What is your career outlook?

People who make it to success do so largely on account of their enterprising approach to work and life as distinct from the employee outlook in general. How does an enterprising approach differ from an employee outlook? The major difference lies in the mindset to play with possibilities and chances. Related to this is the aspect of going about dealing with botches.

The connotation of employee and enterprising outlooks are:

·   Employee outlook:  Under normal circumstances, employees tend not to make mistakes. Their work demands that they be familiar with rules and regulations; and perform all assigned duties within their parameters. They are expected to make use of their abilities and understanding of matters in an appropriate manner. In other words, employees are required to do everything correctly and as assigned. If they seek to take risk and go tangentially, they are dissuaded; and if they try to function by not adhering to the laid down strictures, they run the risk of being given a pink slip.

·   Enterprising outlook:  People who have an enterprising outlook are venturesome and disposed to taking chances. Existing state of affairs are contested and new methods, sometimes rather too weird, adopted in their working forms. Springing from this approach is a frame of mind to be ready for fiascos and accept them as part of their work and life. An enterprising outlook does not necessarily signify carelessness or rashness; on the contrary, it permits people to play with premeditated perils to their advantage. Should unfavourable circumstances unfold, they do not abandon hope, even if failure is imminent and proceed ahead with a positive note.

How do the above approaches connect with your career? Your response will throw light how these two varying attitudes can influence your overall disposition towards your work and life. You need to be clear about your responses to the following questions:

·   What is your characteristic or distinctive conviction?

·   When you begin to ponder over your career; and fresh and unmarked bearings that it may be heading to, do you have a tendency to slide into employee or enterprising outlooks?

·   Do you contemplate on the electrifying likelihoods that could be present and grasped?

·   Do you think that you are well-geared up to indulge in unconventional cogitations and musings?

·   Do you feel that it is high time that you start subscribing to inklings that are sweeping departures from your present work?

·   Do you want to take off immediately and believe that you will be able to discover and catch things as you move ahead?

·   Are you sure that you are prepared to chase your prospects over your wellbeing and other personal interests?

Or is it that you are inclined to be in line with the employee outlook? If this be so, you would be niggled by the following issues, some again more prominently than others:

·   Your charter of responsibilities and precise duties.

·   The correct things that you ought to be doing.

·   Anxiety in anticipation of any occurrence prior to initiation of action by you.

·   Feeling of uncertainty that everything has been looked into before you get on to them on ground.

·   Apprehensions about mistakes that you may commit and become a laughing stock in the eyes of others.

·   Inability to identify and grasp opportunities because of being overpowered by a feeling of excessive safekeeping.

As with everybody else, the chances of you as an enterpriser going in to clinch the potential of a change in your professional conditions will always be there. You will perhaps accept it even if the employee outlook in you still persists.   

The crux of the matter is that learning comes not from experience but from reflecting on it. And if you seek and blunder, you will definitely learn. An employee outlook will not facilitate the foregoing. It is high time that you move on to an enterprising outlook to remove all elements of ambiguity and insecurity that may be pervading in your current job and career. The shift may not be an effortless affair, but is definitely worth an attempt. You need to be physically and mentally robust to jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down. Remember that a change, if it has to take place, will take place; and hence it is better to accost it optimistically.

Heighten your professional advance

Professional progress is something that is much talked about; however, its connotation is interpreted differently by different people. But the fact that cannot be denied is that is significant because the need to give a boost to career advancement needs no emphasis. Every working person must purposefully do so.

It is all about availing chances to learn something new so that your knowledge base is widened so that you can achieve additional in your career. The prime advantage of professional advancement is that you also stand to gain on your personal front. But it is not a simple endeavour – something like a fire-and-forget missile. It is a continual process and could range from attending courses of instruction to participation in conferences and presentations. But the inescapable requirement is that it is you and you alone who has to decide the time and method to go about it.

Few suggested ways to give a boost to your individual and professional progression are:

·   Know what you seek:  You must evaluate your objectives vis-à-vis your appointment, work and career. It is also essential that you analyse all the qualitative requirements that you must fulfill to remain firmly entrenched in your current post, job or career. This can be best done by reducing to writing all your aims and wants; and after having done so, refer to them off and on to discern possible learning occasions that you can subscribe to or participate in.

