Very few people have a clear understanding of the term ‘career planning’. In its most rudimentary form, it implies various objectives that you seek to achieve in a chosen line of work by following a deliberately formulated arrangement.
Why fix on a career objective in the first place?
If you want to remain centred on any of your resolution with regard to what you want to do for a livelihood, then having a career objective is a must. Career objectives show the way, serve as inspirational media and facilitate realization of whatever you set out for. A career objective by itself can be a particular occupation like an accountant or a writer; it can also well be a specific sector that you desire to work in like aviation or health.
A career objective makes it easy to learn and realize your potential, capabilities and opportunities that under normal circumstances would not have been contemplated of, leave aside their consideration. The number of opportunities that one may encounter in any career that you may choose is anybody’s guess. A career objective per se will steer you on the path that you intend following, in sharp contrast to those who tend to waft in a meaningless way.
Remember that once you decide on your career, it is of great importance to have a strategic foresight with regard to your paces and strides for the attainment of your objectives. While nothing can be prognosticated about the shape of things to follow, having career objectives and preparing for the appropriate move forward are still inescapable.
Hopes & disillusionment will be there
No objective is sans an expected result. This is what hope is all about. And it is hope that stimulates and encourages a person to keep on moving. And if we are able to attain our objective, delight, elation and contentment automatically follow.
There is no human being who will not have hopes or disillusionment. And all hopes may not be fulfilled, hence it will be prudent to expect some disenchantment on the way too. Career planning is nothing but setting up objectives for work and profession. It implies getting data that can be used to formulate an objective and then design a schedule in that direction. However, the sole career planning that you may require is the one that is for you and your precise necessities.
The environment that surrounds us has expectations too. If we know what comprises it, what is where and how it functions, the better we are poised to make the best of all available resources. Rigidity will never beget success; hence flexibility of mind and approach should never be abandoned. You should be always trying to upgrade your skills – attending courses and training programmes, reading publications and talking with people are just some of the methods to do so. Concurrently, you should also endeavour to beat your competitors and the tension that the race with them brings about. It is only then that you and prevalent times will be in unison.
Career planning has substance
Assume that you have decided on the specific area that you wish to be in. Now, career planning is not about preparing for that specific area once and for all. It entails repeated efforts, perhaps till such time that you will be in the thick and thin of it.
Progression is nothing but learning and growing simultaneously. This concurrent activity influences our concerns and requirements; they too change. Career planning will help you adjust yourself to such changes; in fact, you would be able to regulate them with ease. In other words, career planning involves assessing, prognosticating and computing all those measures that are required to be instituted for achieving your goals.
As you set about achieving your goals, you will have numerous alternatives in front of you. As and when you decide to opt for one, you will be said to be paying the prospect price or opportunity cost, which are nothing but the fee of rejecting the next best possible pick when making a judgment. In career planning, we ought to be alert to prospect prices and everything else that may be encountered.
Unbeaten careerists know what work game is all about; its horizon spreads much beyond current appointments and jobs. It is also not simply restricted to toil. The entire process comprises six phases as under:
· Knowing yourself.
· Career search.
· Seeking out.
· Training and homework.
· Getting along and coping.
Career planning is a process that has a cyclic nature. If you seek a career change, the procedure may be replicated many a times. What you should be doing is to identify newer faces who can guide you all along. The procedure is not at variance with settling any type of ambition and planning to attain it; here the difference is that you detach your career and employment goals from all other objectives. One major reason why people are unable to make their desires materialize is that they do not regard such desires as objectives. Remember that any objective is nothing but a desire with a cut-off date.
Overcoming impediments
A barrier encountered may cause you to give up on your career objectives. But a well-deliberated objective will predict impediments. So, you may bang into a wall but yet not reverse your direction.
For example, you may be seeking to become a supervisor from your present appointment of an assistant. Before going even a single step forward, you need to be questioning yourself, “What is the reason for me to become a supervisor?” Your reasons can be many – from better standing to respectability to increased pay and allowances; you may be even harbouring a long-term objective of becoming a manager.
The next question that you should now be asking yourself is, “What is the significance of this aspiration?” Perhaps you may feel that inner desire to excel in life in consonance with your skills and capabilities. The question ought to be repeated and possibly an answer will come that you want to demonstrate to the world and self alike that you are a self-starter and a go-getter. The question needs to be answered again and again and a time will come when you get to the central part or the heart of the matter, that is, why you want to do something. In the process, all your intents and targets will get illuminated. You will be able to discern your very purpose; perhaps you will realize that becoming a manager apart, there are other ways and means by which you can realize your objectives.
Conclusion
There are many people who are perennially not happy with their jobs and careers. In all probability, they never did proper career planning and hence have been unable to make full use of their capabilities. Needless to state, such people are also unable to derive maximum job satisfaction. Career planning will afford you all assurance and buoyancy to be in command of your career and even life too. You will have the clout and authority to make your mind up on anything and do whatever you want to accomplish whatever objectives you may have set for yourself.
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