You Should Never Ever Sacrifice Any of These 5 Areas of Your Life for Work

Personal success author Napoleon Hill once said, “Great achievement is usually born of sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.” Even mega-hit songstress Beyoncé Knowles said, “Power means hard work and sacrifice.”

Perhaps your parents or someone else once told you that you had to sacrifice to get ahead. Many people believe that.

According to CareerBuilder, 38 percent of people surveyed continued to work after they left the office. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2014, about half of top executives in businesses of all sizes worked more than 40 hours per week. While it may be correct that success takes hard work, your life outside of work should not be sacrificed. To be successful, you must ensure that the following areas of your life also receive your full attention.


The five areas never to sacrifice are:1. Health.

If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything, so taking care of your body should be your number one priority. It is easy to let the everyday stress and struggles creep into what should be your health time. Stress has a tendency to come on gradually, therefore it may be hard to notice, but once the symptoms arrive, they are impossible to ignore. Set up a healthy routine and keep it consistent. Include daily exercise, healthy meals and snacks, and some fun time after work. And don’t neglect your annual check-ups.


2. Family.
According to New Jersey divorce and family law attorney Bari Z. Weinberger, work stress and obligations are one of the top five reasons for divorce. “When one or both spouses have demanding, all-encompassing jobs, this can, over time, lessen or sever the bond that originally brought them together,” she said. Create separate work and home life hours, and once you get home focus on reconnecting with your family. Set your electronic devices aside and set aside some time to talk and share a meal or an activity together.

3. Interests.
Many of us allow ourselves to be identified by the work we do, however, work should be a percentage of who we really are and not the whole. Be sure to develop interests outside of work, like hobbies, sports, travel and family activities, for example. Keep your mind and body active. This will help you reduce stress and return to work refreshed, and you’ll have something other than work to talk about at the next business function or cocktail party. 

4. Relationships.

The relationships you build throughout your career are yours, not your employers, and need to be nurtured in order to remain active and healthy. Make time to call or email some of your key clients or customers, or set aside a day a week to enjoy lunch together.

5. Integrity.

Stick to what you believe, no matter what, and ensure that your actions match your beliefs. If someone asks you to do something that might jeopardize your morals or integrity, decline and consider whether you want to remain in a relationship with this person. The stress that results from working outside your boundaries can be considerable.

It is easy to let work overwhelm you; what is difficult is making the conscious decisions to ensure a well-rounded life. But the payoff is well worth the trouble. No man ever proclaimed on his deathbed that he wished he had spent more time on his business.

Science Has Discovered Why Some Persons Are Motivated to Succeed While Others Aren't

There are mornings when I look over my to-do-list and just keep staring blankly at it. Instead of getting to work, I keep checking my inbox, news feed, and making a fresh cup of green tea. Then I notice the dirty dishes in the kitchen.

I get the dishes cleaned up, but there are also those clothes sitting on the chair from last night, so I quickly get those hung up.

Next thing I know, I’ve just wasted two hours of my morning.

Of course a friend calls and tells me everything they accomplished in their morning. It sounds like they’ve done more than the average person does in an entire day -- and sometimes I realize that what they got done could take me a week.

What’s the deal? At first I wondered if I was just lazy? Maybe those others are just exceptional individuals. Or -- is it something else entirely?

Motivation: It’s all in your head.

Science has found that the source of motivation comes from the part of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens. It’s in the small section where neurotransmitters send chemical messages to the rest of your body. It’s these neurotransmitters that keep us alert, focused, and that part of the brain influences things like completing a project or going to the gym.

When it comes specifically to motivation, one of the most important neurotransmitters is dopamine.

Dopamine is one of the chemical signals that passes information from one neuron to the next. When dopamine is released from the first neuron, it floats between the empty space (the synapse) between the first and second neuron. As it moves between neurons, it bumps against various receptors.

"Dopamine helps bridge what scientists call psychological distance,” explains John Salamone, Ph.D., the head of the Behavioral Neuroscience Division at the University of Connecticut. "Say you're sitting at home on your couch in your pajamas, thinking you really should exercise, for example. Dopamine is what enables you to make the decision to be active."

But, here’s where things can get complicated. When it comes to motivation, dopamine has to take the mesolimbic pathway. This is essentially from the middle of the brain to the cerebral cortex. Without getting too scientific, this process seems to be the most rewarding pathway in the brain.

