Climacteric facets of career management

Career management is a lifetime process that entails putting in and devoting your wherewithal to attain your career objectives. It is not just a singular event but a continuing process that is self-monitored and involves selecting and setting personal objectives and formulating strategies towards their achievement. With things changing at a rapid pace, career management is an inevitability of the present times.

While we may be aware of something about career management and its importance, what it exactly is and how it can be affected is something about which most people are ignorant about. As in financial management, in a career too, a methodical investment undertaken consistently generates good returns. While the approaches and manoeuvres are subject to change, career management actually centres on two prime resources that are used to oversee and deal with various facets of your career in your working life. These resources are:

· Incessant learning: With the advent of technology in all spheres of work, our daily routine and workplace schedule revolves around it like never before. The very process of operations and working methodology have been drastically transformed by computerisation and automation. And this process of alteration is an ongoing one and moving at a very rapid pace; it is likely to not double or treble, but   decuple in the next few decades. What will be the consequences and implications of such changes? Technological inventions and developments will for certain make the economy undulate very rapidly. The likelihood of a number of businesses being rendered antiquated and antediluvian cannot be discounted as also some being propelled into renown and publicity. The manner in which we become accustomed to these continuing modernisations and improvements will evidently be contingent on how we go about to update our current skills and knowhow. Therefore, it is essential that you keep the fire of learning always kindled in you. Remember that the entire world is like a laboratory to the inquiring mind and education consists mainly of what you unlearn. The very purpose of learning is advancement; and our minds can continue growing as we continue to live. You will thus be required to take necessary steps to keep altering your investments related to wherewithal, efforts and time so that you are not caught napping. In this context, the words of Henry Ford, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young” are very relevant. Therefore, you have to strive to develop abilities to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge so that you can apply them to your work.

· Bonds & connections: The current economy is one of intelligence, knowledge, overhauls and good turns. In the light of the foregoing, the most crucial asset is your contacts. It is your bonds and linkages that you enjoy with your peers, clients, rivals that help you to do your daily tasks. In the future, your networking will be the very source of acquisition of information related to the progression of businesses. Your network will also comprise people outside the sphere of activity of your work and who would be related to your leisure pursuits, members of your family and the society as a whole. Your relationships on your professional and individual planes are bound to outrun particular organisations, arenas, industries and people. If that is going to be the actuality, the manner in which we interrelate, react and bond in all our relationships will have a tremendous effect on our present functioning and future prospects. It should not be forgotten that by staying aloof and in isolation, nothing significant can be achieved. In any case, it is networking alone that uncovers nearly three-quarters of all job opportunities. Considering the foregoing, the importance of staying bonded as also being aware of the efforts that go in to forge affable relationships needs no emphasis. And the silver lining is that all these skills can be developed.

Incessant learning and administration of people-to-people connections are the framework of a successful career management effort. In addition, the formulation of a career vision and career line of action are also necessary to steer knowledgeable career investment decisions and establish career objectives. The career vision, needless to state, should be all-encompassing with inbuilt attributes of flexibility; however, it should be adequately explicit to facilitate appropriate action. The career vision that we formulate should be in harmony with our exclusive personality and penchants so that available options are able to provide us opportunities to make useful contributions at work and resultantly give job contentment over an extended period of time. To that extent, one will have to shed rigidity and maintain competitive edge.

To have a successful career, you cannot invest your entire life in a single hope. You have to plan for it and then superintend it. You should not be plagued with qualms and hesitations because a mind that is troubled by doubt cannot focus towards success. Career management entails indulging in some advance worrying in the form of deliberations and planning in advance. But that worrying is in your interests.

Shape a professional reputation for yourself

The importance of professional conduct at the workplace is understood by one and all. It is inescapable for you to behave professionally at all times if you seek to do well and advance in your career; and also be respected as a pillar of strength at your workplace. That your capabilities, proficiency and personality as judged by your juniors, peers, seniors and even clients are epitomised by your professional standing, needs no emphasis.

The only way to portray an image of being a professional is by making efforts to make certain that you indeed are one. Since the perception of professionalism varies from person to person, it is rather difficult to get anybody tell you what precisely professionalism is. The general perception however, is that professionalism is all about keeping commitments, doing high quality work and having expert status. In other words, you have to be regarded as dependable, reverential, knowledgeable and skilled. However, the type of responsibilities you shoulder and the organisation you work in make professionalism assume varying configurations. But there are some common attributes and the ones that ought to be your focal points are:

·  Professional outlook: A professional invariably serves to encourage juniors and colleagues; and also support seniors. An outlook that incorporates such excellences call for a total commitment to organisational interests. To build a professional reputation for yourself, you have to be punctual, unbiased and refrain from tattletale. As an individual, you cannot have separate rules governing you; your attitude per se has to be one wherein duty obligations, devotion, truthfulness, uprightness and answerability are the cornerstones. The important point is that display of professionalism is an all-time requirement because any absence at any time can prove to be highly detrimental to your career interests.

