Getting on the highway to career discovery

People may talk about economic slowdown and lack of employment, but if you scan the job market, you will see that openings and opportunities exist everywhere. But the issue is finding a job that you will genuinely love and not one that you force yourself into. The reason is that in case you do not take delight in it, you will fail to contribute optimally. The contentment and pleasure that you derive from your work actually serves to encourage and invigorate you. Resultantly, you start loving your job more and the cycle thus carries on. The fact of the matter is that to be successful, the first thing to do is to fall in love with your work.

Your job should not only heighten your career path but also serve to boost your zeal and commitment; and inspire appeal and fascination for it. Your dreams are an extremely important component of your career plan; you simply cannot achieve anything unless you imagine it. So, how do you get into your dream job? As you move on towards your dream job, there are three fundamental actions on your part that will help you to discover your career:

· Ensure that your focal point is you: Most people get trapped in a nasty succession of cyclic actions wherein they fail to derive anything worthwhile from their career. They invariably take up a job on the face value of it. They reconcile to organisational requirements and instructions, thinking that by doing so, they will move forward in their career. But sooner or later, they infer, unfortunately though, that they are ensnared in an environment that they are not keen on. Then they scout around for other jobs and in the process, err again. To get out of such a muddle, it is essential that you take stock of your aspirations in life before deciding on what job you should be getting into. Finding out what you actually seek and the methodology to be adopted to show up your dexterities is the maiden step to discovering a gratifying career. You need to create a clear and unambiguous portrait that displays your abilities and tasks that you can excel at. As you make that portrait, your career course will become well-defined. And you will realise that some valuable ideas and prospects not imagined before have come to the fore.

· Make efforts to determine your true urge: You need to be true to what naturally interests you and concurrently also plucky enough to transform your fascinations into a line of work. You must not trust what motivates others in selecting a career; you need to trust what impels you. You will harbour some fervour towards something that needs to be found out so that you can pursue it, obviate fracases and enjoy your work. In other words, your work has to be something that you are in love with. Your passion will move you beyond yourself and your inadequacies; and eventually beyond breakdowns. This calls for first peeping inside yourself, appreciating what you seek and based on it, move in the most appropriate direction. You could take up honorary jobs to gain a first-hand experience; the experience so gained will motivate you to work hard and convert your dream into an actuality. Remember that the worst days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who do not enjoy doing anything.   

· Manipulate knowledge to galvanise your career discovery: Today, there are number of means available to help you take a correct career decision. It is likely that your academic qualifications and professional ambitions are not corresponding; this necessitates sparing time and effort to discover an ideal career and job rather than taking a decision with impulse. You need to embark on an exploratory path to find out how luminaries moved ahead in their career. This will entail significant research – surfing the internet, informational interviews and reading real-life stories will help.

Remember that if you have to create a more gratifying career and do something that you have always dreamt of, your first step forward has to be dead right. A mind plagued with doubts will never allow you to move on the correct path. The surest principle for success and happiness is to find a career to which you are custom-built for; and then keep working hard at it. The positive angle of this formula is that if you discover a career that is your cup of tea, the efforts that you put in will automatically take care of it and will cease to be hard slog.