For all you overachievers out there, you are not going to like this, but you are 'working it' too hard. If you make it look like you had to work too hard, do insane amounts of overtime, sacrifice nights of sleep and be completely stressed out, you will not be seen by your peers and superiors as successful. You're just a 'go-fer' person who will get things done for others. You're just a soldier.
Make it look easy.
Do the hard work of prioritizing goals, planning activities, mulling, organizing, etc. so that when you are getting things done, it looks easy. Make problems go away without creating a big drama around it. Problems happen and then you fix them. Being a drama queen about it only annoys your superiors. Being calm, cool and collected will increase your value to the organization. Making it look easy when it's not is gold.
Be easy-going.
Without compromising your integrity or the quality of your work, let minor things go. Just let them go. No one is perfect (you aren't) and if you expect perfection from others, you are going to be one very unhappy person no matter where you work. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes people make mistakes. It's not WHAT happens that matters, but what happens NEXT that matters. Be easy-going about what happens and then just fix it.
Easy come easy go.
Things that come easy, go easy. Focus on building things that are hard to come by, like your reputation, your track record, your professional relationships, your team, your industry network, your skills, your expertise... No one can take those things away from you as long as you always invest in them. Business will go up and down, but hard won recognition for being the best at something will get you through the inevitable hard times.
If you can make things look easy when you are doing a great job, be easy-going when the going gets tough and focus on building the important not-so-easy-to-build stuff, you will be halfway 'there'.
