Develop your edge

- Have you ever been around someone who's confident, deals with challenges like a professional, adapts well in a surprising situations, has a great positive energy, and really gets things done? That person most definitely has a unique edge and knows how to make an impact. Developing your edge in a professional capacity will help you to stand out from the crowd and create your unique professional image and personal brand.

Creating your own unique edge starts with developing a mindset for success. What I found while I was conducting research into what it takes to create psychological edge is there are six pillars that contribute to enhancing resilience, your performance, and ultimately your professional image. These pillars make up the resilience edge framework. What are the six pillars of creating an edge? Confidence.

This is all about playing to your strengths and practicing new skills. You are in control of building your confidence. It won't happen on its own. Focusing on developing your unique skills and talents, and enhancing your self-belief will boost your confidence. Adaptability. In your new role, you'll be learning new skills and you'll be acclimatizing in a new and potentially very different culture. There's no doubt you'll have to adapt to new situations and increasing your psychological flexibility is one of the key factors that will help you enhance your performance at work.

Positivity. A positive outlook will help you to build relationships and rise to the challenge, viewing difficult situations as an experience to learn from. Understanding how you use your limited time and energy to get the most out of your working life and make the biggest impact will help you to build your professional image. Perspective. Seeking out different perspectives and seeing challenges from alternative points of view, will enhance your creativity and the ability to find innovative solutions for business issues.

This will also help you to build strong and collaborative relationships, a key skill organizations are looking for. Mastery. Focusing on mastering your role in getting better at what you do will enable you to reach goals, build your professional image, and create results for the business. Focusing on career goals will keep you progressing in your career. Stamina. You're at the start of your career right now.

So understanding you will experience ups and downs throughout your career. And creating a strategy to help you continuously improve will set you off on the right foot. Finding support to help you on your journey, whether that be a mentor, a career club, peers, family or friends, will help you to keep on track dealing with challenges that come you way. Enhancing your resilience is one of the most powerful tools you can use to help you in your transition into a new role.

Ultimately, you want to create your unique edge to stand out from the crowd, and start carving out your career. Developing a mindset that helps you do this, is the first step. As much as what we do and how we behave at work is driven by how we think and how we process information and thoughts cognitively. If you want to create career success right from the start of your career, it's essential that you focus on developing your personal success mindset, focusing on the pillars of success.

Which of these six pillars stands out for you as an area you're comfortable with? Which of these pillars is an are you'd like to develop and enhance your professional image?