How to infiltrate corporate. (pt. 1)

September 16, 2011

STEP #1. Determine your long- and short-term goals.
Your long-term goals should be career directed and can be anything you want - the hell with reason and sensibility. You’ve got the rest of your life to accomplish it:

“I want to be a millionaire by the time I turn 40.”
“I want to visit 100 countries before I die.”
“I want to earn 5,000€ a month from my website.”
“I want to smoke cigars & trade war stories with George Clooney at a Paris café.”

Don’t forget about Plan B.
We will never be 100% in control of our lives. As long as there is ‘society’ there will invariably be laws that outline, thus limit, our freedom; reckless actions of others who refuse to abide by society’s laws such as drunk driving or immigration laws will invariably control our movements. 

You may never be 100% in control of your life, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to control as much of your life as you can.  Well, to the extent that you do not control your actions, you’re effectively letting somebody else control your actions for you.

So how do you control your life as much as possible? By establishing short and long term goals, and setting objectives to obtain them. An objective is a simple mission statement summed up into 1 concise sentence.  It is what will must guide your every thought, decision, and action if you are to achieve your long-term goal. Without objectives, where you end up in life won’t be where you want to be, it will be where somebody else put you. “It’s almost impossible to be successful or get promoted if you don’t set objectives.”
The rules of work, p. 62

So most importantly, you must maintain backup plans for unplanned problems and situations life inevitably throws at you, but you should also pro-actively monitor your industry, job sector, your company and it’s competitors, and the relevant world around you to minimize the impact of the unknown on your future plans.

You should’nt be left standing in front of your former employer holding a pink slip because you’ve been laid off. You should have seen your company inching towards bankruptcy and jumped ship long before everybody else in your company started being laid off.

Now that you’ve established your long-term, now it’s time to break that long-term goal into shorter, easily attainable short-term goals, then break those short-term goals down to shorter, more precise objectives and begin attacking them step-by-step.

Now you can determine your short-term goals.
Your long-term goal guides your career. Your short-term goals divide your long-term goal into smaller steps. Your short-term goals are why the devil is in the details.

Divide your short-term goals into three basic sections:

  • Current projects you’re dealing with right now: the report for your meeting on Friday, the powerpoint presentation due at the end of the month, next month’s rent… These are all deadlines you are currently under. These projects should be kept in your daily agenda which you keep with you.
  • Planned projects being researched, formulated, or considered. Keep this list at your workstation or even as your computer desktop background. That way it’s always in your line of vision.
  • “One day” projects you’d love to take on at some point in the future. Keep this list taped to the wall behind your workstation, that way it’s also always in your line of vision.

Again, a checklist of your current, planned, and “one day” projects should be kept in a prominent location in your work area as a constant reminder.

  1. Define your long-term goal.
  2. Determine the short-term objective(s) needed for your long-term goal.
  3. Determine the steps needed for your short-term objective.
  4. Determine where you are now.

Case Study: The Million Dollar Home Page

 For Alex Tew, 21 years old and sick to death of college loans, the idea was simple: “try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each.”

Six months later, on 11 January 2006, Alex was a millionaire. But if you factor in all the short-term goals Alex had to accomplish to reach his objective.  Further, I’m willing to bet that his Million Dollar Home Page wasn’t a long-term goal, but a short-term goal leading up to a bigger long-term goal.

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