Discussing your career plan with your boss

You are the pilot of your career. The bearing in which it heads to is your concern and your boss or any of your colleagues are not really responsible for the course it takes. Of course, they may occasionally indicate openings to you, but the one that you ought to clutch depends on your enterprise. Though you may be clear about your career plan and what you seek to attain, you cannot assume that others too are likewise.

If you think that your boss can help you in attaining your objectives, then discussing your career advancement plan with him or her is in the fitness of things. In this context, some helpful hints are:

· Understand yourself & have a plot:  You need to set your career objectives prior to discussing your career plan. It is essential that you are well-aware about yourself and the place that you aspire to be at. You must introspect on the shape of things that you want the future to roll out for you. Before meeting your boss, you should be able to enunciate what you seek to do in the immediate future, the expertise that you need to possess for that and likely impediments that may preclude your move forward. It will not be out of place to make it known to your boss specific responsibilities that could be assigned to you and which will facilitate your advancement. A well-enunciated career plan will portray you in the correct light and manifest your resoluteness towards your career advancement.  

· Appreciate the viewpoint of your boss & organisation:  Discussing a career plan is a delicate and complex matter, particularly when you have been recruited for an explicit function. It is essential that you discern the standpoints of your boss and company before deciding on discussing your plan with him or her. Issues that you should be clear about are the degree of encouragement that your boss is likely to give for the advancement of people under him; pressures, if any being exerted on him; whether your company is favourably disposed towards the career growth of its employees; and your boss’ locus standi to influence the management in your favour. It is only after such appreciation that you can decide on draft your discussion plan.

· Structure your conversation appropriately:   You cannot ask your boss when the chair being occupied by him or her will be vacated so that you can move in. You must ponder over his or her reaction, if at all you do so. You may aspire for it alright, but you should not make such an intention known. If you are able transmit your ideas decorously, the chances of getting support are evidently high. How do you then go about? First and foremost, you should express your gratitude to your boss for looking after your career interests; talking about specific instances will be of great advantage. You must talk about your present work profile and the level of expertise that you have been able to develop till date, of course with his or her guidance. Concurrently, your opinion about how your career has been in the company and how you are keen to keep on making useful contributions. It is only then that you should make your plan known – how you envision your future, higher responsibilities that you want to shoulder, people with whom you like to be associated with and qualifications that you want to acquire to realise your dream. Thereafter, you can solicit his support and direction. Before breaking off, an expression of gratefulness will serve your interests.     

· Select the most suitable time for discussion: An apt timing for discussion is important. Your career plan may be sound and your boss may be highly accommodating; and you select your words well. However, if you think that prevailing conditions are not in your favour, it will be prudent to postpone the discussion to a later date. The ideal time for discussing your career plan with your boss is during appraisals because your boss will be able to appreciate your work all along as it would be on record.   

The best of career plans will serve no purpose if you do not get support from your boss. To be able to solicit it, you should be unambiguous about your objectives, the culture of the company you are working with and the characteristics of the boss serving under. In addition, you should articulate yourself without raising any eyebrows at an opportune moment. But most importantly, believe in yourself and your abilities, because sans an unpretentious but realistic sureness in your own powers you will not be able to give shape to your career plan.

A job is an important step to build a career

Your job is a launch pad for success in your career and life. It is in your job that you acquire vital abilities, develop prime associations and unveil your accomplishments. Your career journey may involve numerous jobs; and even if you serve in a single organisation, you will hold different appointments where the work involved will not be the same. As you become senior, you will be required to shoulder diverse responsibilities, including resource management.

If you have to build your career, knowing how to land up in a job or for that matter getting into one may not be enough. You should be adept at the following:

· Knowing how to do well and come out with flying colours; and being in complete control of all facets of your career, including job security.

· Cultivating, enlarging and sustaining professional bonds; and managing difficult encounters at work to include dealing with confidentiality issues, gender bias and problematic co-workers.  

· Maintaining a good work-life balance and identifying better prospects and new openings, both in in your current company and outside.