·  Professional sensibleness: This implies discharging all responsibilities to the best of your capabilities and with distinction. If at all you blunder, you have to take responsibility and not pass the buck to others. In the eventuality of problems, it is your responsibility to make efforts to resolve them and not let them haunt you or others. You should make yourself adept at identifying potential distractions that tend to incapacitate efficient functioning. Your professional sensibleness also demands that personal or family matters are kept out of official loops so that they do not disturb routine functioning. Further, your sensibleness makes it mandatory for you to be well-dressed at all times.   

·  Professional guidance: If you have knowledge, you should let others light their candles in it. You may have a mine of knowledge with you, but that knowledge is of no use if others and your organisation cannot benefit from it. You need to share it and your experience with others so that people look up to you as a Godfather. In the environment that exists today, if you withhold knowledge, your own power and authority will get gnarled and obsolete. Contrary to a belief that is totally incorrect, when you guide others or assist your seniors, you maintain your cutting edge superiority because you invariably get respected.

·  Professional personal management: They say that the first and best victory is to conquer self. Personal management skills are very important to achieve success in your career and overall life. Success is actually a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success. One most important habit is effective time management. Practical management of time should be your priority. You simply cannot fail to keep up appointments made or meet deadlines that are required to be met. Personal management also implies organising your workspace well to facilitate access to anything that you may need without wasting time. It also entails your ability to exercise control over your attitude, behaviour and emotions because you are not likely to be judged by your academic qualifications alone. If you seek to have a professional reputation, your personal management skills have to be impeccable.

·  Professional communications: The way you communicate with others and also with yourself eventually decides the quality of your reputation. It is essential that you possess and develop good communication skills so that you can motivate and inspire others. You need to remain composed at all times, particularly if there are people who are out to confront you or challenge contest your ideas. The need to be able to enunciate your views clearly and concisely therefore, needs no emphasis. The importance of communications should not be underestimated because they impact on your professional competence too. Professionalism calls for constantly improving the situation around you and the major prerequisite for the purpose is good communication skills.

As a professional out to boost your professional reputation, you need to set a high degree of ethical standards for yourself and which will invariably call for an equally high degree of integrity and superiority in work output. Since downbeat impressions are rather difficult to knock down, you must identify your inadequacies and work hard to overcome them. And when you work in the direction of shaping a professional reputation for yourself, you will realise that your own self-value and self-dignity increases. And that realisation by itself will usher in greater job contentment. 

Don’t let angsts fetter your career success

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve and that is your angst. Everybody is bound to be plagued with apprehensions that tend to restrain you in some way or the other. You could even be hampered from embarking upon a career that you always thought about or finding a job of your dreams.  

Your angsts are only as profound as your mind perceives them to be. If you take fear, face it and replace it, confidence is what you will derive. Most of your obstacles would simply disappear if rather than cringing before them, you decide to go through them.

What are various angsts that generally hound people in their careers? They are:

· Angst of inability to be flawless: In our quest for success, we strive excessively to be flawless and impeccable. We tend to suffer from a zero-error syndrome. If you liberate yourself of your desire to be flawless and instead goad yourself to keep advancing in your career and life, you will find that you become more dynamic. You will become more venturesome and enterprising. You will realise that taking a short step forward is much better than standing still or stagnating. It should be remembered that perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. It is also not about healthy achievement and growth; in fact, it is a screen that restrains you from moving ahead. Therefore, you should never let your inability to be flawless become an excuse for never getting started. That is why they say that it is better to be a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. What you need to do is to take your foot out in the right direction and earnest.