That’s because during this journey, one of the most important stops is the nucleus accumbens. When there’s a surplus of dopamine in this space it triggers feedback for predicting rewards.

In other words, when your brain recognizes that something important is about go down, and it's a good move for you, dopamine starts to kick-in.

Dopamine: It’s just not about pleasure.

Since dopamine is released before we ever receive a reward, it’s real job is to encourage us to act. It motivates us to achieve, while avoiding something bad.

What’s interesting is that when we think of dopamine, we associate it with pleasure. However, it’s been found that dopamine also spikes during moments of stress, pain, or loss -- it carries us through those episodes.

To verify this phenomon, a team of scientists at Vanderbilt conducted a brain imaging study that compared the brains of “go-getters” and “slackers.”

The team found that the “go-getters” had higher levels of dopamine in the reward and motivation portions of the brain -- which is the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

The “slackers” had a higher level of dopamine in the part of the brain that’s associated with emotion and risk -- the anterior insula.

“Past studies in rats have shown that dopamine is crucial for reward motivation,” said Dr. Michael Treadway. “But this study provides new information about how dopamine determines individual differences in the behavior of human reward-seekers.”

“Low levels of dopamine make people and other animals less likely to work for things, so it has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself,” adds the University of Connecticut researcher, John Salamone.

How to harness the power of dopamine to get more done.

First things first. You will need to identify the three primary sources of resistance to getting things done. Touching very lightly on this, these primary sources are: “I have to,” “I don’t feel right about this,” and “I can’t do this.”

Combat sources of resistance.

To combat these sources of resistance, look for solutions. Don’t allow yourself to think about what you want to get done in terms of  something you “have to do.” Begin thinking and helping yourself to believe in terms of getting your work done because you “choose to” or “want to” accomplish these items or activities.

Start aligning tasks with your values. Don’t be afraid of failure. After all, practice makes perfect. After you’ve identified these factors, you can start rethinking your thought process to get yourself motivated.

But, how can you get the dopamine flowing?

You can begin to get the dopamine flowing better by setting incremental goals. When you complete a step, dopamine will due to the brain’s positive reinforcement.

Other actions to try that will help you with your efforts:

• Record and celebrate your small wins.
  This could be crossing-off an item from you to-do-list or tracking your progress. It’s effective since it shows that you’re working your way towards a goal.

• Single-tasking.
  Instead of multitasking, focus on one thing at a time. This prevents you from depleting your brain’s energy. Since you have more energy, you’ll get more done. And when you’re productive, dopamine is released.

• Exceed your expectations.
  "When something feels better than expected, dopamine sends a signal to your brain that says, 'You need to figure out how to make it happen again,'" says Treadway.

• Focus on the end-game.
  A study out of the University of Michigan discovered that results-driven focus can motivate people to complete their work.

• Help others.
  “Neuroscience has demonstrated that giving is a powerful pathway for creating more personal joy and improving overall health,” writes Eva Ritvo, M.D. As a result, dopamine is triggered. Even if you’re not volunteering or sharing your knowledge, think about how your work is going to positively affect others.

• Share your results.
  When you tell others about you accomplishments, you'll receive praise and recognition from your friends, family, or colleagues.

• Change your diet.
  Eating foods containing natural probiotics is a quick way to kick-in dopamine, such as yogurt. You should also eat and drink items that contain L-tyrosine, such as apples, avocados, bananas, green leafy vegetables, peanuts, green tea, and coffeed.

• Turn setbacks around.
  "You're going to go off track sometime -- everyone does. But that can provide valuable information on how to change what you're doing so you'll be successful next time around, "says Sona Dimidjian, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Conclusion

Even though it may appear that others more motivated than you are, you can change that feeling around by life-hacking your dopamine. The easiest, and most effective, ways to do this is by tracking your progress incrementally and receiving positive feedback.

Once you do, you’ll be just as motivated as those whom you are perceiving as the successful “go-getters.”

How Complaining Can Configure Your Brain for Negativity

Research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation. Complaining is tempting because it feels good, but like many other things that are enjoyable -- such as smoking or eating a pound of bacon for breakfast -- complaining isn’t good for you.

Your brain loves efficiency and doesn’t like to work any harder than it has to. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch out to each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat that behavior in the future -- so easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you’re doing it.

