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“Don’t pick a job with great vacation time, pick a career that doesn’t need escaping from”
Getting on to the right career path is no question bank that you would get an answer to quickly, it takes time and a lot of thought, planning and analyzing goes into it. It is not an easy to crack situation but you cannot take a lifetime to think about it, you have to make right decisions at the right time.
What comes to your mind when you think of a career? Always start solving a question bank by questioning yourself, you must be in a position to answer what is it that you are looking for and is compelling enough? Is it a job that pays you for delivering what is expected of you? or is it a job that pays you for what is expected of you and grooms you with learning and opportunities to help you get success at every step you take.
Are you at the threshold in choosing the right career or are you in the process of looking for a career change? Either ways, you should consider certain points before you make a final choice for the good. Read through this article and keep in mind the things to consider when choosing a career path.
Read: 11 Realistic Ways To Beat Stress At Work – Get On The D-Stress Mode!
Ways To Find The Right Career Path
At some point if you truly seek a good career path you would find it, your determination and efforts would help you get there. Take a look at few tips on how to find the right career path whether it is choosing a career for the first time or changing your career.
1 – The Story Begins With Passion
“Passion is the difference between having a job and a career “
That’s right! You got an answer to your question, it is all about choosing a field that you are passionate about when it comes to building your career. What drives you to choose the right career is not a job. However, it lies in what keeps you engaged and happy about what you are doing.
You will put all your heart and soul into something that you love. Contrarily, you would get stressed about doing something you are not interested to do. Thus, pick a career that you think you love, enjoy and want to dive into and you will see how empowering that feels.
2 – Don’t Be A Sheep And Follow Blindly
Strangely enough, at times our decisions are influenced by what the crowd does. It is not right and fair for you to be a sheep who blindly follows the crowd without making your personal analysis about what to do and what not to do.
That said, the world picking up a career need not necessarily mean that you have to pick the same career as well. Keep in mind the following few of these points instead of blindly following the crowd.
- Are you interested in the career path?
- Is it your cup of tea?
- Do you have the necessary skills and educational background to choose the career
- Why do you like the field?
- How would this career path do good to you?
For instance, if the crowd is picking up artificial intelligence it does not mean you have to do the same, follow what you want to do and do what is good for you. Anything that you force yourself into is as good as wasting time and energy, you will never benefit from it.
3 – Don’t Mix “Taking A Break” To “Change In Career”
At times may be because you are bored you feel like you need a change in your career. That said, do not mix your temporary thoughts with a decision that will completely change your career. It is fair if you want to take sometime around going for a vacation of just taking a break. Post that, getting back to work. However, do not be fickle minded about choosing a career.
If at all you think that you want to learn a new skill or use your knowledge and expertise in a different domain, then be confident that you want to be a part of a new field.
In order to get clarity on this you need to understand if its boredom that’s influencing your decision or is it something that you really look forward to, know for yourself if it is a temporary interest or on a serious note you want growth by choosing a new career path. Give all of these thoughts a few days and then come to a final conclusion, do not mix taking a break to making a serious decision for your career. The wrong decision will make you feel lost.
Read: How to write a Career Development Plan
4 – Align Your Passion To Growth In The Field
Changing your career is not as fast as getting into another attire. Talking of an attire, you would think over it at least four or five times. That said, how much would you have to think over making a change in your career. Do you realize that?
You cannot succeed if you do not get into a field that is not your cup of tea and interests you. However, you have to be practical and even think of how would you be able to grow in that field, in financial prospects, learning prospects and designation wise too.
This will all depend on your field, in the beginning you cannot expect to be successful overnight but over the time when you keep learning and evolving you would start to grow in the field you are passionate about. That said, the field you choose should have minimum scope in the market. You would need to balance your passion by checking on the potential growth in that respective field as well.
You need not be disappointed if the field does not have growth, you could still keep that passion and do your current job and side by side work on developing your passion as well. Do not break up with your passion even if it does not have that scope right now.
5 – Do Not Close All Doors – Alternatives Are Always Good!
It is easy said than done, do what you are passionate about. While on the counter side, say suppose you want to be a pilot but you do not have the finance to fund for yourself, how would you become a pilot then?
That said, it is not easy to follow your passion always, learning and developing at it is totally possible but making it your full-time career gets tough at times given the situations when the career you want to choose is expensive, you have financial commitments back at home and at the moment you have to choose your priorities. To be able to sail through these issues it is always better to keep your options open to one or more options as well.
It is tricky to understand this because on one side you have your dreams and on the other side you have your responsibilities. You could follow your passion with a little struggle and risk it or you could keep your mind open to alternatives to do what is important for the time being and follow your passion later on. This is all on you! But these ways are simply black and white.
6 – Any Career Path You Choose, You Will Have Two Sides Of The Coin
Pay attention to this point, you are not going to choose a career path just because you think it is easier to handle, the even and odd is going to be there either ways. Whether you choose a path that suits your convenience or you choose a path that you really love, the grass will not always be greener on your side.