It is essential that during the first three months at your job, you create a good impact. You need to have a well-defined and distinct image of the outcomes that you envisage; in addition, you should be clear about how they will be determined and assessed. However, the most important issue that will hold relevance always is the equation that you have with your superiors, particularly your immediate boss.

Having a good equation with your immediate boss is alright, but it is equally important to maintain similar ties with other people as well. Your immediate boss will guide you, but surely you would like a guru other than him too. Besides your co-workers in your department, there will be contemporaries in other departments as well. There will be other senior appointment holders and also people higher up in the hierarchy. It goes without saying that you are working for an organisation and everybody and clients and suppliers also matter and with whom you need to have proficient relationships. Likewise, there will be many like you working in similar set-ups and you would like to network with them too.

It will be absolutely wrong to presuppose that if you acquit yourself well at work, everybody will automatically get to know about it. A down to business superintendence of your career with a focus on its progression is essential. Depending upon the organisation that you serve in, there will be stipulated processes wherein you can get an advice on your performance and also gain salary hikes and promotions. But the initiative to utilize the processes and procedures has to come from you.

You simply cannot presume that the job that you are in will be there forever. Your company can retain you for as long as your services are required. Here again, the initiative to make yourself indispensable has to come from you. It is therefore, necessary that you keep your wits about so that your job security remains safeguarded. But you need to be prepared for the worst case scenario too – what do you do if you have to leave so that maximum support is forthcoming from your company during the changeover period.

Besides a surprise retrenchment, there will be several other tests and trials that will loom over you. The very fact that you spend nearly half your time at your workplace, there are bound to be workplace problems and discords. You must visualise such problems and be on the lookout for the same. Though every problem will have to be tackled based on its specific peculiarities, the fact is that you will be prepared 24/7 to deal with all such eventualities. But spending a large part of your time at workplace will also render you mechanically and instinctively more concentrated towards your work. It is likely that you may not be able to maintain a proper work-life balance and in the process your individual concerns go unattended. You must maintain a robust equation between your work and personal obligations. 

As stated earlier, a career journey will never be sans ups and downs. You may do some real good career management and build excellent networking, but even then you may be shown the door. It could be that you have gone slow or aspire to do something not the same. This may necessitate managing your career so that you can also focus on alternatives and for that, a strong and dependable network is inescapable. Your own skills and aptitude should be sought after by your prospective employer. And for that, you will have to make constant endeavours to learn and grow in your current job; this will make you prized to your present company and also to all others.

Remember that the best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today. And nothing will work unless you do.

Means for career advancement

Have you ever pondered over what your boss did to become a boss? If yes, do you think that you too can do likewise? The question however, is, “How?”

Career advancement can appear to be a very enigmatic struggle. There are people who reach the pinnacle and there are some who stagnate at subordinate positions. The dynamics of career advancement vary from company to company. However, the ABC of it lies in the acronym ABC itself and if adhered, will stand you in good stead all through your career journey:

· Academic accomplishments:  There is no field of work where education is not central to progress. It is likely that it may not be a prerequisite to get into a job, but pursuing it thereafter manifests your devotion towards your own progression. To illustrate the point, if you aspire to take up a career in human resource management, you must consider subscribing to an MBA either online or distance mode. When an opening does come up and you stake a claim for it, the fact that you acquired the qualification while working will be seen as an indication of your perseverance

· Being the best:  You have to be genuinely truthful at your workplace. It entails several attributes, however, the essence of all of them is to being able to put your best foot forward. You need to finish all tasks happily and to the best of your capability. You should also take all disapprovals and censures in good spirit. If you find your work tough, rather than pointing fingers at others, particularly your seniors, you should introspect and get to the root cause of your distress. It is likely that the fountainhead of the difficulty lies within you. If you address your job and all tasks assigned to you with devotion, you will stand out in the crowd. You will be noted by your seniors and management alike; and when a vacancy for a promotion indeed does crop up, you will naturally be a desirable contender for it.