You can’t blame your brain. Who’d want to build a temporary bridge every time you need to cross a river? It makes a lot more sense to construct a permanent bridge. So, your neurons grow closer together, and the connections between them become more permanent. Scientists like to describe this process as, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

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Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make future complaining more likely. Over time, you find it’s easier to be negative than to be positive, regardless of what’s happening around you. Complaining becomes your default behavior, which changes how people perceive you.

And here’s the kicker: complaining damages other areas of your brain as well. Research from Stanford University has shown that complaining shrinks the hippocampus -- an area of the brain that’s critical to problem solving and intelligent thought. Damage to the hippocampus is scary, especially when you consider that it’s one of the primary brain areas destroyed by Alzheimer’s.

Complaining is also bad for your health

While it’s not an exaggeration to say that complaining leads to brain damage, it doesn’t stop there. When you complain, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol shifts you into fight-or-flight mode, directing oxygen, blood and energy away from everything but the systems that are essential to immediate survival. One effect of cortisol, for example, is to raise your blood pressure and blood sugar so that you’ll be prepared to either escape or defend yourself.

All the extra cortisol released by frequent complaining impairs your immune system and makes you more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. It even makes the brain more vulnerable to strokes.

It’s Not Just You...

Since human beings are inherently social, our brains naturally and unconsciously mimic the moods of those around us, particularly people we spend a great deal of time with. This process is called neuronal mirroring, and it’s the basis for our ability to feel empathy. The flip side, however, is that it makes complaining a lot like smoking -- you don’t have to do it yourself to suffer the ill effects. You need to be cautious about spending time with people who complain about everything. Complainers want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers.

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The solution to complaining

There are two things you can do when you feel the need to complain. One is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. That is, when you feel like complaining, shift your attention to something that you’re grateful for. Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood and energy and substantially less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels. Any time you experience negative or pessimistic thoughts, use this as a cue to shift gears and to think about something positive. In time, a positive attitude will become a way of life.

The second thing you can do -- and only when you have something that is truly worth complaining about -- is to engage in solution-oriented complaining. Think of it as complaining with a purpose. Solution-oriented complaining should do the following:

1. Have a clear purpose. Before complaining, know what outcome you’re looking for. If you can’t identify a purpose, there’s a good chance you just want to complain for its own sake, and that’s the kind of complaining you should nip in the bud.
2. Start with something positive. It may seem counterintuitive to start a complaint with a compliment, but starting with a positive helps keep the other person from getting defensive. For example, before launching into a complaint about poor customer service, you could say something like, “I’ve been a customer for a very long time and have always been thrilled with your service...”
3. Be specific. When you’re complaining it’s not a good time to dredge up every minor annoyance from the past 20 years. Just address the current situation and be as specific as possible. Instead of saying, “Your employee was rude to me,” describe specifically what the employee did that seemed rude.
4. End on a positive. If you end your complaint with, “I’m never shopping here again,” the person who’s listening has no motivation to act on your complaint. In that case, you’re just venting, or complaining with no purpose other than to complain. Instead, restate your purpose, as well as your hope that the desired result can be achieved, for example, “I’d like to work this out so that we can keep our business relationship intact.”

Bringing It All Together

Just like smoking, drinking too much, and lying on the couch watching TV all day, complaining is bad for you. Put my advice to use, and you'll reap the physical, mental and performance benefits that come with a positive frame of mind. A version of this article appeared on TalentSmart.

Try These 3 Things To Make You Focus At Work In An Open Office

Workplace cubicles are fading into the past; no longer do they box in our creativity or compartmentalize our freedom. Now, we have the opportunity to work more closely with our peers. The knowledge-sharing economy has upended our traditional offices in major ways. Open floor plans, long shared tables and interactive tech tools are some of the most common features in work environments.

The coworking model is meant to foster collaboration, engage learning and promote an active work culture. The trend is so popular that some startups even focus their business model on utilizing restaurants as coworking hubs during off hours.

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Yet, coworking spaces come with their fair share of distractions. Several minutes of uninterrupted work time can be hard to come by, especially when you're constantly overhearing brainstorming sessions. 

While open office spaces may nurture collaboration, a solution for better concentration from group activities may rely on collaboration itself. As concentration is greatly intertwined with privacy and performance, this solution focuses on three key components: office structure, individual tactics and group mentality. 

