If You Want Different Results, You Have to Try Different Approaches

This article is reproduced from www.thesilverdollar.com – 6 Jan 2021

Trent Hamm  –  Founder of The Simple Dollar Last Updated: April 8, 2020

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

While I don’t view that choice as insane, I do see it as a common trap that most of us fall into during our lives. Why? We’re humans.

Human beings are creatures of routine. Even the most spontaneous among us stick to a lot of routines and habits in life. For us, it is challenging to try different approaches to the problems in our life.

Yet, that phrase still holds true. If you want different results than what you’re getting, you have to try different approaches.

The things you did yesterday have brought you to the life you have today. If you want something different, you have to do something different today to create a different life tomorrow. There’s no other way to get there.

So, what kind of results are you looking for in your life?

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Disclosures

If You Want a Better-Paying Job…

Some people enjoy the job that they have – or at least enjoy it more than the alternatives – but they want better pay and more opportunities related to that job. They don’t want to be working the front desk forever or to be stuck in the entry-level slot for the rest of their years. They want more.

To get more, you have to do more.

You have to have skills that employers want. The job that you want likely requires skills that you just don’t have. Yet.

In order to move you up into that position – or to find that kind of position in another organization – you have to have the skills that the job requires. There’s no shortcut around that.

The catch is that there isn’t some magic spell that will move you from where you’re at to where you need to be to get that job. It’s up to you.

In other words, you have to devote your own time and energy to developing those skills. To get there, you flat out have to devote some spare time and energy to building new skills.

Often, people assume that these skills are built by going back to school, and that’s sometimes true, but there are also many opportunities to build skills without returning to school.

You can build skills by volunteering in your community. You can build skills by working on community projects, like software engineers working on open source projects. You can build skills by starting a side business related to your field.

Education. Projects. Certifications. Experience. Those are the things that are going to make your resume better. Those are the things that are going to get you an interview. Yet, an interview isn’t enough. How do you cinch the job from there?

You need to understand what exactly is needed in your “dream job.” Yes, there are often requirements on paper, but that doesn’t really tell you what you’ll need to get from here to there.

Do you have strong professional relationships with other people in your field? If not, build them. This goes beyond being friends with the other person who works next to you.

Are you proactive in taking care of problems? In other words, do you step back and look at the big picture, then address potential problems before they happen and try to find ways to make things work better during crunch times?

Do you communicate well both with your customers and with your managers?

Those are the kind of things that people look for when hiring for better jobs. Those things, however, aren’t always listed on the “requirements” for the job. They are things that are “icing on the cake” – the kinds of things that show up when you interview and set you apart from the rest of the field.

If you want a better job in your field, you need to be building these things in your spare time at work and your spare time outside of work.

You have to be unafraid to push yourself and risk failure. This sounds like a lot of work. It also sounds like you might very well fail anyway.

Guess what? That’s all part of the equation. You are going to stumble. Things aren’t going to happen exactly like you want them to.

You have to get up and brush yourself off when that happens. You can’t just blame society and give up. You have to keep pushing. Your skills weren’t quite strong enough yet. Keep polishing them. Keep trying.

Article content sourced from: (https://www.thesimpledollar.com/make-money/if-you-want-different-results-you-have-to-try-different-approaches/) – 6 Jan 2021