· Angst of botching: Any apprehensions about botching in your work are difficult to overcome for evident reasons. But if you display confidence to not succumb to it, you are likely to achieve more. Most of us have grown up steadily and explicitly trying to succeed in all our ventures. All along, the negativity of failure has been spoken about at length and that perhaps has led us to always find middle ground and thus avoid botching up. But the fact is that an angst of botching up will serve to do only one thing – hold you back. It prevents you from realising your dreams of success. The possible consequences of botching notwithstanding, the fact is that they are only temporary alterations to our course towards success. If you do not suffer failures, how will you know what is wrong? Therefore all failures are keys to success because each of them teaches us something. In the context of your career, it is your fear of botching that holds you back from applying for a job. And when you are in one, you do not take initiative for the same reason. In order to overcome such angst, you should try to visualise various outcomes, including the most horrible one that could possibly happen. That in no way amounts to being pessimistic; on the contrary, if indeed it does take place, you would not be taken by surprise. In this way, you will not suffer any remorse.

· Angst of giving up: When people look down upon others who give up, they do not realise that if someone quits after weighing the pros and cons, there is nothing more great than that. There is no harm in quitting if you understand that the task per se has an inherent drop and that the end-result will not be of much consequence. Most of us harbour this feeling that if you have been through with something for long, it is should be taken to its conclusion. But when you appreciate that the chances of success in doing something are bleak, you will get to comprehend that the efforts being put in by you are a waste of time. And if that happens if you have lost your interest in it, you are likely to suffer great disappointment. In the light of the foregoing, where is the need to carry on with things that have little chances of success or that fail to inspire you? Let not the angst of giving up bother you at all. You have to go back a little to leap further.

Angst in any form will stifle your thinking and actions. It will generate uncertainty for you and cause you to stagnate. Therefore, it is essential that you do not let your fears get to have the better of you. Even if you end up botching, so what? The most important battle in your life is the battle between pluck and fear. And in this war, there has to be only one champion and that champion is you. If you get subdued by angsts, ant-like issues will appear like elephant-type problems. But if you pause to look angst straight into its eyes, you will gain strength, courage and confidence to embark upon a path that you think thought was difficult. 

Dogmas that strengthen your prospects of career success

It is your thoughts and beliefs that make your world. Whatever you are today is a result of what you have thought and believed. That means that your focus, your beliefs, your fears and your qualms become your reality. In other words, the beliefs that you have about yourself, conditions, workplace and job define the results that you accomplish in your life. It is also how you think about your capacity to prompt and shape your own future that actually brings about corresponding outcomes.

To be able to succeed in your career and life, you need to be a top-notch and exceptional adaptation of yourself rather than being an inferior rendering of anybody else. There are many dogmas that strengthen your capability to forge a successful career, notable amongst them being:

· I can build my own veracity: Your own reality is explained by your thoughts and subsequently or eventually, by your actions. You cannot presume that whatever transpires in your life is outside your power of management. Your success is always a result of your hard work and luck has nothing to do with it. If you subscribe to the contrary, you will be afflicted with defencelessness and thus will be always prompted to lead a life founded on possibilities. Your objectives and actions are complementary; one leads to or reinforces the other. Building your own veracity entails envisioning your future and electing to act so that whatever you dream is attained.

· I trust my own actions: If you are involved in a career or job that do not signify anything for you, the chances of your advancement are rather remote. You need to give wings to your passions and trust your actions; doing so will serve to invigorate and galvanise you to work towards success. Remember that you are so made that when anything fires your soul, all cul-de-sacs automatically disappear. It is only your passions that can elevate you to great heights.  

· I have no doubt about my proficiencies & competencies: If you know about your proficiencies and competencies, you are bound to apply them whenever and wherever they are required. But if you disbelieve them, you will always tend to be reluctant and hence fail to grasp opportunities that come your way. Related to your belief in your capabilities is faith in your power of conviction to succeed. If you continually doubt, you will more often than not, end up getting derailed on the success track. And doubting your capabilities is the biggest mistake that you can ever make. Remember that if ever you underestimate yourself, you will never be able to achieve potentials inside you. Therefore, do not let doubt defeat you.

· I don’t doubt my capacity to come out of tests and trials: It is a truth that a career journey is never smooth. There are obstacles and potholes on it in the form of delays and challenges. You simply cannot afford to give up midway and in the process, accept something inferior. Impediments are intended to prompt you to think so that you can negotiate them. You should believe that your persistence can alone alter circumstances for the better; you simply cannot allow yourself to be identified and treated as a casualty. If you realise that your destiny lies in your own hands, there will be nothing that you will perceive as an obstacle. 

· I have confidence in my learning capabilities: As you advance in your career, you existing skills will call for improvement; continuing with what you have will serve no purpose. There are no limits to learning and you should be positively disposed to it. You need to assure yourself about the need to progress and that you have the power to do so. Remember that learning is an eternal process and that you can make yourself adept at it. More importantly, if you have confidence in your learning capabilities, you and your mind will never get exhausted.   

