imagine. Don’t engage in gossip at work as you ‘gossiping’ will also become someone’s gossip. Stay professional and maintain office decorum at your workplace.
- You are whining all the time: Why become the person who whines about work at work? We think that whining or venting helps us feel better, but that rarely happens. And most importantly, there is a time and place to vent. If you are a complainer and a whiner at work, no one will like to be around you and you will unknowingly be dampening other people’s spirits.
- You don’t learn anything online: Why waste your time on the internet? With just 1 hour a day on the internet, you can learn ethical hacking online within 1.5 months! Do you know how much you can achieve by using your time productively rather than letting it go down the drain?
- You have an unhealthy relationship with feedback: If someone criticizes you or compliments you, don’t let it get your head. Have a healthy relationship with feedback. Whatever your boss or your colleagues say about your work, use it in a positive way. They don’t mean to attack you with their comments, all they are trying to do is push you in the right direction and improve your work.
- You are too proud to ask for help: It’s okay if you need help with something at work. Whether you are completing your CEH training provided by your employer or finishing a new project you were given or just trying to figure out the new office printer, if you feel stuck anywhere, don’t be shy or hesitant to ask for someone’s help. A reserved and introverted person who keeps to himself and tries to figure out everything on his own ends up being a slow-learner with a weak social circle.
- You don’t do work that’s outside your job role: If you don’t have a lot on your plate, and you can help contribute to someone’s work, then don’t decline it because it does not fall under your job role’. If you never take responsibilities outside what is defined by your position, then you will never be able to outgrow your position. Makes sense?
- You don’t strive for perfection: An obsession for perfection can harm more than it can do good. However, if you never strive for improvement, let alone perfection, then your work will be substandard at best. There is always someone who can do better work than you at a lesser price. Don’t let that happen to your job. Value your work as much as you value your life. Either give your best or don’t give anything at all. At least 80% of the time, you should strive to present perfect, error-proof work. Always revise before you hand it in.
- You don’t value relationships: Having a tight-knit social group at work can help you grab opportunities that you couldn’t even get near to if you were all alone. If you underestimate the power of a network in your professional as well as personal life, then you will soon start lagging behind in your career growth.
Spend some time every day asking yourself how much you have cut down on your bad habits and how much you have built the good ones.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.