Being mediocre before being great

Do you have an ambition to be a top performer in your job? Do you have a hero who you want to be like when you grow up?

I have an ambition to be a top performer in my job. I have a picture in my mind of what success will look like, gleaned from reading and looking at leaders around me. Someday, I say to myself, I’ll be able to provide trusted advice on technical direction that improves the productivity of an entire department. Someday, I’ll be able to deliver a talks or write blog posts about my work that inspire and motivate others, and provide value to their careers. This is a vision of greatness.

However, before I can be great, I must be mediocre. The thing about picturing great success is it doesn’t tell me how to get there. I need to break down an ambitious and, to be honest, at times overwhelming, goal into manageable steps. I need to build the discipline to get stuff done. I need to be okay with failure and mistakes.

I’ve already taken some career steps:

  • I used my performance review as an opportunity to ask for a raise in writing. After listening to Kalzumeus Podcast Episode 12: Salary Negotiation with Josh Doody, I realize there are a few things I can do better next time, but it was a good first step.
  • I participated in my first story mapping/story authoring session. This is an agile practice for gathering user requirements in the form of a flow-chart-like diagram.
  • I started sending weekly updates to my boss. These detail my progress on company objectives and the general sprint work. See: Selling Yourself: How by John Sonmez.

By themselves, these steps don’t turn me into a software developer guru, but they are a step in that direction.

Comments are closed.