· Comprehending climb-up:  The significance of career advancement varies from individual to individual. It is necessary that you identify what it implies for you. Does it necessitate that you work in a particular vertical? Or does it mean that you have an assured carry-home remuneration? If you can discern this and are able to characterize career advancement as relevant to you, you can then carry on to concentrate on attaining it. Continuing with the same illustration of the need to be an MBA, should you be convinced of your intention to take up human resources management as your line, you will have to be serious-minded in your approach to arm yourself with the same so that you are better geared to attain your career objectives.

There are certain other methods of career advancement which also pay rich dividends. However, their efficacy is subject to your fulfilling basic requirements discussed above. These are:

· Widening of contact base:  You would be required to attend conferences, workshops and seminars; acquaintances that you strike there can be helpful in your career advancement. Through such new contacts, you may be able to identify fresh customers and suppliers; and even get a lead to a different career altogether. During the last couple of years, internet has become a medium of networking; Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are all examples and which help widen your contact base.

· Opinion portrayal:  How do your seniors view you? They are the ones who will call the shots when your turn for a promotion comes and may already have formed an impression about you. Unfortunately, the impression formed may not necessarily be grounded on realistic and objective.  It is essential that you are regarded as an out-of-the box category and one who goes higher than and further than average. You have to be exceptional and remarkable in all respects 

· Influence exertion:   Ideally speaking, your merit and qualifications should be the sole contributory factors for your career advancement. But in actuality, it is also contingent on who you know in organizational hierarchy. You ought to be conscious of this fact and make constant efforts to get noticed, known and appreciated by your senior management.

It should be remembered that the price of career advancement is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether you win or lose, you have applied the best of yourself to your work. And though there is no secret recipe of career advancement, the secret of achieving it is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in your mind.

Transforming work into pleasure

      You may have different sensitivities towards your work, depending upon what type of work you do. Does going to work inspire you or does it scare you? Does your outlook have a role to play in your work? Or is it that your postures about work are contingent solely on what you do?

Since work and workplace are a significant part of our daily routine & life, it is essential that we direct efforts to make them delightful experiences. As human beings, we have the capacity to alter our outlooks, so there is no reason why we should not be able to do likewise in other aspects of our life. Our work is an important arena that is time and again disposed to some, though modest alterations.

Is work a load and a liability? If you let things go to an extent that you are completely ensnared in an output mentality, rest assured that you will remain preoccupied with your unending things-to-do catalogue. And if you allow things to continue in the same state, it is likely that you will make attempts to determine your feelings about your own self by the quantum of what you have earned on that particular day. If you permit them beyond a point, your work will assume the shape and form of an encumbrance. The result will evidently be that you derive no pleasure from your work and instead wait for things to finish so that you receive monetary compensation for your toil.

The question is, “Can your work be a delightful experience and a gratifying happening?” Is it possible to create a mental shift that can facilitate an outlook that makes you eager to go to work? In other words, how can you make your work more pleasurable? Here is how you can do so:

· Concentrate on upbeat aspects: You may be doing several things and they are bound to have optimistic and off-putting facets. If the outcome happens to be the most encouraging feature of your work or if somebody can benefit from your endeavours, you ought to direct your efforts accordingly. When you concentrate your efforts on upbeat aspects of any activity, you will derive pleasure.

· Avoid excessive pondering:  If you think too much, you will encounter problems that were not there in the first place. You must act rather than mull because excessive thinking invariably lead to worries and degrade things.

· Follow a healthy lifestyle:  Being healthy and living a healthy lifestyle should be on the top of your agenda. You will always remain rejuvenated and resultantly it will make a great difference to you and your work. You will enjoy your work.

· Hook up with your true self:  Have you ever contemplated over the reasons why you duck work? What is that makes your work a grind? Surely, they will have something to do with your principal philosophies about yourself. Are there any issues related to your work that are at divergence with them or your inner individuality nous? Having debated them, you must afford yourself time and opportunity to hook up with yourself; this will infuse happiness in both your life and work.

· Pursue excellence:  Every task will be hard slog if you do not exert yourself to your full capacity. A task done well will give you contentment. You should also adhere to utmost criteria and not fall prey to any inducements. If you autograph your work with excellence, your self-esteem and self-worth will get a boost; and so will be the case with your pleasure.

