7 wауѕ to turn уоur сurrеnt jоb tо your dream job

Do you have aspirations that go beyond the role or title that you have today?

For most of us, our career is a journey. Gone are the days of getting one job and holding it for fifty years, patiently waiting for scheduled promoted and pay raises. Few people expect to be at the same company they’re at 10 years from now, which on one hand, is a good thing. People are always looking ahead, striving for more, and looking for new opportunities.

But on the other hand, all this looking ahead can make it hard to engage with the job you’ve got right now. And if you have not engaged in the job you have now, well, how likely is it that you’re investing the kind of energy and focus that will propel you forward into the dream job you want?

Every role is a learning opportunity. But if you spend all your time daydreaming about founding a company or working from home, it’s easy to forget that those things don’t come easy – they come to the people who work hard enough to get the opportunity to do them successfully.

You need to learn how to identify your goals and make incredible progress on them today – not in some distant, future, someday role – but today. Your current job is the best opportunity you have right now to grow your career. Are you investing in it?

It is possible and in fact, it’s necessary. If you want to be crazy successful, you can’t start working towards it tomorrow. If you want to have a dream job, the time to start working towards it is now.

Success means different things to different people. You can’t have everything. You just want the things that matter to you. May be that’s a title, may be that’s a company, may be that’s a salary…you have to find the formula that really means something to you, so you can know it when you get it.

To know how to make your current job work for you, and not just be a random bullet point on your resume, you need to know where it’s taking you.

A dream job is one that fulfills you and puts your strength to good use. If you’re in a field you enjoy but don’t yet hold the job you want, here are seven things you can do to turn your current job into the one of your dreams.

The following are ways to turn your current job to your dream job and be very successful;

1. Find your niche

What do you do better than anyone else? What are people in need of, that they find valuable, that you can offer them?

Your niche is where you truly shine. May be it’s the thing you love to do, but finding your niche isn’t quite the same as pursuing your passion. You don’t have to eat, sleep, and breathe your niche or have it be the thing that jolts you out of bed every morning for it to guide a truly successful career.

Instead, you need to think of yourself like a business. What are you great at, and where is a market that needs your skills?

2. Get really good at what matters.

Every job has lots of elements. You might be an engineer, but you don’t just code on one thing all day long. You spend time in meetings, you send emails, you probably have a couple projects you could be working on in any given day.

It’s up to you to prioritize your time and effort on the things that really matter for your career. For example, if you want to be a manager, spending all day at your desk coding isn’t necessarily the best way to get there. A manager needs to be a good communicator and leader, so finding opportunities to practice those skills and get on everyone’s radar is critical.

Not all tasks have equal weight. If you can only do 5 things each day, make sure you are picking the 5 that are really moving you forward and not just spending your time.

If you want to be really sure what matters, you can’t just guess. The best way to find out is to talk to people, start with your manager, and then talk to the superstars on your team. Talk to people who have had your role in the past, who have since been promoted.

3.Find your path

One thing the most successful people have in common somewhere in their career, at least once, they did something on their own. They stepped off the beaten path and tried something – whether it was jumping industries, teaching a class, speaking at a conference, or starting a side project with someone inspiring.

Finding the path to crazy success usually means proactively jumping out if the day-to-day. Crazy success isn’t handed out on a platter, if it were, everyone would be crazy successful, right? It takes a willingness to do a little extra work, take a risk, start something, met with someone, study something that everyone else doesn’t do. It often takes nights and weekends spent, not doing work email, but pursuing greatness in something that matters.

4. Surround yourself with greatness

Are you spending time with people who lift you up? Or are you comparing yourself to people who do the bare minimum? To be truly successful in your current job or turn the job you have now into your dream job and be successful, you always need to be holding yourself up and aligning yourself with people who are pursuing the highest standard.

5. Do things outside of your normal scope

Let your manager see you in the role you want, not just the one you have. Volunteer for key projects, important initiatives, and look for ways to create greater impact than your job description.

6. Nurture relationships

Become the go-to person in your company be developing strong relationships with decision makers. Be sure to let your preferences for new responsibilities be known. Others can always find people who may know the technical aspects of how to do your job, but you want them to think of, pick, or recommend you for key roles because of the way you build and nurture relationships inside your team and across the organization.

7. Be innovative in your position

Strive to constantly grow and discover nuances in your field. Attend events and conferences, join associations, and put yourself in opportunities to meet interesting people, then bring those insights, and relationships to your office. Always develop a personal and professional growth road map.