22 tiny habits that will transform your career in 6 months:

This is a bold claim.

Let’s dig in.

When you think about habits and career progression for over 250+ hours you start to see patterns in life, work, and wealth.

Patterns that are guided by primal behaviours and not so much the skills.

Your 200,000+ year-old brain doesn’t work off a Windows or MacOS.

It works off your habitsOS.

Habits are your acceleration and brake pedal.

Skills are your steering wheel.

One of the most powerful tools you can use to achieve anything you want is to understand The Habit Loop.

If you haven’t read the brain-busting book Atomic Habits by James Clear.

You should.

It dives deep into the science of why habits are key to life.

If you have, well done!

The internet is flooded with posts about habits for health, wealth, and happiness.

However, it’s difficult to find a list of science-backed habits that help you:

• accelerate your career

• and earn you a fat pay rise

Here they are 👇🏼

22 Habits for Career Acceleration

1. Networking:

   • Description: Building professional relationships to open up opportunities.

   • Cue: Build a relationship at work or on LinkedIn.

   • Response: Introduce yourself to at least three new people and ask them interested questions about their work.

   • Reward: Expanding your professional network and potential collaborations.
     

2. Courage:

   • Description: Embracing challenges outside your comfort zone.

   • Cue: Encountering a daunting project or tough situation.

   • Response: Commit to doing it despite your reservations.

   • Reward: Personal growth, skill development, and increased confidence.
     

3. Productivity:

   • Description: Prioritizing high-impact tasks for maximum effectiveness.

   • Cue: Start of each workday.

   • Response: Identify and focus on the most critical task for the day.

   • Reward: Treat yourself 🥳.
     

4. Deep Work:

   • Description: Dedicated, undistracted time for focused, high-quality work.

   • Cue: Start of workday turning off email and message notifications.

   • Response: Block a specific time in your calendar for deep work.

   • Reward: Completing high-value work that moves the needle for your career progression.
     

5. Journaling:

   • Description: Reflect on challenges, meetings and presentations to dump your thoughts.

   • Cue: Before the start or at the end of your workday.

   • Response: Write down your thoughts, all of them don’t hold back. Pick out the golden nuggets from your noisy mind.

   • Reward: Increased self-awareness.
     

6. First Principles Thinking:

   • Description: Breaking down complex problems into fundamental truths for innovative solutions.

   • Cue: Encountering a challenging problem.

   • Response: Identify the core principles underlying the issue.

   • Reward: Novel and effective problem-solving approaches.
     

7. Second-Order Effects Thinking:

   • Description: Considering the long-term consequences of decisions.

   • Cue: Making a strategic decision.

   • Response: Evaluate the potential second and third-order effects.

   • Reward: Making more informed and forward-thinking choices.
     

8. Inversion Thinking:

   • Description: Identifying and eliminating potential pitfalls by thinking backwards from the desired outcome.

   • Cue: Considering options for a critical decision.

   • Response: Consider potential obstacles by imagining the opposite scenario.

   • Reward: Making decisions with reduced risks and increased foresight.
     

9. Optionality:

   • Description: Taking opportunities and making decisions that open up more opportunities down the line.

   • Cue: When faced with an important choice.

   • Response: Consider your options and select the one that provides greater options down the line.

   • Reward: A broader range of career opportunities.
     

10. Boundary Setting:

    • Description: Establish clear boundaries so you can work on high-value tasks.

    • Cue: Feeling overwhelmed with work demands / Manager loading too much work on you.

    • Response: Say this, “If I say yes to this (new task/project), what am I saying no to?”

    • Reward: Improved well-being, reduced stress, and increased capacity.
      

11. Effective Communication:

    • Description: Honing both verbal and written communication skills for clarity.

    • Cue: Sending emails, prep for meetings and presentations.

    • Response: Write and speak so a 10-year-old could understand. Always ask yourself, “Is my message as clear and simple as possible?”