·   Know where you stand:  To be able to accomplish whatever you seek, it is necessary to know your present qualifications, including your practical experiences. These also should be reduced to writing along with occasions when you utilized them. This cognizance will facilitate a deeper comprehension of your knowledge possessions that contribute towards your professional progression.

·   Know what you need to obtain:  If you are clear about your aims and how well you are poised to achieve them, you will for sure discern how your position can be strengthened. You should know what could possibly restrain you from moving ahead and thus make your career languish. The need to understand your vulnerabilities and deficiencies; and making efforts to offset them by acquiring additional qualifications thus needs no emphasis. Again, jotting them down all your contemplations will help in the formulation of a time-plan, which, you should adhere.  

·   Know what you would use:  You should also know various resources that you could utilize to further build up your skills for attaining your aims. They could well be people, organisations and events. You will have to decide on the most suitable ones and the modalities to be undertaken. For example, you could identify and bond with people with whom you could have mentoring associations. You could also find out about professional clubs and training centres where courses, workshops and seminars are conducted; joining such institutions will help you improve your skills; and eventually your career prospects. 

·   Know what you need to do:  This implies concluding all outstanding assignments and sessions. While knowing what you must initiate is important, finishing what you are at is equally imperative. You could have taken steps to identify your objectives, locus standi, qualifications to be acquired and resources to be utilized. But somewhere down the line, the spot light could shift elsewhere resulting in your advancement plan going haywire. Therefore, finishing all that you initiated will help you get over the standstill or decline being suffered. It is also necessary to get to the bottom of the issue and find out the causes for the same; the distance you have to still traverse for achieving your ambitions and objectives; and items on your agenda yet to be completed to cap all your efforts.

It is always possible to get over stagnation. You should simply ask yourself about a dozen actions that you must take to get your career progression on fast-moving track. Your responses will be way outs by themselves. Adopt those ways out to get back on course. And when you are heading in the right direction, you must take pleasure in working hard for your career progression. You will thus be able to acquire and better your expertise and make you indispensable.  But it will all be your initiative to make professional development the top most precedence in your current appointment, work and career.

Display forbearance at work

Today, all workplaces have men and women from diverse backgrounds; religious denominations, racial characteristics, age groups and opinions are some major features of this diversity. If an organization has to progress, it goes without saying that all differences that spring from them should not be allowed to come in between efficient functioning as a team.

You need to respect others and their differences. In other words, you need to display forbearance. You have to be patient and tolerant. You must give to others every right and privilege that you think you merit. The essence of the matter is that you have to liberate yourself of fixations and prejudice; and have an open mind in your dealings with others, particularly those who are from a different background. It is only if you accept the differences that you and your team will move forward.

No person is born blinkered and biased. Haven’t you seen kids playing at school? Do they harbor any feelings of prejudice? As you grow up, you learn to accept differences and dissimilarities all over the place; however, there are some people who feel intimidated by them. That is why they fail to adjust with those who hail from a different background, gender, race, creed or religion. Differences and diversities notwithstanding, human sentiments and experiences ought to serve as bonding factors; and let common attributes predominate. It is in this context that forbearance is significant; in fact, if are disposed towards attachment, the prospects of great breaks go up.

Forbearance buoys up candid interaction, stimulates ingenuity, endorses inventiveness, nurtures mutual confidence and boosts camaraderie. In short, it brings about a congenial working environment where collaboration, constancy and efficiency are hallmarks. Forbearance can manifest itself in many ways, notable being a display of respect towards other faiths and religions; and understanding of working styles and sensitivities of others. In unpretentious terms, you have to exhibit and prove that you appreciate others, exhibit compassion towards them, are responsive to their feelings and display reverence to them as individuals. There are many methods by which you can inspire forbearance in your team:

·  Appreciation:  Your colleagues may not go with your views and actions, resulting in a sort of rasping. This can be overcome by egging on others to exhibit polite concern in the convictions and conduct of others; motivating them to be patient listeners will help. The aim is to boost responsiveness and facilitate a sense of appreciation, which can best be done if everybody, for a moment, wears the other person’s hat before reacting.

·  Exchanges: Your words have an immense telling effect. They can serve to liberate and incarcerate you alike. Your speech has aftermath and therefore, you need to ponder over what you utter first before opening your mouth. Your colleagues could be urged to be considerate towards others – implying that all their spoken and written words ought to be communications indicating tolerance, respect and empathy.