· I am fine with myself: It is you alone who knows every single aspect about yourself. If you have the mettle to portray a genuine image of yourself, you stand to succeed. You should not endeavour to do anything at the cost being untrue to yourself. In other words, you should not take shelter behind a smokescreen. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. So, be yourself, no matter what others may say about you. It is essential to follow the way that your heart tells you.

It is of no consequence if you are presently distant from your aspired position. What is of consequence is that you should never stop believing that you will soon be there. You need to harbour great optimism that the path that you have set your foot on has a meaning and that things will sooner or later work out for you. If you remain relentless and persistent, whatever you seek to achieve will be a possibility. You need to have an unambiguous mental state that is brought about by tenacity, resolve and self-trust. If you do not have a mind that is free of self-doubt, you will never be able to focus on the road to success.

Fixing limits to stabilise your work & life

In today's busy world, prioritizing between work and personal life can be a huge challenge. A poor work-life balance can result in stress, despondency and reduced productivity. Since we spend the majority of our time at work, in the absence of priorities, the work can bleed into our life outside the workplace. Fixing limits is therefore, essential if we want to be both physically and emotionally healthy.

Workplace pressures have increased manifold and together with them, there are a plethora of distractions that add to our problems. It is essential that all distractions are overcome and limits be fixed to attain some sort of a work-life balance. This can be a rather difficult affair, but is inescapable in the interest of your well-being.

When you decide to fix limits, you actually decide to alter your attitude and outlook to various issues related to your work and life. Resultantly, you are able to safeguard different features pertaining to them that you cherish the most. If you think that you will be able to stabilise your working parameters and personal obligations without drawing lines somewhere, you are mistaken. In fact, drawing lines to achieve a good work-life balance is a perquisite. And drawing lines call for having a positive outlook.

Fixing limits is a difficult proposition largely because of an apprehensive mind-set or feelings of remorse. You could be apprehensive about the consequences and ramifications of affecting changes to your way of working. When you alter the manner in which you do things, some difficulty could be brought about for others. You may not want to hurt the feelings of others because you may feel that in doing so, you could be seen as a self-seeking individual. That may prompt some feeling of guilt in you. However, if you are focussed in your approach and aim for your career and job success, all such apprehensions will be inevitably discarded. This is precisely the reason why efforts in this direction seem to be a real grind.

Fixing limits necessitate saying “No’ and safeguarding one’s time.  During the course of their work time and also leisure, most people are unable to decline and cannot protect their time. This is because assignment of tasks at workplace is a never-ending and thankless activity. Vexation, exasperation, regret, repentance and dread are bound to be generated in the process. In the light of the foregoing, the entire process of fixing limits or laying boundaries has to be gradual and done in a phased manner so that you do not succumb to the pressures of frustration and anxiety.   

Fixing limits facilitate protection of your time, personal freedom and vivacity. But before you actually get started, you need to be clear about:

· Raison d'être for creating limits: Your intentions and rationale behind fixing limits could be many. You may want to finish an assigned task much before the deadline. You may want to have adequate time to pursue your leisure activities or spend moments of togetherness with your family. It is also possible that you have not been able to hang out with your friends and feel that henceforth you need to engage yourself more in group activities with them. When you view the reasons to fix boundaries, you will be able to generate attention and thus serve to remind yourself of your urgencies and primacies if you cross a limit set by you.

· Prerequisites of declining & to whom: The maiden step in drawing lines is to identify issues to which and persons to whom you need to refuse. Your refusals, denials, negations and refutations need not be very categorical or uncompromising. You could acquiesce to a limited extent and yet achieve your aim. To illustrate the point, you could be asked to stay back after working hours to supervise some activity. You know that you cannot spare time for it on a routine basis, but do not want to say a straightforward nope. So, you agree to do it once a week. Your volunteering to chip in once a week is actually a refusal but concurrently also an acquiescence of the request.

By managing organisational aspirations and the hopes of your colleagues pinned on you as also setting practical boundaries, you can take charge of your work responsibilities better. You will thus be able maximize your chances of a long, rewarding and fruitful career with adequate time up your sleeves for other pursuits as well. But the inescapable requirement is to bring about an alteration in your perception of what is significant in establishing the limits for the merger and steadiness of work-life balance that you seek. As you start putting into operation some methods, you will feel the difference in you and in your relationships with others.