    • Reward: Greater influence on the people around you. More buy-in from key decision-makers.
      

12. Giving Effective Updates:

    • Description: Regularly sharing progress and accomplishments for increased visibility.

    • Cue: Weekly team meetings.

    • Response: Use this outline:

      • Here's what you asked me to do.

      • Here's what I did.

      • Here are the risks/blockers (if any).

      • If given more time, I'd do this…

    • Reward: Recognition and sustaining positive visibility in your decision-maker’s mind.
      

13. Working on High Visibility Projects:

    • Description: Contributing to projects aligned with organizational goals.

    • Cue: Identifying strategic initiatives within the company.

    • Response: Volunteer to join or lead a high-impact project.

    • Reward: Increased recognition, potentially leading to promotions or new opportunities.
      

14. Problem Hunting:

    • Description: Proactively finding areas and systems within your team and company that can be improved.

    • Cue: Observing inefficiencies in current processes.

    • Response: Investigate the root causes and propose solutions.

    • Reward: Improved team efficiency and recognition for problem-solving.
      

15. Speaking in 3s:

    • Description: Structuring communication in sets of three for enhanced retention and impact.

    • Cue: Preparing for a team presentation or meeting.

    • Response: Organize key points in groups of three for clarity

      • Read this.

    • Reward: Increased influence and buy-in from your manager and team.
      

16. Persuasion:

    • Description: Learning the art of persuasion by understanding your audience.

    • Cue: Convincing stakeholders to adopt a new idea.

    • Response: Figure out what the person in front of you wants. Tailor your approach to show them how you can help them get it directly or indirectly.

    • Reward: Successfully gaining the support of key decision-makers.
      

17. Leadership:

    • Description: Taking initiative, leading yourself and supporting your team.

    • Cue: Identifying a gap in your team’s morale or productivity.

    • Response: Support people individually, listen deeply and understand their POV.

    • Reward: Enhanced team cohesion and a positive work environment - desired traits considered for promotion.
      

18. Growth Mindset:

    • Description: Embracing challenges as opportunities for learning.

    • Cue: Encountering a difficult task or setback.

    • Response: Approach the challenge with a mindset focused on learning and improvement. Tell yourself, “I haven’t figured it out, yet.”

    • Reward: Personal growth and increased resilience.
      

19. Time Management:

    • Description: Efficiently managing your time utilising for high-importance work.

    • Cue: Beginning of the workweek.

    • Response: Schedule time blocks into your calendar for high-priority tasks and strategic activities. Avoids people booking time-wasting meetings with you.

    • Reward: Increased productivity and a sense of control over your schedule.
      

20. Building a Personal Brand:

    • Description: Building your image at work and online as a thought leader. Being known as the person who can make things happen.

    • Cue: Any moment that calls for your opinion and integrity.

    • Response: Showcase your expertise through thought leadership, LinkedIn, and networking.

    • Reward: Enhanced professional reputation and increased visibility.
      

21. Solutions-Oriented Approach:

    • Description: Always present solutions when raising problems.

    • Cue: Identifying a challenge, issue, or obstacle at work.

    • Response: Instead of just pointing out the problem, propose 3 practical options to solve the problem.

    • Reward: Recognition for proactive problem-solving and improved team momentum.
      

22. 5 Levers Thinking:

    • Description: Analyzing problems and opportunities by considering five key company levers (Cash, Assets, Profit, Growth, People).

    • Cue: When faced with decisions and solving challenges.

    • Response: Evaluate how your decision or solution will impact each lever in a positive way.

    • Reward: Developing holistic and impactful solutions to complex problems.

With every habit, consistency is the key.

Pick 2 of these and practice them for a month.

Apply them every day at work and notice what happens.

Slowly add another 4 habits to your workday each month over the next 5 months.

That’s a wrap.

Please share your results with me, I’d love to hear your experience.

Message me here: [email protected]