Driving tenets of career management

If you seek to make the most out of your career, there is no alternative to taking interest in and working hard at it. A career management plan helps you to maintain your bearings. If you do not have any, your career will drift on a different track and sooner or later, you will become lackadaisical towards it. You will realise that your aspirations and objectives are not in harmony with your current activities. And when that happens, the stage gets set for you to be at the receiving end; you will cease to be at the wheels of your career.

Your career plan is a plotted map that indicates to you the route that you ought to adopt to reach the end-point of your career journey. In you get stuck en route, there are premeditated actions available to you to overcome problems. Evidently, the intended aim is to make your career journey a pleasant ride.

How do you ensure that your career journey is a comfortable experience? You will need to follow certain driving tenets of career management and they are:

· Remain competent by upgrading your skills: All top achievers are life-long learners; they look for new skills, visions, and concepts. Learning is an everlasting process and you can learn and enhance your skills at any age. As you progress in your career, your competence will be directly contingent on your ability to remain current and upgrade your skills. It is only then that you will be able to accomplish your objectives. Learning never exhausts anybody’s mind and hence if you have to keep abreast of change, there is no option but to keep upgrading your skills on a continual basis.

· Network extensively: In the competitive world of today, success is not easily accomplishable. You should be able to connect, bond and get on well with people. The relationships that you build with others have to be based on mutual confidence and trust. You have to make constant efforts to reinforce and fortify them. That is what networking is all about. In fact, networking helps you to sell and promote yourself. If you network well, your contact base will serve you well for decades to follow. It will be an extra but highly important tool in your possession to keep you career secure, particularly when the going gets tough.

· Be dedicated & faithful: An employee who is seen as a loyal worker always stands to gain. You have to take keen interest in various workplace challenges and have due regard for the concerns of your co-workers. It is essential that you work without any ulterior motives; this implies some element of self-sacrifice. It is you who has to make it known to others that you indeed are more than willing to be a person who is to be looked up for help whenever required. Doing so will project you as a dependable employee and when opportunities arise, your name will stand out in the list for evident reasons.

· Display a high degree of professionalism: Behaving in a professional manner is a talent that can make your life a success. And for that, you need to comprehend the codes of ethics that you have acquiesced to. If you encounter intricate predicaments that impact principles and moral belief, it is the codes of ethics that will offer you a structure for making decisions and resolutions towards a methodical evaluation of different options. To get ahead, be taken seriously, and have your boss think of you as an organisational asset, doing things in a professional way is vital.

· Catalogue your activities & accomplishments: Your career management has to be a structured process that entails regular evaluation of the progress that you have made. To be able to do so proficiently, you should keep record of your important day to day activities, particularly your accomplishments. Referring to them periodically will help you to apply appropriate mid-term corrections or identify new paths and new destinations. Therefore, the need to recurrently stalk whatever you have done and learnt is inescapable to facilitate your career advancement.  

· Introspect periodically & understand the significance of work-life balance: It is imperative that you get to know your own self well as also what you expect your career to offer you. This will prevent you from not unnecessarily getting bogged down. You will thus be able to split your time and energy; and be motivated to put in your best.  Your awareness of your fortes and limitations will assist you to make plans to deal with your personal obligations and career responsibilities. It is you who should draw a line and decide what is important for you and what is not. Achieving balance in both your work and personal lives will allow you to perform optimally in both areas.

Career management is not a one-time affair. Rain or sunshine, summers or winters, it is required all throughout your career. Setting objectives is one thing, but you need to devise sensible and pragmatic strategies to accomplish them so that your otherwise elusive career dreams come true.