· Concentrate on what counts:  Your mind is meant to wander, but if you can exercise control over it, the contributions that you make at work will be tremendous. You will be able to achieve perfection. But if you waste time on valueless preoccupations, you will drain yourself unnecessarily. Work is always a pleasure if you add worth to anything that you do and you achieve this by concentrating on aspects that actually matter.

Remember that your worth is dependent on the worth that you generate. With a correct outlook, you can enjoy working, even if your job does not happen to be your dream job. The bottom line is believing in yourself; and that implies having faith in your capabilities because if you do not place trust in yourself, you can neither be happy nor successful. And last but not the least, you will be as happy as you make your mind to be because pleasure is not something readymade; it comes from your own actions.

Factors for career success

The ladder of success is best ascended by stepping on the steps of chance and possibility. That implies that action is the initial key to it. In other words, success is a science and you get to clutch the outcome if you have the circumstances. That implies that action is the initial key to it.

There are basically five aspects that if you follow, you will keep getting impelled and success will be yours to kiss. They are:

· The most opportune moment to do anything is now:   Deferment, postponement and stalling anything are all measures that you take to keep up with yesterday. Nobody will ever appreciate you if you come up with indications of idling or being lackadaisical. You should be ever ready to confront your work; and towards such an inclination, you must have a line of action towards your work. You simply cannot afford to drag your feet because if you do, you will never complete your project in time and in the process will never be able to win the trust of your boss. Resultantly, you will never be in the scheme of additional assignments.

· Be clear about what you are required to do next:  You should never be in haste to depart from a conference because then you will not be clear about what you ought to be effecting; the deadline that is required to be adhered is also a component of the foregoing. There should be no doubts in your mind whatsoever. And if you happen to be senior enough, formulating the line of action is your obligation. If you are clear about responsibilities and sub-responsibilities as also the deadline, you automatically become dynamic and fruitful. The fruitfulness aspect is the simplest to run through and increases the prospects of your career success

· Be watchful and perceptive:  You should be acutely noticing people and goings-on that surround you at work. This does not demand poking your nose in the affairs of others and start blathering. Every workplace has its own subtleties and undercurrents; and you should guard against getting dragged into matters that can be detrimental to your career interests. The point to note is that being watchful and perceptive leads you to being alert and cautious. You will thus get aware of working procedures and various sensitivities involved. The outcome will be that you will understand your working environment better and gel with it well; likewise, others will also relate with you respectably.

· Never ever shrink from propriety:  No person in this world has lost anything by being nice to others. Propriety causes you immense gains and helps to vapourise misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility. You do not have to ties shoelaces of others if they are open or serve them water during mealtime. A simple greeting of the day or a friendly smile while making way for a lady is all what basic propriety is all about. And when you indulge in politeness and decency as a habit, you also prompt others to do similarly. Propriety also entails being systematized and methodical in everything that you do or act upon so that you come to be regarded as productive. Other things being equal, if you do not shrink from propriety, your career will register an upward swing.    

· Don’t hesitate to exchange cards:  You may not be familiar or acquainted with all people and personalities in your field for work. Therefore, you should endeavour to find out who those people are and the place where they are. In addition, it will always be prudent to find out specific places and timings that such persons patronise in their leisure. Your maiden efforts should be directed to your co-workers and associates. The world is all about networking and when you start with people in your vicinity, your face starts getting known and accepted. Over a period of time and as you widen your contacts, your name will start getting recognised. However, networking apart, you should not falter on your efforts because eventually it is your hard work and delivery of results that will matter.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. You can definitely create it by getting started and begin doing. If you do the best right now, you will position yourself the best for the ensuing minute.  You simply cannot carve an image for yourself on the basis of what you dream or what you intend doing. You have to do something on ground and do it exceedingly well. After all, rewards are always preceded by hard work. You cannot harvest pleasure and elation without seeding tears.

Utilise workplace annoyances to boost your productivity

If you are working full time, you would be spending a minimum of about forty hours per week at your workplace. With so much of your time devoted at one place, there will be annoyances typical of the place. Even the best of workplaces are no exception; the very assertion that they are the best, implying perfect, manifests that there are annoyances prevalent there. 