Doorways to distraction

Collaborative office spaces aren't going away anytime soon. Today, nearly 70 percent of U.S. companies feature open concept offices. But, the new office design hasn't gone without its fair share of critics. In January, the BBC reported that research indicates workers are 15 percent less productive and have immense trouble concentrating in open working spaces.

In addition, University of Sydney professors found that 50 percent of people in open office floor plans were dissatisfied with their sound privacy. Other studies consistently demonstrate that over half of non-executive workers report feeling less satisfied and less productive in open space offices. In a recent survey, 58 percent of high-performing employeesreported needing more privacy for problem-solving. 54 percent found their environments too distracting. It's no wonder the open office is getting a negative rapport.

Our sensitivity is not in vain either. Research demonstrates that a ringing phone can damage productivity, but small vibrations from tech devices significantly tax our brains. More worryingly, evidence shows that the mere presence of a phone weakens our concentration.

Even with so many resources available today that can help us focus, organic and traditional principles that center around workers' individual mindsets and a business's operational structure may be the true solution:

Managerial and organizational strategies

One big step for better employee concentration at work is to improve managerial and organizational strategies. Part of a manager's responsibility is to help facilitate productive interaction, which can often mean facilitating periods of concentration. Managers can help organize office rules with five key steps:

• Create designated quiet areas. Even if there is limited space, creating small areas with available resources can help promote concentration in immediate environments. According to author and productivity consultant Laura Stack, using a free conference room or offering a makeshift library where your coworkers can retreat in lieu of remote work can help preserve their privacy.
• Schedule quiet times. Specifying quiet times can help individuals do their work during the day. Each week, designate a few quiet hours, when employees are encouraged to work individually. Focus on establishing a schedule at least twice a week for 2 to 3 hours in the morning or afternoon. Afterwards, employees can collaborate as needed.
• Encourage busy signals. A "busy" symbol will notify coworkers not to disturb the worker during optimal moments of concentration.
• Batch communications. Too many emails and demands from higher-ups create frustration and constant interruptions for workers. Good managers should consider batch updates and information in one email or quick meeting so that workers and managers are clearly communicating with each other, which ultimately help save time and any confusion about work activities.

Personal strategies

On a personal level, there are many ways to help embrace better concentration. Headphones are just the first step. Specific strategies depend on the type of task, the worker's mood, how they learn and individual personalities. For example, researcher Susan Cain's recently discovered that people who more readily identify as introverted are more sensitive to stimuli in their immediate environments.

But, according to Harvard Business Review (HBR) research, humans employ several privacy strategies - consciously and subconsciously -- to help control the intake of stimulation and information during the workday, which aid in concentration.

• Shielding is a conscious privacy tactic that allows people to gain more privacy and control over their projects by maneuvering to enclosed locations. We use it all the time when take a phone call out of the office so we might not be overheard. According to HBR, developing a walking plan may help you concentrate and solve problems away from a distracting office. Also, you should try sitting in areas where you can't see coworkers approaching.
  • There is also a psychological tactic, called "intentional shielding," which allows workers to guard their own judgment by protecting their individual thoughts to develop ideas rather than sharing them outright in brainstorming sessions at the risk of peer pressure.
• Seclusion is about purposefully separating from a group, allowing workers the time to reboot and concentrate. The action is frequently chosen when workers have the opportunity to use spare rooms or other closed spaces for visual or acoustical privacy to focus on a project.
• Anonymity is a purposeful tactic that is often used by workers that often allows them to concentrate in the middle of a crowd of strangers. Because they are anonymous, they can choose when and how to concentrate. They might set up in a crowded cafe or airport. Interestingly, research published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that working in environments with moderate levels of ambient noise can improve performance on creative tasks. Ambient activity and noise can be a strategic motivator for work when individuals choose to inhabit anonymous roles, where people are less likely to distract them directly.

Group strategies

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As a strategic process, collaboration demands both individual and group effort. Private time for focus is needed to generate ideas, process information and formulate strategies. Workers can then come together as a group to further develop a shared vision. Then, private time is further needed to focus individual tasks for the plan. If it's an especially demanding project, workers emphasize time periods of private work to think and recharge their thoughts.

