Taking Charge of Your Career

The world we are living today gives us many career options that make it difficult for us to choose the right one. So, at the end of the day, we can only ask ourselves this question, how do we really make a career choice when we are clueless on what we want to do? What makes this move even more challenging is the fact that we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives jumping from one career to another.  In order to avoid this from happening, we should give this a considerable amount of time to plan before putting it into action in order to make a solid and informed career decision. Remember that your decision has the capacity to change the course of your life, so better make a good one.

These are the following steps in making a good career choice:

1. Self-assessment – making a good career choice always starts with self-evaluation or self-assessment. It will include knowing yourself better, your skills, interests, values, passion and lifestyle.  You can simply take a few days off to figure out what you really want to do with your life.

2. Write it down – knowing what and how you want your life to turn out is a very important factor in choosing the perfect career. Write your objectives and goals in life. If you want to inspire people and help them learn, you can pursue a teaching career. If you want to share your talents to the world, you can be an artist. Narrowing your goals down will help you focus and create a clear picture of what your life should be.

3. Pick the top 3 –following the first and second step, it is now time to come up with at least your top 3 career options.

4. Do your research – identify the possible jobs that you can see yourself doing under these 3 career choices. Research on the possible job duties and responsibilities or if the job matches who you are as a person until you are left with the career of your choice.

5. Create an action plan – once you have identified your career choice, you can start making a career action plan with your short and long term goals, as well as the strategies you need to follow to reach these goals.

6. Prepare – if you don’t have all the necessary skills needed for this career, start taking lessons or short courses to get you ready. It is better to be prepared in mind, body and in spirit, so you can have fulfilling career.

Career planning should be taken seriously by everyone because it will help you live a successful and meaningful life. This move should not be taken for granted or planned overnight because it has the capacity to turn your life upside down and who would want that? Start planning your career now to maximize your full potential and your value as a person.