You do not have to make an effort to identify what is irritating around you. You simply have to think of it and lo and behold, you will notice one. It could be somebody talking loudly over the phone, admonishing a subordinate for whatever reason or trying to unnecessarily engage you or someone in a conversation. The periodicity of annoyances striking you could be the same as any other activity that puts you off. Not getting recognition for a job well done, unwarranted criticism or even unjustified chinwag can be highly irritating too.

Everybody will regard all annoyances as distractions that contribute to interruptions and interferences at work. Be it inability to focus on work or reluctance to take on an additional assignment, the cause is attributed to affliction of some form of an annoyance at workplace. Likewise, if you do not feel self-assured or at ease at your workplace, the reason possibly in your logic is the unrestrained and sardonic criticism of you by your boss. These distractions and exasperations and blockings are figments of your sensitivity to which some degree of your non-performance is ascribed to.

The truth, however, is that all the workplace annoyances are not destructive; they enable ground-breaking endeavours. The very fact that your mind is incited by them in whatever manner, they serve as stimuli. And if they were not present, where would that stimuli come from? The following vexations at your workplace can enhance your output and novelty, both qualitatively and quantitatively:  

· Acerbity & censures:  If you are shouted at, you generally tend to be more industrious. Your effort is directed at complying with directions so that there is no second instance of admonishment or reproach. Research has shown that entertaining scorn requires a highly cognitive endeavour and intricate contemplation. You are forced to delve into the details of tongue-in-cheek comments and understand diverse connotations behind them, including reading in between the lines. This is a mental stimulus and leads to greater creativity and boosts skills to handle glitches and conundrums.

· Cluttered working area:  Some people believe that a cluttered desk indicates a cluttered mind. But then what does an open space indicate? Studies conducted have proved that people with a messy desk are more prone to creativity and risk taking, while people at cleaner desks tended to follow strict rules and are less likely to try new things or take risks. Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights.  Therefore, you need not get unduly worried if your workspace is messy; in fact, messiness and cleanliness both are a spectrum that have a corresponding creativity setting.

· Boisterous commotions:   Your creative faculties need a specific milieu noise calibre. If your thinking process is compelled to filter surplus commotion in the surroundings, the abstract component of it will get activated. Consequently, newer ideas will flow in even though your brain would be working in accelerated conditions. If there are no sounds surrounding you, your brain will not be put to its optimum capability; on the contrary, if you are able to subsist in a noisy environment, you will be pitched at an entirely new plane to face challenges.   

· Workplace blather:  If there happens to be workplace chinwag, research has shown that you stress gets relieved and output enhanced. However, the point to note is that inappropriate gossip need not be paid attention to. The reason is that you are inspired to work hard to negate all those blather doing rounds. Hence, gossip should not affect you in any manner.

· Absence of recognition:  If you genuinely seek to generate or produce something, your originality, ingenuity and inventiveness will automatically be of a high degree. In the light of the foregoing, your imaginative capability is by itself an incentive. And it gets further boosted when you do not look for any return or advantage. Resultantly, you are at ease with yourself and perform in an independent, unbiased and efficient manner.

Remember that it is wise to direct your anger towards problems, not people; to focus your energies on answers, not excuses.

Make your career success happen

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

– Abraham Lincoln

There is no denying the fact that you are the maker of your own career success. You are its author, designer, engineer and architect. And nobody else is.  It should be remembered that in this entire process, being accountable and liable for your actions is a prime factor for success. Therefore, you cannot escape that responsibility.

The question, however, is how do you bring about your career success? You can do so if you realise and understand the following tenets:

· The resolution is yours:  The resolution to seek success customarily precedes its attainment. And that resolution is also invariably yours. Nobody else can take a call on it, leave aside a decision. It should be remembered that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. And if you do not, you gain nothing and accomplish nothing; the initiative has to come from you. You take a mindful decision on the basis of your own assessment of various factors. If you truly want to achieve success, you will find a way to do it, in spite of any or all obstacles. You will realise that by the very resolution that you make, you will scale all barriers between you and your success. However, it is important that you envision and define success as perceived by you; that is precisely why you are the author of your own success story.      