Concentration organization

Concentration is work in itself. But, all's not lost on the concentration front. Coworking spaces can provide a sense of job control, allowing employees to change their workstation, when they work and who they associate with.

Call it concentration organization or a redefining of privacy at work, but each worker will have a share in the workload of consolidating private time for better concentration. Everyone can benefit from a balancing the personal and team-oriented goals in the office. Maybe you will be able to manage those annoying emails from Dave a bit more easily.

5 Unnoticed Ways You're Wasting Time Without You Even Knowing It

We all waste time, so don’t try and kid yourself. Whether you’re a young kid at a temp job trying to relieve your boredom by browsing the Internet or an experienced CEO who can’t focus on what he needs to, time-wasting is painfully common in workplaces all across the U.S. According to recent data, the vast majority of employees know they waste 30 minutes or more every day, with 4 percent wasting half the day or more -- and that’s not accounting for self-reporting biases!

If you’re like most self-driven workers, at this point you’re thinking to yourself, “I believe that, but that’s not me. I’m not the type of person who wastes time.” This is because you don’t waste time deliberately -- unfortunately, most forms of wasting time are sneaky and go beneath your notice until it’s too late to do anything about them. You could be wasting hours every day without even realizing it.

What’s the solution? Raising your self-awareness, tracking down the roots of your time-waste then accounting for and correcting those discrepancies.

1. Rituals
We all have rituals at the office -- small routines that we do every day, some of which are productive and most of which are not. You might circle by the water cooler, making small talk for the first 15 minutes of the day, or you might start out by reading the news for 20 minutes.

While not always a waste of time, the danger here comes in not being conscious of your time spent. Human beings tend to forget individual repetitions of long-term routines (the way you often forget driving home from work), meaning you’re spending this time doing rituals without even realizing what you’re doing. Taking breaks and reading the news aren’t necessarily bad things, but they can put a damper on your total productivity.

2. Distractions
Distractions are a major cause of time loss, and this is well-documented. Most people understand the obvious, superficial distractions that catch their eye in the middle of a project -- for example, you might check Facebook instead of working through that tough problem or shop online between tasks.

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These are easy to identify but tough to beat. Usually, disconnecting from the Internet (or source) and scheduling time for these activities later are good strategies. However, you’re more likely to suffer from distractions you don’t recognize as distractions -- such as answering emails that constantly pop-up or being drawn into an office-wide conversation. Strive for a higher awareness here.

3. Communication
Communication is necessary and, in an ideal world, efficient. The most efficient communicators can use things like emails, meetings and phone calls to actually improve their collective productivity. However, for most of us, these mediums and institutions are ripe with the potential to waste time.

How many times have you received a long-winded email that spent several paragraphs explaining a very simple idea? How many meetings have you attended that didn’t need to be held in the first place? Strive for more efficient communication, and you’ll find yourself with more time that you can spend productively. 

4. Refusal to adapt
People have different reasons for refusing to adapt. Some like their niche and pace and aren’t comfortable changing anything. Others are forward-planning perfectionists who don’t like changing their outlooks or approaches when circumstances change. In any case, refusing to adapt your working style or focus when the situation shifts will cost you dearly in terms of time spent. For example, if you gain new information about a client’s needs for an RFP, you’re better off stopping and readjusting than you are muscling through the proposal and hoping it hits home somehow.

5. Working on the wrong priorities
Let’s say you’ve managed to identify and conquer all the temporal fault points I’ve listed so far. You’re working on tasks that need to be done for 100 percent of your day -- excluding breaks, which are actually important to remaining productive). Are you sure you aren’t wasting time doing the wrong kind of work? Are you burying yourself in unimportant tasks or ones outside your wheelhouse, only to realize at the end of the day that you still have your biggest, most important projects to take care of? If so, you have a prioritization problem. Fortunately, this can be addressed by more proactively categorizing and working through your tasks.

Becoming more productive starts with accepting the harsh truth that you likely waste just as much time as everyone else. Once you recognize that, you can identify the key areas of your work schedule that require improvement and gradually phase them out or improve them. This doesn’t mean you’ll eventually be perfect at managing and spending time -- nobody is -- but you will get a little bit closer to the ideal, and that translates to hours of extra time every week.

How CEOs Improve Efficiency Of Their Sleep Schedule

If you've ever listened to a doctor over the course of your life, you've almost definitely heard the recommendation that you get a good, full night of sleep. You've also probably had days where you wake up groggy, tired and fuzzy. Other days you wake up bright and early, chipper and ready for the day.