·  Exemplification: Exercising forbearance is easier said than done; it is effortless to teach it but observing it is difficult. You ought to demonstrate it personally. Whatever you speak or do wields weight over others; and hence it is essential that you exhibit patience, gentleness and concern in all your individual dealings. You will find that others may be careworn with forbearance; it is your moral duty to apprise them that any form of chauvinism or prejudice is not okay. Any unacceptable conduct at work should be tackled with promptitude.

· Comprehension: When you work in a multicultural environment, there will be differences and finding a middle ground will be difficult. Impediments to teamwork will have to be disabled. You need to comprehend the predilection, disposition and beliefs of others as well as they are expected to do so of you to be able to adjust to one another so that teamwork and cooperation is brought about.

·   Boundaries: While forbearance implies recognition of different opinions, it does not in any way mean disdain, unresponsiveness, unconcern or lenience. Any conduct that defies decency and morals or is inclined to damage others cannot be condoned. You need to set boundaries; any action that is detrimental to the organizational or individual interests should be contested, but with due diligence.

Forbearance is valuable in all settings, but most importantly when functions require interaction with clients, customers, suppliers, colleagues or coworkers from broadly diverse demographic backgrounds. At workplace, it is the best religion and a life-altering lesson.

Explore your career options

“Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.”

--- Orison Swett Marden

Like any other activity or pursuit, before you pledge yourself to a career, you ought to have a crystal clear image of what you are embarking upon. This would entail obtaining precise facts and figures; and assessing them decisively for their suitability.

The start-point should be gathering information about various careers that appeal to you. You can do so by reading books that offer descriptions to include the qualitative requirements, nature of work, specific training, and remunerations besides prospects. Researching on the internet can also be resorted to; online research will also connect you to various websites that will provide detailed and unbiased information. But such research, through books or the internet has limitations too.

You could also explore various careers through practical acquaintance with them; the knowledge that you get can indeed be extremely stunning to facilitate exploration of related aspects that concern you the maximum. Since experience is invariably a protracted process, you will, more often than not utilize pragmatic and practical erudition after you trim down your options of likely areas of your interest to few.

The best line of action is to work in an environment similar to that of the career that you are thinking about. Should you be unable to manage a regular job there or because of time constraints cannot join, you can take up work as an apprentice and work part-time. You will be able to get hands down learning about responsibilities and working atmosphere. You could also see a work location from close quarters; for this you will have to make use of your network or take initiative to establish contact with some companies for the purpose. It may be required of you to possess specified clothing and take an insurance policy to adhere to working conventions and safety obligations. You should make it a point to not falter on punctuality and to note down in your diary all your observations. During the period of your apprenticeship, your aim should be to learn and get a practical insight; undesired activities like gossiping and unnecessary raising doubts should be avoided. On completion of your attachment period, make it a point to send a communication expressing your thankfulness.    

You can also resort to informational interviews. These entail talking to somebody who is practicing a career that you intend to pursue. It is human tendency to be happy while talking about a subject that happens to be your passion; and any work involves passion.  Informational interviews can help you widen your list of contacts; people that you meet and add on to your network can be valuable references or influence wielders during your job hunt subsequently. You must make a record of whatever is spoken about and ensure that you get to know how the other person went about preparing for his career. Perhaps, if you adopt the same tactics, you may get into a career and job of your dreams.

The final step is to make a holistic assessment of your career. You should reflect on all possible positive and negative aspects; and simply be happy if you happen to get a good remuneration package. You should catalogue all significant features like your fitness and contentment intensities; arrays of work and prospects; and opportunity to make use of your ingenuity and inventiveness. If you set precedence, you will be able to obviate the likelihood of laying undue stress on unimportant and inconsequential issues. As the process of assessments moves ahead, you should try to discern what is essentially and in reality distinctive. You should be relatively more cautious if you are going to make conclusions on the basis of your special encounters. It is likely that some atypical and extraordinary   workplace circumstances may portray an incorrect notion of a career and its effects on those pursuing it.

Making a right career choice is always plagued with difficulties, whatever planning and preparation that you may do. If you make mistakes, you will learn something. But in the process, you will be able to refine your thoughts and better your capacity to make sound decisions. But remember that unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can. You can pursue any career and there will be numerous rules for success, however, none of them will work unless you do.