Register this in your mind, you will need to really slog to achieve your dreams and work hard constantly, it is not going to be an easy route be it whichever destination you choose.
Therefore, choose a career that you think is the right fit for you, where you think you would be interested to take up challenges and be practical and wise in how you choose your path. Your career is in your hands, you either make it or break it. Making it is always a better way out.
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7 – Keep Your Short Term Goals In Mind
How you make the most of what you get is totally reliant on how much hard work and smart work you invest into your work. Having said, set your goals right, you cannot really plan about how you want to progress in the next ten years. However, you can surely plan where you want to place yourself in the next five years.
It is necessary to have a basic small term plan about your career. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself in order to start planning now. Take a look at them!
- How much do I want to earn in the next five years
- What are the skills I want to get good at
- How should I keep improving every year
- Who should I take guidance from
- How do I want to use my experience further
Make small plans so that you know what you are doing and why are you doing it.
8 – Add A Bonus Point To Your Resume Every Six Months
In today’s competitive and fast paced world. You have to be on the wheels forever. That said, if you can manage learning as many skills as you can, nothing like it! It is not going to be enough if you are just doing your usual tasks everyday. Think of what is that one new thing are you learning every month or half yearly that you can build your profile.
Why is this relevant? It is essential to work on your resume because the more achievements you have the more you are probable to have a better future if you want to be hired else where or you are looking for a growth within the company.
If you have just started your career you might not be able to absorb all of this at once. However, if you are in between your career and you are aiming to build your career, you will be able to relate to it. Having said, you need to start all of it now before it gets too late.
Read: Tricks that can give you an upper hand during an interview
9 – Channelize Your Strength In The Right Direction
Do we make the most of all our strengths? While few people are smart and channelize their strengths the smartest way, which is amazing and that’s quite a lot to learn from them. On the other hand, it so happens that although we are aware of our strength areas we do not make a significant difference by using it the right way. It is the right time to start it all over again.
If you want a good career path you need to make yourself feel nice by making use of your strengths to build confidence while you are growing in your career. Say suppose you are a techie person then you should choose a career that is close to being techie, you would be interested to learn as well enjoy what you are doing.
10 – Talk To An Experienced Friend/Relative
Listen to all the advises, do not interrupt at them, for all you know you will find answers to your questions in those advises or it could happen the other way round that those advises may not work. You do not have to follow an advise as it is given to you, you make your part of analysis, think over it and then decide. The outcome would be, you would take lesser time to make your decision.
11 – Counselling Sessions Work
A career counsellor might not be a Genie to magically solve all your career related problems. Nevertheless, a career counsellor is as good as a Genie, you would get the right guidance given the fact that they are trained and they know how to help you with it.
This could cost you a little but it is worth the try, you would at least feel so much better in comparison to how you felt when you had to make a decision by yourself.
12 – Deep Dive For Options In The Chosen Career Path
Even if it is about choosing your passion over just another job, you would need to get into details and research in and out about the career path. While you would anyways do your research, you need to go deep in exploring several other related branches. This helps you get an understanding that along with your passion you can as well broaden your knowledge even better as it is an added benefit for you.
To understand this better, say suppose you want to be a content writer, one part of it is about writing content, you need to do a research of how would your content be read by several others, what are the ways to publicity, you would find out if there is another career path that takes care of how to have your piece of information found on the web.
Final word : You need to think way beyond just knowing how to put across content, if you learn things related to your field it is a good way of giving yourself the satisfaction that you are making your career while not just being stuck to your job.
13 – Resort To Social Media For Career Guidance
There are umpteen groups that have meet ups and discuss about how to choose the right career and share their thoughts on how to get better in terms of making decisions and choosing the best career for yourself. Why don’t you be a part of groups that will help you gain knowledge.
14 – Alter Yourself Mentally
Usually when it comes to a new beginning in life we get anxious with tons of questions swirling in the mind. Every beginning starts positive when you have the right attitude, when you are not afraid of the decisions you take, when you are willing to correct yourself a hundred times and when you frame your mind in such a way that for you its not about taking home money but you want to take along useful experience and learning that is going to help you in the future as well.
Thus, stay positive, keep away distractions, aligns your ambition and morals, avoid procrastination, be prompt in whatever you do. It is you who needs to build yourself mentally to find yourself doing the right thing at the right place.
In conclusion, if it is just a job that gives you bread and butter you will find it in abundance, no doubts about that. However, if your approach towards your professional life is less of having a job and more of building your career it is going to be useful for you few years down the lane. What do you want? A job or a job with a career?
To get to the right career might take you sometime, you have to figure out and plan on how to take it forward from there. In simple language, do not give up, keep trying to build a good career and if at the moment you are doing a job just because you are helpless, never mind, you still have an option to take out an hour or two to work on building your career.
Make Sincere And Smart Efforts To Get To The Right Career!
