Alexandra Levit has released a new book called Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success. Levit is a former syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal and she is a frequent national media spokesperson on careers, getting a job and corporate life. She offers some timely and practical advise in her new book where she “debunks” 10 business myths that no longer enable you to quickly climb the corporate ladder (and keep your current job). These 10 myths include:
Myth #1: Overnight success is possible.
Myth #2: Controversy will propel your career.
Myth #3: Employers want you to be yourself.
Myth #4: Being good at your job trumps everything.
Myth #5: It’s best to climb the ladder as fast as possible.
Myth #6: You’ll get more money because you’ve earned it.
Myth #7: The problem isn’t you, it’s the organization.
Myth #8: You won’t get laid off, you’re too essential.
Myth #9: If only you could break out of Corporate America, everything would be perfect.
Myth #10: Do what you love and the money will follow.
She has a solid post on Tom Peters blog called Forget Overnight Success and Learn to Be Persistent. You’ll find some key excerpts below.
“Overnight success is one of the most widely held beliefs in the business world. It’s also hugely misleading, and adopting this idea that you can easily become an overnight success could actually be quite damaging for your career and life. The truth is simple. There are very few—if any—genuine cases of overnight success. The majority of successful people have dedicated themselves to a goal and persevered for a long time before reaching a high level of achievement that is finally noticed and talked about by others.”
“Perseverance is defined as remaining constant to a purpose, idea, or task in spite of obstacles. Some people are born with the tendency to persevere.”
“Pick up any one of Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches stories, and you’ll be virtually hit over the head with the lesson that earlier generations didn’t expect instant gratification the way we do today. If they had, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to evolve as fully as a society, with the most critical cultural and technological advances marinating over decades. We’ve become a society of now, now, now, but the truth is that most things worth having take a little bit of process and a lot of time. You shouldn’t assume that if something doesn’t manifest overnight that it won’t happen at all, and, in fact, you will do wonders for your personal development if you can learn to be patient, maintain faith in your own potential, and increase your perseverance in driving important aspects of your career forward.”
While it admittedly sounds a bit corny, the first step in this journey is to believe in yourself and what you want to do. If you try for a goal, but in the back of your mind you don’t actually think you can accomplish it, you will wreck havoc on and sabotage your motivation. You will probably give up more easily, which will result in even poorer self-esteem.
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