ProSkills Digest #2. Attitude. Trends. Strengths.
Essential Career Skills for Technical Professionals
Welcome to the second edition of the ProSkills Digest where you can read about:
the significant role a positive professional attitude plays in achieving success
trends of an increasingly competitive landscape for technical professionals
a quick guide to uncovering your strengths, with two relevant book summaries.
(6-minute read)
💼 Your Professional Attitude Matters
Let’s talk about attitude and what it has to do with your overall chances of being successful.
A positive outlook can be a huge help for various reasons. Let’s examine how positivity can help you reach your goals. I am an eternal optimist, and will look for the positive or opportunity even if things look grim. As Zig Ziglar said “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude”.
Having the right attitude helps you stay motivated. Being successful takes work, and it’s just more fun when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. While not every task and everything that needs to be taken care of will be your favourite task, but having a positive attitude about it will help.
Start by becoming more aware of your mood and outlook as you go about your day. Make an effort to be grateful and find the good side of things. Over time your positivity will increase, and it will help you stay motivated.
Having a good attitude helps you overcome hurdles. Getting discouraged is easy when things don’t go your way or they fall through. We all face setbacks. We all make mistakes. How we deal with them sets successful people apart from the rest.
Work on your positivity and find a lesson in everything that happens. You’ll come out on the other side stronger and better than before.
Having the right attitude helps you do better work. Think back on the last time you had fun working on a project. It was much easier to get into the flow, and time flew by. You enjoyed yourself, and that showed in your work. We work so much better when we’re in a good mood.
It’s also easier to focus on work efficiently when you like what you’re doing. When you find that groove and that perfect project, it doesn’t feel like work at all. That’s the state you want to work in most of the time.
To make all that happen, you should try to work on positivity. Check your attitude and enjoy the work you do. Keeping a journal can help; it helps you focus your thoughts. You can see what worked and helped you progress.
Another powerful tip is to create a record of encouragement. Fill it with positive images and motivational quotes. Include proof of your accomplishments, any recommendations and testimonials you receive. Browse through the journal whenever you need an extra boost of positivity.
Get altitude by your attitude!
📦 Thinking Outside the Box
A series of thought-provoking articles to encourage strategic thinking.
Monitor and assess trends in your professional sector
The demand for technical professionals will continue. However, professional work will be very different as we face many disruptive shifts. I am constantly reading articles and newsletters to identify trends and think about potential implications. Let me give you my view of some of the changes facing professionals today.
The job market is shrinking. In the U.S. since 2000, the population has grown at 2.2 times the number of jobs. In contrast, over the previous 50 years, jobs grew by 1.6 times the population. As a result, the job market for professionals is becoming increasingly competitive, with more applicants having postgraduate qualifications, raising the bar for when you compete for a job.
Global competition for jobs is growing. For example, India currently produces around 1.5 million engineering graduates every year. This is a significant challenge for professionals when you consider relative salaries compared to higher cost-of-living countries.
Many technical jobs are being outsourced to Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe because of improved communication technology, education, and their lower cost-of-living. As a result, many jobs, or parts of jobs, are moving offshore.
Technology disruptions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), together with automation, will continue to impact professional work. Consider the potential impact of developments such as Chat GPT to your work. Take the example of the legal industry, where AI can search documents and databases quicker, better, more reliably and cheaper than a law clerk.
Software packages can do a lot of technical work quicker, better, and cheaper. Professionals need to be able to pivot to specify the requirements and interpret the results of AI and automated designs, rather than doing the specific technical work.
In the 2016 Deloitte study, 42% of executives surveyed expected to increase or significantly increase the use of contingent workers in the short term. Contract professionals are readily available on online freelance platforms, such as Upwork and Freelancer. As a result, employers no longer need to maintain full-time, professional staff. They can hire experts as they’re required, reducing costs and overheads.
Another challenge is the shrinking half-life of technical knowledge - an engineer’s technical knowledge may well become obsolete in as little as five years. So take control of your own professional development.
All these disruptions will significantly impact your future professional work - presenting both opportunities and challenges. In every disruption there will be opportunities, take for example, learning how to utilise Chat GPT in your work can lead to faster, more efficient and better outcomes.
How are you monitoring and assessing trends that may impact your future?
What can you do to take advantage of opportunities and mitigate challenges?
🚀 Quick Guide: Uncovering Your Strengths
This Quick Guide provides a step-by-step process to discover your strengths and learn how to build upon them for personal and professional growth. This guide is designed for anyone interested in understanding and using their unique abilities to enhance their life and career.
Recognise that everyone has unique strengths, and focus on developing them, rather than comparing yourself to others. I totally agree with Tom Rath who said “… you should forget about fixing your weaknesses and go all in on your strengths …” (see summary below).
Steps:
1. Self-Assessment: Reflect on your past experience and identify situations where you felt most confident and successful. List your top 5-10 strengths, talents, or abilities that contributed to your success in those situations. See the book summaries below for more background.
2. Seek Feedback: Ask friends and colleagues for their perspectives on your strengths. Consider their feedback and add any additional strengths to your list.
3. Online Strengths Assessments: Take a reputable online strengths assessment, such as StrengthsFinder (paid) or VIA Character Strengths (free). Compare the results with your self-assessment and feedback from others, and refine your list of strengths. I like to go through the VIA assessment at least once a year to reflect on my current strengths, as they can change over time.
4. Strengths Analysis: Reflect on how your strengths have contributed to your personal and professional achievements. Identify areas where you could further leverage your strengths to enhance your life and career.
5. Create an Action Plan: Develop specific action steps to build on and leverage your strengths. Consider how you can apply your strengths in new ways or combine them to address emerging challenges and opportunities.
6. Continuous Growth and Improvement: Establish a routine for reviewing your progress and updating your action plan as needed. Seek new experiences and learning opportunities to develop your strengths further and discover new ones.
After completing this exercise, leave it for a few days, then come back and critically review what you have written.
Download a PDF version of this Quick Guide below.
📚Book Summaries
Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath argues that you should forget about fixing your weaknesses and go all in on your strengths instead. He shows you ways to figure out which five key strengths are an innate part of you and gives advice on how to use them in your life and work. Read the summary from FourMinuteBooks.
Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton outlines how to find your top five strengths by outlining what strengths are, how you get them, why they’re important to reaching your full potential, and how to discover your own through analysing the times when your behaviour is the most natural or instinctive and why. Read the summary from FourMinuteBooks.
📝About the Author
Phil Charles is the author of a series of practical guides on Essential Career Skills to help technical professionals develop focus and attention, build habits, develop thinking and analysis skills, and get things done with less stress. Phil is particularly interested in critical skills and knowledge to improve productivity and get results. Learn essential skills to protect your future
Website | Online courses | Books on Amazon
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