What's going on? What's happening is you're experiencing sleep cycles, without knowing how they work or how to control them. A good night of sleep leaves you with more energy and a better mood. You have better memory and are better with critical thinking. You have faster reactions and you're refreshed when you wake up. If you don't sleep properly, all of that is the opposite.

As an entrepreneur or CEO, sleep is perhaps more important than for anyone. You need to be at the top of your game to make important decisions for your business and you can't afford the losses that come with a lack of sleep. Yet, at the same time, there's a pervasive attitude that a successful entrepreneur is up late working, running on caffeine more than sleep.

There are more dangers than the immediate lack of energy and attention. Low-sleep lifestyles cause minor dysfunctions in the body that build up over time, and they don't all go away when you do get that one restful night a week. They build up and can come back as more prevalent diseases and a shorter lifespan years or decades down the line.

Thankfully, you can solve all of these problems just by learning how sleep works.

The science of sleep.
Sleep isn't like a computer, where it powers down for the night. Humans are much more complex machines. Sleep works in cycles that are divided into five stages. The first stage is light sleep, the kind of power nap sleep where you're barely asleep at all. You move, you shift, you doze. The second stage is deeper sleep with slower breathing, and the third stage is deeper yet, where your brain shifts into "defrag" mode and starts up maintenance. Stage four is even deeper and stage five is where you slip into REM sleep.

REM sleep is the time where you dream and it's the sleep that is most beneficial to you. It's also the most detrimental if you wake up in the middle of it. The deeper you're sleeping when you wake up, the worse the negative effects.

One cycle of sleep tends to last around 90 minutes. REM sleep doesn't last for very long and you pull up out of it and back to stage one to repeat the process again. The trick, then, is to sleep in 90 minute multiples.

Now, I'm not saying you should jump into one of those four hours on three hours off cycles that trended for a while. Just make sure that the amount of time you spend asleep is a multiple of 1.5 hours. The "eight hours a night" is a myth; 7.5 hours is better, or nine. Waking up after eight will interrupt a cycle.


Unfortunately, it's very difficult to predict when you're going to fall asleep and thus when you need to wake up. If you have trouble falling asleep or if you get to bed late, you can't adjust your alarm on the fly. Or can you?

As it turns out, there are a bunch of different apps for smartphones that monitor your sleep cycles. Remember how I said you tend to be restless and shift in stage one? Your phone's microphone can pick up the noise of shifting and the sound of lighter breathing. It can also possibly monitor tossing and turning with an internal gyroscope, depending on where you put your phone.

The way these apps work is you set a target time to wake up. It monitors your sleep cycles and locates the one where you pass into stage one sleep the closest to your target time, and wakes you up then. If all goes smoothly, you wake up refreshed, at the top of your game.

This, my friends, is the secret to sleep, and it's something all CEOs either already know or really need to learn.

11 Things You Are Doing (Unknowingly) Stopping Your Boss From Promoting You

When you've got your eye on a promotion, it's easy to zero in on what you need to do rather that what you're already doing. But it can be our everyday actions—exactly the ones you're not paying attention to—that can keep you from climbing the ladder.

"In addition to producing excellent, substantive performance, you want to make sure you’re also cognizant of how else you’re working and being perceived by people around you," says Karen Elizaga, executive coach and author of Find Your Sweet Spot. "You want to ensure that your behavior and performance are all aligned and pointed toward promotion." And on that note, here might be 11 things you're (unknowingly) doing that are pointing you away from a promotion.

1. You're ignoring basic business etiquette. What exactly is business etiquette? It's cutting yourself off at one drink at the company happy hour—not indulging in four glasses because they're free. It's stashing your smartphone away when you're in a meeting—not Snapchatting with your BFF because you're bored. "Every organization has guidelines, traditions, and customs," says Sharlyn Lauby, president of consulting firm ITM Group Inc., founder of HR Bartender, and author of Essential Meeting Blueprints for Managers. "Follow them. And if you don’t know what they are, ask." Remaining ignorant of the etiquette that's expected of you—or willfully ignoring it—could keep you from a promotion.

