You may not have perfect role clarity in your position. But, do you at least know which of your current tasks you should keep doing?
In my experience, not everyone does, especially if you’re early in your career.
And, that lack of assurance in what you should be doing can chip away at your confidence and slow you down.
And, it can keep you from performing at your best and delivering the results you know you can achieve.
I’ve been in that situation.
But, over the years I’ve learned how to be more confident by focusing on the right tasks and knowing what to keep doing to be successful.
In this post I’ll share with you four simple actions I’ve found useful. Based on my experience, these steps will help you gain the confidence you’re looking for. It’s all part of the journey to create role clarity using five simple questions we’ve been discussing in previous posts.
Question 3 of the 5 simple questions to create role clarity
A few weeks back in the post, How To Create Role Clarity With 5 Simple Questions, I introduced these five questions to help you create more role clarity for yourself, your team, or your organization.
- What Am I Doing?
- What Should I Stop Doing?
- What Should I Keep Doing?
- What Should I Start Doing?
- Who Should Review My Answers?
We covered the first question, “What Am I Doing?” in the post “Build A Strong Foundation For Role Clarity By Knowing Your Tasks.” where you learned you are doing more in your job than you originally realized.
Then in the next post, “How To Discover What You Should Stop Doing.” you hopefully were able to find several tasks you could take off your list. And, you did this without feeling guilty or lazy because you understood that not doing these things was good for you, your teammates, and your organization.
As we explore question three in this post, I trust you will be encouraged to keep doing the things that are most important for your career and for your team’s success.
What are those things you should keep doing?
Here’s how you can identify them with four simple actions.
Four actions to decide what to keep doing
It’s time to pull out the list of all the tasks you are currently doing. If you haven’t created your list, jump over to this post now and build your written list.
You’ll need it to complete these steps to become even more confident in knowing the tasks you should keep doing.
If you’re back and you’ve got your list, go ahead and try out these four actions.
1. Review your performance goals
Your compensation and continued employment are likely dependent on successfully completing the tasks included in your official performance goals. So, you definitely want to keep doing these things. And, keep doing them well!
When you are unsure if you should be doing a task, review your performance goals.
We should all be refreshing ourselves on our goals regularly, but I’m not always diligent to do that. You may not be either. But, when we do review our goals, we can restore our confidence by confirming we are doing the right work.
2. Complete your assigned tasks
Taking this action gives you confidence in continuing to do things you have clearly been told to do even if they aren’t captured in your official goals.
Because your manager has assigned you these tasks, you can be confident that you are expected to do them.
And, you can be encouraged that your manager trusts you to complete these things well.
He or she believes in you so follow their example by also confidently trusting in yourself.
3. Do the work only you can do
Based on the last post, you reviewed your tasks and found work that was not adding value and work that was better done by someone else.
At the same time, I’m sure you identified tasks that added tremendous value and confirmed that you are the best person to do them. These tasks stayed on your list because you are uniquely positioned at this point in your career to own these things.
So, keep doing them with confidence knowing you are contributing to the success of your team in a way no one else can.
4. Stay energized and motivated
What are the things that energize and motivate you at work? There must be at least a few things that inspire you in your current role.
These might be personal development activities you’ve agreed to with your manager and included in a formal individual development plan. Or, they may be things you included on your list of tasks that take your time but aren’t official assignments.
The tasks may not be having an immediate impact on the organization, but they are helping you grow and develop. These investments in yourself are preparing you for the future. And, they are preparing you to contribute in different and bigger ways in new roles.
And, remember. It’s not selfish to do work you enjoy.
Doing tasks that inspire you will not only boost your energy. This action will also boost your confidence. And, confident team members perform at a higher level and deliver better results. Which is, obviously, good for your company.
So, keep doing the tasks that energize and motivate you. And, do them with confidence knowing you are making a strategic investment in yourself and your organization.
Keep doing what you’re doing with confidence
These four actions should bolster your confidence in yourself.
Reviewing your list of tasks and finding important tasks that you’ve been asked to do is a powerful reminder that you were hired for a reason.
You are in your role because you add value to your team and your organization. And, there are jobs that only you can do. Ideally, you are doing many tasks that energize and motivate you on a regular basis.
In other words, you have critical tasks that you should keep doing. And, you can keep doing them with confidence.
But, don’t stop there. You might might want to do even more.
What else might you do?
As you’ve worked through the five questions to increase your role clarity, you’ve identified what you’re doing, you’ve stopped doing some tasks, and now you’re confident in what you should keep doing.
With the reminder of the tremendous value your work is adding to your organization, you may be thinking about what else you might want to start doing to serve your team and your organization.
I hope that’s the case because I’m confident there are some tasks you want to start doing. We’ll talk more about that in the next post and help you discover just what those tasks are.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.
Greg
