Oversee yourself for the career that you seek

"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

 - Theodore Roosevelt

There were times when a career that a person sought was available readily and he or she could unthinkably get into. Today, with rising costs and a slowed-down economy, organisations have been compelled to resort to downscale their strength; the visible outcome is intense competition in every field. Therefore, to get a career that you desire, you have to draw up plans and initiate your own road-map for it. Therefore, if you intend to keep your career interests above other endeavours, you should be mentally and physically tuned to strike the ground and always remain in a dynamic mode. In other words, you need to be aiming and going all-out for the job that you are aspiring for.

You may seek assistance and advice; they are undoubtedly advantageous. But the resolutions that you make are eventually all contingent on you. Remember that a career is not a job; it in fact, extends beyond it. A career is not a wine-tasting endeavour that involves sipping one after the other to decide which is the best one. A career is without any exception an enduring and all-time activity; to put it pragmatically, it is a chase to attain certified triumph in your line of activity. It facilitates describing and characterising you together with what you stand for – your principles, standards and ideals alike. Your career helps you to derive a denotation and rationale for your life, besides affording you an opportunity to receive pecuniary benefits by way of remuneration for the work you do. Therefore, if you really want to pursue a career as distinct from remaining in a job, you need to take necessary actions to help you to thrive and remain unbeaten. You simply cannot afford to be in a waiting mode and hope that your career will take off on its own. If you want to be an authority in the field that you have opted for, you will have to make your success come about; and for which, you need to:

·  Be clear about your individual and professional objectives.

·  Identify your best contributions.

·  Maintain a record of your accomplishments.

·  Assign yourself an obligation to keep on gaining knowledge on a continual basis.

·  Do hard slog by sparing your time and utilising your available assets to build up and advance your career.

·  Institute an consultative and counseling panel to help you.

·  Identify a guru who you can look up to.

·  Establish and widen your contact base.

Talking of career management and guidance by others, a person who is well-experienced can render advice to you. Based on such advice, you may be able to formulate your goals so that your career always remains on a forward-moving mode. The inventiveness, enterprise and ingenuity to be in such a mode will have to originate from you alone; needless to state, the same will entail significant industriousness on your part if you sincerely seek a triumphant conclusion. The fact is that you need to be motivated. And motivation is a fire from within; if someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly. In all your efforts related to your career, you must strive to excel. The age-old adage that ‘Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel’ is of great relevance to you.

It is essential, rather inescapable for you to discern what you are out to seek; be familiar with what you are cut out for and capable of doing; be flexible in your methodology; and take all actions incessantly that are obligatory to make your career progress.

If you happen to be an ordinary graduate, things will be difficult for sure. Though a formal college qualification is necessary to get a consequential job, it may not be enough. You thus have to appreciate the specific qualification that will help you get a foothold and then move ahead to specialise so that you have a grip that can help you cope with the challenges of competition. This would necessarily imply the need to remain abreast with all new developments in your field of work. Besides your own initiative, your contact base will prove to be of great help in heightening your self-assurance and reliability in this regard.

Career management is not an enterprise that somebody else can do it for you. The only instrument for success is you and you alone. You will have to oversee it yourself.