Young people typically have a reputation of being unreliable and lazy. Your reputation has a huge impact on the opportunities you create for yourself, so differentiating yourself in this aspect is key to jumpstarting your career.
A reputation is not a carefully crafted façade built around how you want people to view you. It is a natural, genuine perception that people develop about you based on the actions you consistently take.
Building a solid reputation does not require caring about what people think of you. In fact, it requires the opposite.
By making a conscious choice to be hyper-reliable, you are choosing to value your own personal development above people’s perception of you.
You are making the choice, not to be known as the person who gets shit done, but to consistently get shit done.
You are making the choice, not to be known as the person whom people trust, but to consistently be honest.
You are making the choice, not to be known as the person who communicates well, but to consistently communicate well.
Socrates said, “Be as you wish to seem.”
Your reputation is a direct reflection of your actions. Don’t build your reputation – be it. The reputation will follow, and so will the opportunities.
It is an art. And it starts with being hyper-reliable.
Hyper-reliability is not a talent. It’s a willingness to put in effort.
Here are some practical tips to begin crafting yourself professionally:
Organization
If you aren’t organized in your own life, you won’t be able to be organized with other people. People want to work with organized people. They want to know that you won’t let things slip through the cracks.
Start by organizing your digital life. If you haven’t already, create a predictable, uniform system to organize your pictures, documents, videos, and any other files.
If your email is out of control, archive everything and start from scratch. As you check your email throughout the day, go through every email and unsubscribe or label it accordingly.
Develop a system for keeping track of your tasks. Here are some helpful tools:
– Evernote – note-taking and sharing
– Trello – categories and checklists
– Asana – checklists good for team tasks
– Google Drive – Mobile documents and spreadsheets
– A Journal – tactile note-taking
I currently use a combination of two different journals (one personal and one professional), Google Drive, and Trello.
It may take some trial and error before you get a repeatable system that works, but start by creating something. You can adjust after you test it out.
By organizing your own life first, you are clearing mental space for more important matters, and practicing attention to detail.
Be Efficient
Think about all the details, but be brief and concise in your communication. Don’t add any unnecessary fluff sentences, thoughts, or streams of consciousness in your emails or texts. Think through messages before you send them.
For each sentence, ask yourself: “Is this necessary? Can I leave this out and still communicate the thing I’m trying to get across?
The goal is to communicate exactly what you need to communicate in the fewest amount of words. Stick to the point.
Over-Communicate
When someone is relying on you to complete a task, assume that they are just a tiny bit worried won’t follow through.
This does not mean you should email someone every time you have a question. This means that when you do have the need to communicate with someone, go into the details and ensure you don’t miss a beat.
Over-communicate in quality, not quantity.
This will give you the impression that you should go over all the details when communicating without overdoing it too much.
People will notice that you’re taking the time to think through the options. You will quickly develop trust because people will see that you’re on top of the situation.
If you are on top of it but you don’t communicate your results, nobody will notice, leading to the same questions they’d have if you weren’t doing anything in the first place. That’s when people begin to worry a little bit more
Be Effective
Before you send a message or ask for help, try to solve the problem first. Invest 5 minutes in thinking creatively about how you can find the resources on your own and create a solution that works.
If, after you’ve thought critically about the problem, there is a clear bottleneck that requires somebody else’s input or resources, then go ahead. But be organized and stay efficient.
Keeping these 4 points in mind will turn you into a reliable badass. Over time, your trust bank will continue to build.
They will trust you because you are genuinely honest. You will be the person people go to when something needs to get done, because you will be someone who gets shit done.