Ten Signs You're More Successful Than You Think

Dear Liz,

My career was going great for six years and then I hit a wall.
My company split into two units and my job was dramatically downgraded last September. They left my paycheck the same but the job itself has become a dead-end job.
It's obvious they only left me in my job so they didn't have to lay me off after six years. That was nice of my boss but it's not a long-term solution.
The new role is going nowhere and I don't even have a full day's work to do.
It's not good for my career for me to stay here.
I am job-hunting now but feeling very depleted by all the chaos of the last year.
My old CEO who was my champion quit suddenly last summer and that's when everything in my company started going south.
Before that everything was going great. I have a one-bedroom condo that I bought for a good price during the recession. I drive an ancient car but at least it runs.
I just feel very disappointed and discouraged because of what happened to my job. I don't feel like a success at all.
When I was younger I would have thought I'd be more successful at age 35 than I am.
What am I doing wrong?

Thanks Liz -
Shawn


And the Reply,

Dear Shawn,

You aren't doing anything wrong but you are paying too much attention to the wrong things.
Whether you have an amazing job, an impressive home or a fancy car is not as important as whether you are able to deal with the curve balls life throws at you.
Of course your mojo fuel tank is nearly empty! Your working life was disrupted in a massive way. Your mind and body need time to recover.

Don't confuse a Mojo Drop like the one you're experiencing now with career failure. Everybody runs into roadblocks and obstacles. It comes with the territory when you're a working person, especially now that long-term employment has gone the way of the dinosaurs.
You are starting a big project — your stealth job search — and your confidence is probably a little shaky. That's normal!

The more research you conduct, the more time you spend thinking about your path and your goals, the more time you spend working on your Human-Voiced Resume and deciding how to brand yourself, and the more you network the more quickly your mojo will return.
You got knocked down. Now you're getting up again. You're regrouping for a new challenge — one that you are more than capable of surmounting!

Here are ten signs you're more successful than you might think you are:

1. If you know or are on the road to figuring out how you can make enough money to stay alive, you are successful. The more you know about your own income-generating potential, the more successful you are. If you have a great job right now but no idea what you'd do if the job disappeared, you cannot consider yourself successful as a new-millennium working person — because you are too vulnerable to changing circumstances in that case.

2. If you know what you love to do and what you're good at, you are successful. You are less successful if you let other people — bosses, in particular — tell you what your career path should be.

3. You are successful if you have been knocked down by fate once or twice and have bounced back. The real world is not going to stop surprising us. We all need to grow muscles to be able to handle adversity. Your ability to deal with the ups and downs of your life and career is your power!

4. You are successful if you take responsibility for your life and career. If you blame your problems on other people or the Big Bad World in general, then you are still working to become successful. Successful people know they are not victims of fate. They take control of their own lives!

5. If you get the learning out of every mishap and misstep on your path, you are successful. If you complain about every negative thing that happens to you and never see your part in disappointments or frustrations, you have a ways to go.

6. If you understand that every step along your path brought you to this place and therefore needed to happen, you are successful. If you waste your precious mojo worrying about things you did or didn't do years ago, you are squandering the most precious fuel you've got.

7. If you keep trying things even when you're tired and discouraged, you are successful. If you give up and tell yourself and the world "This is too hard, and anyway I don't deserve more than I have right now" you are still seeking success.

8. You are successful if you find joy in little things and celebrate every triumph, even when other things in your life aren't going well.

9. You are successful when you remember that the point of life is the journey, not the destination.

10. You are successful when you have people around you who support and love you and vice versa.
You have everything you need to rock your job search and find a job that uses your talents even more than your old job did.

You get to brand yourself however it suits you. You get to choose which employers and which jobs to go after.
All the big choices are yours! You are the star and director of your movie. The rest of us are cheering you on!

All the best,
Liz

Liz Ryan is CEO/founder of Human Workplace and author of Reinvention Roadmap. Follow her on Twitter and read Forbes columns.
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