8 costly career mistakes you are making

Speaking of career mistakes, there are simple mistakes that people make that could either cost them a great promotion or could even go as far as costing them their dream job.

Here are some of the costly career mistakes that you may be making and why you should avoid them.

1.Downplaying your successes

Do not downplay your successes at work but do not be corky about your successes either. You can subtly make sure that you get credit where it is due for a job well done. For instance, if you are in the media industry and video that you and your team worked on went viral then you can mention how many people shared that video and how much traction it got.

You not only take note of you and your team’s success but at the same time it shows the value that has been added to the company.

2.Not expanding your network

The need to expand your network is not something new and a lot of graduates or soon to be graduates have been taught the importance of having good connections whenever they need to get a job.

What a lot of employees do wrong however, is forget that they need to continue networking even after they secure a job.

That is how sponsors are acquired and it helps in acquisition of more knowledge to further yourself.

Basically you should never find yourself in a situation where you are not learning something new.

3.Being scared to speak your mind

Do not be afraid to air out your opinions on matters.

In order to be successful in your career, you need to be able to speak up and offer suggestions otherwise you will just be another employee in the company that frankly does not add any value.

This could cost you your job.

4.Spending too much time in meetings

Meetings are great for discussing important matters that affect a company and to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Spending too much time in these meetings however could cause someone to underperform since you lose a lot of time to focus on projects and conduct adequate research to complete a particular task.

Do not be afraid to say no to a meeting that you know will take some time off of what you need to do to accomplish a task.

5.Being too comfortable

You may be very good at what you do but that does not mean that you should not strive to expand your horizons.

Try something new so that you do not lose motivation to work which could eventually cause your performance to suffer.

6.Complaining too much and too often

Complaints are inevitable and common in any workplace but if you are the one that always has something negative to say about everything people are going to start viewing you some type of way.

Try address certain issues you may be having at your company privately with your boss rather than complaining during meetings.

Also give it some time for a complaint to be solved before complaining again.

7.You’re too competitive with others and not yourself

Unhealthy competition in the workplace, such as always trying to have one up on your co-worker other than working together, can stagnate progress in your career.

There is room for everyone to succeed and the best way to do that is to uplift each other and working together.

Instead of competing with them try competing with yourself by giving yourself targets to achieve in order to avoid stagnation. Find ways to make yourself better.

8.You apologize too much

Stop apologizing for asking for help. Stop apologizing for requesting something of your co-workers.

Stop apologizing too much – unless you have offended someone of which apologizing once usually does the trick.