· You are the key player:  Your friends, philosophers and guides can show you the way and inspire you, but eventually it is you alone who has to make it a reality. You are the prime mover and facilitator of your success. You have to realise the value of hard work and that can be done by working hard. You may dream of success and even a miracle cannot transform it into a certainty. Since nothing but weeds grow without hard work, you have to sweat it out and do so with fortitude and resolve. Your success will depend on a large measure on your personal initiative and efforts; and hence it is you and you alone who can truly be the architect of your own success. 

· Planning for it is your baby:  If you fail to prepare for success, you will be preparing to fail in achieving it. There are many people who are unable to achieve any success and attribute their failure to their bad luck. They do not realise that the only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work. In fact, bad luck is simply an excuse for not working hard. You have to plan for your career success and that entails bringing the future into the present so that you are able to take necessary action in advance. You need to challenge and defy your shortcomings by way of knowledge and expertise; and thereafter, put into practice a strategy to bring about an enhancement and perfection. Here again, the preparation and planning is your initiative and therefore, the responsibility to make your career success happen is only yours. 

· Trouncing challenges is your concern:  Your career path will be a bumpy ride; you will encounter innumerable challenges in your career journey. You alone will have to knock them out. Your ultimate measure as an individual is not where you stand in times of comfort and convenience, but where you stand in moments of test and storm. And when you are able to overcome challenges, you always feel elated in your spirits. People generally blame their circumstances for whatever they are; this is baseless because you have to get up and create the circumstances that will facilitate your career success. In many instances, your own thoughts and conduct will be challenges by themselves; and you simply cannot persist with them. You will need to swim upstream to reach your destiny. There will be people to assist you, but trouncing all challenges will per force have to be done by you. This fact also supports the fact that your career success is to be actualized by you.

If you want to achieve success in your career, you must hold an image of it in your mind. You simply cannot keep dreaming about it; you have to knock off your slumber and toil at it. And unless you endeavour to do something beyond what you have already attained, you will never move forward. If you have to make footprints on the sands of time, you cannot keep squatting. The truth that you engineer your own career success should be viewed as positive scoop because then you will be at wheels of your own calling.   

Initiate a career road-map

A person who is ignorant of his current position and is oblivious of where he wants to go will invariably get lost. Directionless that he or she will be, golden opportunities will be missed and a desperate feeling of a lack of control over destiny will be suffered. In the world of careers too, you need guidance. And there is nothing better than making a career map that will serve to guide you at every stage of your career so that your bearing remains intact.

To be able to head in the right direction and make your career meaningful, you need to formulate a career roadmap. Here is how you can do so:

· Self-perception: You cannot discern anything that you seek without discerning yourself. A truthful evaluation is inescapable to know what your eventual objectives ought to be. Like in the case of life, there are strings of inclinations attached to every aspect of your career. A knowledge of all such penchants and preferences facilitate the generation of a career roadmap and moving as per it to your pleasure. If you reflect on your long-term concerns, the career plan that you formulate will offer repeated delight at every step. You also need to systematically and exhaustively ‘swot’ over every single aspect that you have achieved in your career. Towards this, it is essential that every learning experience that you have undergone becomes a focal point of your review. Thereafter, you ought to weigh those learning experiences and record all prime issues that emerge; and concurrently outline and describe the position where you stand. You may even consider going through a makeup evaluation so that you can utilize the findings to identify areas in which you are likely to excel and delight in. Discussing your thoughts and objectives with mentors will stand you in good stead.

· Generating a plan:  A well-thought of line of action will facilitate in centring in the correct direction and your destination. Evidently, you will not waste your time in getting involved with mundane issues pertaining to your job. It is your objectives that define your career endpoints; if your career objectives are vague, you move forward will also be similarly blurred. Therefore, you need to query yourself to become clear about your objectives. Pertinent questions that you should ask yourself  are:

v What is the echelon of responsibility that you want to shoulder?

v What are the assignments that you would prefer to undertake or lead?

v What is the outcome that you want in your section or company?

v What is the type of organisation that you would prefer to be working with?

v Who are the people with whom you would like to operate with?

v What is the remuneration package that you are looking for?

v What is the nature of work-life balance are you seeking in your life?

