What is the best career advice you have ever received?

It could be to work hard, do your best, or take every opportunity you get. All of those ideas hold some truth, but there’s much more to think about.

We’ve rounded up some of the best advice from individuals who are wildly successful.

Every Part of Your Work Requires Dedication

The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.

—Brian Tracy

There’s No Easy Way Out

Brian Tracy is an award-winning author who has written many motivational books for personal and professional growth. He believes that every person should give their best in their job, but it should be your best regardless of whether you like a specific task or not.

Every position you hold requires that you do things you dislike. It could be cold calling people, packing away files, or sweeping out your office.

Those kinds of tasks aren’t exciting, and you would probably love your job more if they weren’t part of it. The reality is that you can’t change these activities; you have to do them.

By doing them well, you set an example for others and a benchmark for yourself. It shows that you give your full effort—even for mundane activities.

Stop Complaining

Some people complain constantly about the parts of their job that they dislike. It happens so much that it leaves a sour taste in a person’s mouth. These complaints are usually about the little tasks they don’t want to do.

Complaining won’t change anything. It only teaches your brain to dislike the task even more, resulting in a negative attitude. You won’t get anywhere if that’s the case.

Stop complaining about the job and change your thinking about it. If you get into your dream job, there will still be tasks that you dislike. You can’t do them with a negative attitude.

It’s much better to be positive and attack the task with the same effort and enthusiasm as you have during your favorite work activities.

The Best Mindset

Successful people use a different mindset than those who do poorly or only okay. They think differently, which affects their work effort and makes it easier to do boring and difficult tasks.

You can also adopt this mindset—it will change how you perceive all aspects of your job.

Start by signing up for the Brain-A-Thon, and we will share all the details about the best mindset for success.

Visualize Your Future Career

The strongest factor for success is self-esteem: Believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it.

—John Assaraf

Understand Your Beliefs First

John Assaraf—a motivational speaker, life coach, and neuroscience expert—knows that success doesn’t come from working hard. It comes from doing the work in better ways, and that starts with your thinking.

Every one of us has limiting beliefs that keep us back in life. You have to overcome your limiting beliefs by understanding the impact they have on you.

Simultaneously, you have to create a new system of beliefs and values that can guide you as you do your job. It requires believing in yourself, your potential, and that you are capable of success.

Have a Vision

John Assaraf frequently speaks about the power of visualization. It takes the idea of a vision one step further.

Instead of only coming up with a vision for your career or dream job, you also spend time reflecting on what this would look like in practice.

Visualization allows you to picture your future in such a way that it establishes new neural networks. Your brain becomes so accustomed to your vision that it motivates you to do everything in your power to make it come true.

Imagine Your Life Through the Careers of Others

Many people could have followed the career path you intend on using. They could have become an entrepreneur, engineer, teacher, or artist.

Do some research to see how they achieved their dreams, and use these lessons for your career. Make their actions part of your visualization process and imagine yourself doing them successfully.

Be Critical About Feedback

When you look back at anything, in hindsight, it no longer has a negative connotation. It is now something that happened for you, to make you the person that you are today.

—Natasha Grano

Everything You Do Creates Feedback

At every stage of your career, you will get feedback. It happens from the time you start as an intern and lasts even if you become an entrepreneur.

Natasha Grano, an influencer and social media expert, knows this well. She used every bit of critique as an influencer and through working with various brands so that she could become the best version of herself.

The Law of Attraction is a big part of Grano’s beliefs. If you think negatively in your career, you will attract negativity. If you think positively, you attract positive critiques and successes.

Think Before You Speak

When you get feedback, it’s normal to want to react immediately. You want to be ready with a response to seem like a good communicator and efficient at your job.

It helps to take a moment and think carefully about the feedback before you even open your mouth to respond.

Start by considering who is giving you the feedback. Are they qualified to comment on this topic? Do they know what you’ve done up to this stage? Are they trying to break you down or build you up?

Once you understand where the other person is coming from, decide whether the feedback really applies to you. Only then should you respond in a way that fits the circumstances.

Hear More From Successful People

There are many people who achieve their version of success. It could be to have a certain job title or to own their own business.

What do you classify as career success?

Come join us at the Brain-A-Thon where top brain experts discuss success and how you can achieve it by thinking differently.

Do a Career Check-in Frequently

Most people unconsciously dream themselves out of their goals. They dream so far past their current reality—or what’s currently possible—that they end up abandoning their goals and damaging their own self-esteem.

—Lisa Nichols

Reflect on the Present and the Future

Lisa Nichols became an entrepreneur and motivational speaker because she constantly questioned how her current actions would help her in the future. She thought about what success meant to her and adjusted her strategy to chase her dreams.

There’s a reason companies do performance reviews for employees. They want to ensure that team members are meeting their goals and staying in line with the organizational vision.

This same idea should apply to your life. If you constantly dream about your career but never take action, then you won’t get anywhere. Your dreams will turn into fairy dust, and you could become so disheartened that you don’t think about them anymore.

Take Action

Check in with yourself regularly about your career dreams and how you are getting closer to them. Think about what you have done to make your dreams a reality, and consider whether the steps you committed to previously were done.

Your dreams will stay dreams if you don’t work toward them.

As you think about your present reality and where you want to be in the future, come up with some more actionable steps that you can take. Then, commit to turning them into achievable milestones and schedule time daily to get them done.

Become a Problem Solver

Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions.

—Tony Robbins

Find the Opportunity in Problems

Philanthropist and life coach, Tony Robbins, knows that success doesn’t come automatically. It only happens by putting in the necessary effort and solving every problem.

Throughout your career, you will experience many problems or obstacles. Some are small, others are big, but you have to address all of them to move forward.

As soon as a problem presents itself, commit to spending only a small portion of your time fretting about it. Then, shift your focus toward finding a solution. Spend your time on this much more than on stressing about the issue.

Learn From Every Challenge

With every problem comes a lesson; you need to search for it.

Usually, a problem arises because there was something that went wrong or that you didn’t anticipate. You need to learn from the problem, which you already do simply by finding a solution.

Use these lessons to help you do better in your career. Use your problem-solving strategies and tenacity to motivate you when you face your next obstacle.

Get Career Advice From the Pros

There’s been a lot of talk about having the right mindset and changing your thinking. Those can feel impossible to achieve, especially if you’ve been stuck in a rut for some time.

At the Brain-A-Thon, we will help you to overcome these issues and teach you the best thinking and mindset strategies.

This knowledge will come straight from some of the top brain experts (including John Assaraf and Lisa Nichols) in the world, so you know it will be a success.