Long hours in a Big 4, city law firms and other large firms are often seen as the norm. In fact it can be easy to become so busy that it becomes impossible to stay focused on progressing your career. In this blog post I share an exclusive extract from the 2nd edition of ‘How to make partner and still have a life’ (Click here for a free sample chapter) to help keep yourself focused on progressing your career even when you are overwhelmed with work and people wanting your time.
How to stay focused on your career progression when you are too busy to think
Staying focused on your ultimate career goal of making partner gets pretty tough, when you are so busy that all you can think about is getting through the day (If this hasn’t happened to you yet in your career as a professional adviser, then we can assure you that it will happen at some point!).
However, if you are going to stay on partnership track, then you need to keep plugging away at advancing your career, regardless of how much client work is on your desk at the present time.
Very understandably, when you are ‘too’ busy it can become all too easy to lose sight of your career goals. However, unless you have recently experienced a life-changing event, most people don’t suddenly wake up in the morning and completely change how they work and what they do to remain focused on their end game.
To keep yourself mentally focused on your career progression, you need to build personal routines designed to help you achieve your long-term career objectives, which you then religiously follow daily, weekly and monthly.
These are routines which you build up over time to help keep you personally effective as well as always working towards your personal objectives. It is essential that you learn to do this early in your career.
We have seen numerous professionals fail to make partner because they have not maintained a good enough level of contact with their clients and work-referring contacts. These professionals make the mistake of not thinking about where the next piece of work will come from, or how to progress their career to the next stage, because they only concentrate on the work on their desks.
We are not saying that this is easy but you must learn to do it and then keep doing it.
Take a look at our Self-Study Course – How to Truly Commit to Your Career. If you work steadily through the exercises you will
- Create a career plan which you are motivated and energised to implement
- Create the time and space to do a little on your career plan every week
- Identify how to create habits which will support your career progression going forward
- Set your first ONE BIG FOCUS to focus your career progression for the next 90 days on what really matters
- Learn the tactics required to help you be at your best every single day
Check it out here! https://www.howtomakepartner.com/courses/how-to-truly-commit-to-moving-your-career-forward/
