25 September, 2025

Stop Playing Safe: Big Challenges for Fast Career Growth


If you want to fast-track your project management career growth, you can’t take it easy. Instead, you need to do something difficult; the tougher the better. So, what are my top challenges that will bring you the attention you want and get you noticed… if you succeed!

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Accelerated Career Growth

The best project managers often distinguish themselves by taking on high-stakes challenges that others avoid. These are the kind of roles, projects, and missions that forge reputations and open doors to accelerated career growth.

Tough, Tougher, and Toughest Career Challenges

In the video, I ramp up my challenges from tough to tougher to toughest. But remember, you need to interpret each of these in the context of the domain in which you work. What may be tough for a PM in one sector may seem easy to a PM from another sector. Here’s a list of tough but career-defining challenges that could help you build a standout project management career

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Specific Career Growth Directions


What Kit does a Project Manager Need?

I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things you need to have, to do your job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list. I added my own. 

Check out the Kit a Project Manager needs

Note that the links are affiliated.

Learn Still More

For more great Project Management videos, please subscribe to the OnlinePMCourses YouTube channel.

If you want basic Management Courses – free training hosted on YouTube, with 2 new management lessons a week, check out our sister channel, Management Courses.

For more of our Project Management videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management.

For more of our videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management

Mike Clayton

About the Author...

Dr Mike Clayton is one of the most successful and in-demand project management trainers in the UK. He is author of 14 best-selling books, including four about project management. He is also a prolific blogger and contributor to ProjectManager.com and Project, the journal of the Association for Project Management. Between 1990 and 2002, Mike was a successful project manager, leading large project teams and delivering complex projects. In 2016, Mike launched OnlinePMCourses.
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