7 tiny habits that make you stand out at work

Hi friend,

I've had 16 jobs in 16 years. Across all of them, career opportunities kept finding me, not because I was the most technically skilled person in the room but because of 7 tiny habits that made me stand out.

They led to job offers, salary increases, promotions, and some really cool projects like translating series and films on Netflix and flying around Europe to present my research.

This week, I want to share the habits with you and how you can apply them to your working day too.

🍿 Watch the video version of this week’s newsletter here

(or keep scrolling to read it)

Most people either stay in their comfort zone because it feels safe, or they throw themselves into something so far beyond their ability that it overwhelms them. Neither of those approaches helps build confidence.

There's a space in between what feels comfortable and what feels overwhelming. It’s called the learning zone.

Right now, YouTube sits firmly in my learning zone. I could spend all day in my comfort zone researching what “doing YouTube well” looks like but it won’t build confidence in actually making a video. I could spend all week making videos but it would become overwhelming and shrink my confidence.

Instead, I bounce between my comfort zone and my learning zone. For example, yesterday morning I stayed in my comfort zone doing some admin work, in the afternoon I stepped into my learning zone to work on a video, and once I finished filming I stepped back into my comfort zone doing something I find easy.

How will it help you stand out at work? You’ll become the person always willing to try things you haven’t done before.

Research shows that 95% of people think they're self-aware, but only 10-15% of us actually are. Shocking, isn’t it?!

For most of us, when something happens, we react first and think about why we reacted that way later when it’s too late…

Let’s say someone sends a blunt email and we fire something back. Or a decision gets made without us and we stew on it for the rest of the day.

Before you react, ask yourself: “Why do I feel like this?”

Usually, it's because something you care about has been challenged. If someone sends a blunt email, maybe respect has been challenged. If someone makes a decision without you, maybe fairness has been challenged. When you understand the feeling, you can choose how to respond rather than just reacting and regretting it later. Don’t worry. We’ve all been there.

How will it help you stand out at work? You won’t fly off the handle at any minor inconvenience and you’ll show people you can be trusted to handle difficult situations without making them worse.

We all have a conversation we know we need to have but keep finding reasons to delay it. Maybe someone keeps taking credit for your work. Maybe a project is going in the wrong direction and nobody's saying anything. Maybe you're unhappy in your role and haven't told anyone.

We avoid these conversations because we tell ourselves “Oh, it’s fine, I’m keeping the peace”. By avoiding difficult conversations, we're letting something happen that isn’t working.

Last year, I spent three months avoiding a conversation with a client about scope creep. Every week the work grew and every week I said nothing. By the time I had the conversation, I was exhausted and resentful, and it was a much harder conversation than it needed to be.

How will it help you stand out at work? You’ll become known as someone who deals with problems directly and helps solve them.

We all have someone at work we find difficult and we tend to assume the problem is them. Sometimes the problem is also us.

Just saying…

Most friction at work comes from people having different approaches to work. For example, one person needs structure and clear plans while another works best with flexibility. Neither approach is wrong, it’s just different.

I once worked with a manager who sent me an 1,800-word email of instructions for a 30-minute task. She was highly, highly detailed. I can be detailed when needed, but I’m more of a big picture person. I found her incredibly difficult to work with and she thought the same of me. We were constantly working against each other's natural approaches to work rather than with them.

If you can identify what the other person needs and give them a bit of that, you’ll find each other easier to work with.

How will it help you stand out at work? You’ll do your best to accommodate people and others will find you an easy person to work with. (This is the most underrated skill, imho).

Most of us arrive at work, open our laptops, and go straight into our to-do list. The tasks feel urgent and so we tell ourselves we'll invest in people when the work calms down. But the work never calms down.

One thing I’ve noticed is the people who get the most opportunities aren't always the most qualified, they’re the most visible. They're the people others think of when something interesting comes up because they've taken the time to build a relationship with them.

I spent years prioritising tasks over people, bashing out work and wondering why opportunities felt like they were going to everyone else.

Make a habit of spending five minutes a day on a person before you open your to-do list. Message someone you haven't spoken to in a while. Ask a coworker how a project is going. Share something useful with someone in your network.

How will it help you stand out at work? You’ll make people feel seen and heard and consistently add value to people’s workday.

We’re surrounded by information, content, and entertainment. We’re consuming constantly. Most of us have lost the ability to sit with our own thinking long enough to generate anything original.

I noticed this in myself a few years ago. I realised that I had opinions about everything I'd read and listened to, but I had very few original thoughts of my own. I was so full of other people's ideas that there was no room for mine.

Make a habit of being bored. Even if it’s just once a week for 30 minutes where you stare out of the window with no external input, no music, no podcast, no phone, no TV. Just you and your thoughts (and a pen and paper in case anything comes up that you don’t want to forget).

Does it feel uncomfortable at first? Yep! But I push through and find it worthwhile because it’s when my own thinking gets a chance to surface.

How will it help you stand out at work? You’ll be able to bring perspectives and ideas to the table that other people haven’t even considered.

Futurist Alvin Toffler once said: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

I think about this a lot.

Most of us treat learning as something we do before we start our careers. This is no longer the case, things are changing too fast.

Think about taking the tube to work (I know, it’s awful, sorry!):

Less adaptable people get stuck in the unlearning stage. They know something has changed but they can't let go of the old way. And what happens? They don't get to where they need to go.

Unlearning is the hardest part because most of us are doing things on autopilot. We've done them the same way for so long that we don't even register there might be another way.

Ask yourself: What’s one thing you're doing on autopilot that you haven't questioned in a long time? Then think about what a new approach would look like.

How will it help you stand out at work? When there’s a change, you’ll adapt quickly and take people with you.

Pick one habit from this list and try it. That’s it. That’s your task.