· Reassessment of objectives:  Your career path is not single-lane with no options of detours or turns. You must peruse your roadmap from time to time to see if the path you are trudging is the most suitable one or not. As you advance in age, there will be many happenings that will influence your life and routine; wedding and domestic obligations will be major occurrences. The realm of your career is never unvarying and it may not be possible to envision your future with precision. Several variables will come into play unannounced and you will have to be flexible towards them. It may appear that the generation of a career roadmap is restrictive, given the deviations, fluctuations and contests that you may face subsequently. However, this may not be truly relevant. A well-formulated career road map will help you traverse and sail across alterations and ups and downs with relative ease. It should be remembered that a career plan – be it extending into the immediate or distant future – with your career objectives enumerated without ambiguity will facilitate envisioning a thoughtful picture of your working span. You will find viewing at every issue pragmatically and plan for options that are significant and quickly attainable.

The crux of the matter is knowing where you want to be and once you are clear about it, there is every possibility that you will reach there. It is your objectives that will you going forward. Therefore setting them ought to be the maiden step; you will transform the invisible into visible and the intangible will thus become tangible. And if at all you feel that the objectives cannot be attained, you need not adjust them; instead you should adjust your moves.

Focal points of career success

They say that the road to success runs uphill and the secret of success is to do common things uncommonly well. Success by itself will never lower its standards to us; in fact, we have to raise our standards to success.    

To be successful in your career, there are some tenets that you must be conversant with because if your mind is troubled by doubt, it cannot focus on the course to victory. You need to comprehend and focus on the following aspects:

· Realising what success is all about:  You have to know the connotation of success to realise it in your career. Success is a continual process and different people interpret it differently. If you are able to attain something, you simply cannot afford to pause. You should make efforts to find out how others achieved success. The road to success is not a comfortable drive and you are bound to face impediments on it, however, in order to knock off any fright, you must keep looking at your objectives. And most importantly, there are many rules for success, but none of them will work unless you do. 

· Living up to obligations:  The importance of commitment in your career journey is immense and makes it imperative to follow through all of them. You may make commitments to yourself and others; and it is mandatory to also commit your time, effort and resources to them. There are also obligations towards your objectives and which entail even swimming against current. While luck could be a factor, it should be understood that most of life is hard work and commitment. Nobody has ever achieved anything without commitment.

· Having oomph & verve:  These words actually imply an upbeat disposition and a determination to shun unconstructive considerations. You need to deliberate on optimistic feelings, concentrate on upbeat issues and express your opinions politely to ward off self-engendered pessimism. When you generate oomph and verve, you become a magnet that entices people close to you. With their help, you are able to develop your optimum capacity for performance. Therefore, you must try to absorb upbeat outlooks and which produce the requisite vigour to enjoy the delights of living. And when you start doing so, the road to success becomes a relatively easy ride.

· Being the take-off point:  If you seek to attain success, the take-off point has to be you. You need to see how you can perfect yourself, abandon debauched practices and imbibe worthy conventions. These actions will facilitate your prospects of success. The process is bound to be long, time-consuming and inconvenient; but should be taken in stride. You should remember self-improvement ought to be a continual process and the initiative for it has to be taken by you because no other influence is of any import.

· Valuing the value of time:  Time is a valuable entity and should not be wasted. Lost time is never found again reinforcing the point that time is money. You require time for self-improvement, for endeavours to achieve your objectives and for living up to your promises that steer you towards their attainments.  Therefore, if you waste your time, you waste your life.       

· Sharing & giving: It is in giving that you will always receive. You can share knowledge, help others or have a few words of admiration for them – all these efforts entail selflessness and magnanimity and which, boost your chances of career success. You also get to realise that hurting others is detrimental to your wellbeing and interests alike. Therefore, you should be disposed to taking delight and not feeling envious in the success of others. The point of the matter is that when you rally round others, you lay the foundation of your own success.