2. You're just doing the work. Keeping your head down, doing your job, and hoping you get noticed is one of the surest ways that you won't, Elizaga says. Those who score promotions do their jobs well and share their successes. "Talk to your bosses and let them know about wins in your work—as well as give kudos to people who have supported you on projects," says Elizaga. "Frame their perception of you as someone who can rise up the ranks and give them evidence that they can rely on you" as more than someone who just gets the job done.

3. You're using poor grammar. You know the difference between it's and its—but in an effort to get your emails out on time, you've let a few apostrophes slip. "An occasional typo or misused word is being human," says Lauby. "But if it turns into a regular occurrence, the organization might wonder about your communication skills." If you want to brush up on your grammar skills—and set a promotion in motion—then use software such as Grammarly, or an email plugin that will catch any mistakes long before your boss does.

4. You're not asking for advice. Your bosses have already climbed the ranks—and they have the keys to success at your company. And by not asking for their advice on how to climb the corporate ladder, you could be holding yourself back. "Ask them what you can be doing to set yourself up for promotion," suggests Elizaga, inquiring about everything from mentors to continuing education classes and their own success stories. "Your curiosity will illustrate your zeal for your work, and having concrete advice on how to move up will definitely help your chances," she says.

5. You never socialize with your team. Surprise! You can and should mix business with pleasure. "Relationship building is an important component of business," she says. "If the team is going out for lunch, coffee, or drinks after work, consider going every once in a while. You don’t have to stay out until dawn and you don’t have to go every time. But companies like to promote people that they know."

6. You're working hard, not smart. "Every management team wants to see their employees operating diligently," says Elizaga. "But sometimes you can work too hard and not smart—meaning you put in massive overtime, but don’t deliver quality work." What's more, being so focused on your own workload inhibits your ability to step in as a leader and a visionary for your company, Elizaga says. Your bosses need to see that you can work beyond you own workload. "You can’t do that if you are only looking into your computer screen," Elizaga points out. "Give your boss the opportunity to see you taking initiative and being an inspired leader."

7. You never learn anything new. You know how to do your job—and you know how to do it well. But if you haven't proved you can learn new tricks, chances are you could get passed over for a promotion. "When a person is promoted, they have new things to learn," explains Lauby. Therefore, "organizations want to know that the employee being promoted will learn what they need to know," she says. "Showing the initiative to learn new things tells the company that you’re committed to getting the knowledge and skills to be successful. And you can demonstrate this by goal setting and asking to participate in training or new work experiences."

8. You assume you don't need to change. In your last review, you got some critical feedback, but you brushed it off as your boss being out of touch. Next time, don't be so quick to dismiss it. "When you get feedback, be open to it and actively take it on," says Elizaga. "Make it a point to focus on doing the things they’re advising, and leaving behind the things that are unproductive. Your willingness to shift behavior shows your adaptability and desire to improve, both keys to being a good leader."

9. You're complaining too much. "We all have those days when everything goes wrong," says Lauby. But we're not talking about those moments. "This is about the people at your organization who complain about every little thing," she says. "You know, the ones that, if there were a tree in the cafeteria with $20 bills on it free for the picking, you would complain that they weren’t $50 bills." If you let loose within earshot of your boss—or a gossiping coworker—you could hurt your chances for a promotion. "Organizations want to promote people who know when to pick their battles," Lauby explains. If you can keep your cool and stay positive, "you'll send the message that you will use your influence wisely."

10. You're not paying attention to everyone in your organization.Elizaga says she's heard from clients and friends alike that employees sabotage their chances of a promotion because they're kind and collegial to the people they think matter—and dismissive of the janitors, receptionists, or their bosses' secretaries. "Not only are they same as you—human—but there's a chance that all of these people have been there longer than you have, and in fact, may have the ear of the people, who make decisions in your quest for a promotion," says Elizaga. "People like seeing good things happen for good people, so pay attention and be kind so that you can garner support all around you. Not only will you enhance your chances of being promoted, but you will make your work environment a better place."

11. You haven't actually told anyone you want a promotion. Despite what we may think, "managers do not have super secret sensory perception," Lauby says. "So don’t make the assumption that they know your career goals." Instead, be sure to tell your employer what you want at the opportune moment. "You can bring it up during one-on-one meetings or your annual performance review," suggests Lauby. "In fact, when you tell your manager you want to be considered for a promotion, ask them what you need to do to get it. It could be very helpful."