· Displaying pluck:  The road to career success is lengthy and your journey on it time-consuming. You require high spirits and fortitude to be positive, confident and sanguine. The career journey can be tireless but there is no need to lose hope. The pluck that you display is in fact an impelling factor to overcome fear with astuteness, forbearance and tenacity – all experiences by themselves. Consequently and consequentially, you invariably emerge a winner.

Some people dream of success while others wake up and work hard at it. In order to be successful in your career, you must stay positive, keep yourself charged, work hard and maintain focus. If you want to unveil the secret of achievement, you must hold a picture of a successful outcome in your mind. And remember that any fact facing you is not as important as your attitude towards it; it is eventually your outlook and disposition that will determine your success or failure.

Continual learning is inescapable for success

If you seek to outshine others - be it at your work or in your life – you must bind yourself to unceasing learning. Everybody understands this requirement but yet lose out on chances for potent learning and in the process are unable to move ahead towards the attainment of their objectives. There is no end to education and that is why, the whole of life is a process of learning.

Though we may be stimulated to learn at work, yet most of us do not pay much heed to this important factor for career success. This is largely on account of either our busy schedule, obliviousness of what to learn or non-availability of appropriate wherewithal. Resultantly, we finish up either with accidental learning or ordered learning and none of these arrangements are truly beneficial. Accidental learning implies making use of learning opportunities but not exploring them further; in simple words, you do not want to inconvenience yourself. On the other hand, ordered learning involves giving in to external directions or when you have no choice but to comply.

There is apparently nothing out of order in accidental or ordered learning as you improve upon your skills alright. However, if you feel that giving yourself to new learning may not lead to any improvement of your skills and hence not worth the effort, then there is definitely a major difficulty. You must not underestimate your capability and capacity; and realise that the benefits of learning are immense and hence it is simply not sensible to downgrade it to the quirks of accidental or ordered ones. That brings us to the third type of learning and that is learning by own choosing.

Learning by own choosing implies prudently creating your own learning openings that are centred exclusively on what you require to derive maximum advantages and generate better outcomes. The process is founded on several suppositions like:

· Knowledge is headship:  Any form of leadership calls for learning. In fact, any individual’s relentless pursuit of knowledge leads him to possess a cutting edge over others, concurrently also leading to betterment of business prospects, career advancement and personal satisfaction. For all these, you need to pick up leadership aids, purposeful systems and supervision methods. You must go over your outcomes and look for improvement areas. This type of exercise promotes and buoys influential headship.   

· Knowledge is viable gain:  Every business and job calls for inventiveness; in fact novelty, ingenuity and origination are the pillars of your own self-discovery. If you desire that your efforts pay you off during periods of change, you will have to be flexible enough to welcome change. In case you do not, you will suffer in averageness and stagnate. Such a state is not desirable in any way. You should not concede to postulations that times are difficult and hence results will not be forthcoming. If you feel that you are not contented, you must get out of that feeling by finding out what in you warrants a change. Doing so will pep you up and infuse a sense of being in charge and in direction; and will be better poised to lead others and excel in your efforts.   

· Knowledge is a state of being:  Besides learning for various pragmatic and cogent causes related to your career, acquisition of knowledge is an integral component of the excitement and enjoyment of your very existence. You need to reflect on the last time when you learnt something new – it could be a skill, sport or anything. Remember that you give yourself up to any activity not because of any compulsion, but due to an inert desire to indulge in and learn something new. It is a known fact that your desire and keenness to learn boosts you enthusiasm to achieve your dreams and objectives. You will realise that you can attain anything in life till such time you are kindled with the zest to learn.

Learning is a critical part of career advancement; and learning by own choosing helps you in comprehending precisely what is necessary to move ahead. You need to think about your objectives, weigh the qualitative requirements and select the most apt field to concentrate on. This exercise will keep you away from accidental learning and facilitate a premeditated approach that leads you directly to your objectives and dreams.

Anybody who wants to fly must learn to stand, walk and run; it is next to impossible to fly into the realm of flying straightaway. Likewise, if you actually want to excel in life, you must learn well too. The truth is that gaining wisdom and skills is lifelong attempt to acquire them.