Falsehoods & illusions about selecting a career

People tend to suffer from wrong notions that they are aware of all elements and subtleties that go in to make an informed career choice. Most of them also suffer from fallacies that they know the correct method required to be adopted for selecting a profession. Such misconceptions and erroneous beliefs often lead to an inappropriate career choice and which eventually causes immense disenchantment and dissatisfaction in later years.

There are several figments and misrepresentations associated with career selection. The more common ones that prevail are:

· Career selection is a doddle: Making a career choice decision is actually an intricate procedure and calls for sparing time for it. In fact, it is a process that comprises several stages and which entail being self-aware and knowledgeable about the pros and cons of various professions that you may be wanting to take up.

· Hobbies cannot become a source of livelihood: There can be nothing more distant from truth than this. When you are going about trying to select a career, there is nothing wrong in deciding on one that offers you concurrent pleasure and contentment, particularly if it happens to be pertinent to your leisure. You can become very adept and accomplished in your leisure activities, though most of the dexterity that you develop is a result of practical acquaintances in that field.

· Forecast & publicised jobs only warrant consideration: Career specialists forecast several career streams periodically and foretell jobs that will be in abundance or much sought after. There is nothing wrong in perusing such forecasts to discern if any of them appeal to you and to your proclivities. However, you cannot allow such predictions to influence your selection. The predictions made could be based on factual statistics, but they cannot be said to be relevant forever. Something that is popular and in demand today may not be same, say after five years. Hence, due caution has to be exercised in incorporating them in your decision; however, you cannot ignore your inclinations, principles and knowhow while selecting a career.

· Emulation of a successful person makes you successful you: A person could be excelling at his work and consequently being happy about it No two personalities are alike and anything that works for one person may not necessarily work for another, certain commonalities between the two notwithstanding. Therefore, if there happens to be a person whose career interests you, you must understand that the same may not be really your cup of tea.

· Things automatically come together after a decision: When you select a career, it is just the beginning of a journey. There will be a plethora of actions that will be required to be taken as time passes and you inch forward. Such actions have to be visualised and put down in black and white in what is known as a career action plan. The entire gamut of activities from the time you select a career, embark upon it and eventually attain your objectives should invariably form part of your career action plan.    

· Job satisfaction flows only from earnings: Remunerations are definitely a significant component of career selection. But they cannot be the only or prime consideration. Researches and studies conducted worldwide have proved that pecuniary issues do not necessarily and always bring about job satisfaction. It is what you get delight in at work that does so. The foregoing notwithstanding, income should always be considered as a factor when you weigh any profession for its suitability.

· Careers & jobs are for ever: Those days are history when people took up a job and superannuated from it. There is nothing that should preclude you from making a career change if at all your level of job satisfaction has plummeted. It is no wonder therefore, that quite a few people change careers during their working span. Career counsellors can pinpoint the career that you ought to pursue, though no accurate prognostication can be made. At best, he or she can simply guide you in arriving at a decision to select a career.

· Expertise related to one career is not relevant to another: The skills that you develop and acquire are exclusively yours, they ought to be retained and carried from one job to another where their application could well be put to use, albeit with some reformation. Skills, once acquired do not go waste.  

· Knowing about any profession is possible only when you join it: While a direct and personal practical experience is the best option, you can get to know about various professions and careers through other means too. Researching about them through online efforts or reading published works are a good source of knowledge. Meeting and interacting with people who are already in such a career can also be very beneficial.

Career selection is much more than choosing a job; several factors go into your decision and several things will be contingent on it. You will definitely want a career in which you will succeed in it. Therefore, you should go in for a career that fits you well and can continue to support you in the long-term too. Any tendency to fall prey to myths can lead to failure.

Why weren’t you selected for the job?

Being rejected after a job interview can severely dent your self-assuredness. No rejection is ever pleasant, but it should not be viewed as an indication of failure. It is in all fairness that you see rejection as an opportunity to build and improve on your core strengths so that you are able to find a job that suits you best.

But, why do people get rejected for jobs? Inability to meet the qualitative requirements apart, major reasons for the same are:

· The resume makes no impact: Every job calls for highlighting specific attributes and hence if you need to apply for several different jobs, your resume has to be modified accordingly to make the desired impact. You will get to discern specific qualitative requirements for a job from job listings; by carrying out independent checks and inquiries; and through informational interviews. Since companies seek to hire staff who are ardent to join them, non-specific and bleary resumes are unlikely to make the desired impact. A cover letter is an important complement of the resume and in its absence, you will not be able to convey accurately what your career objectives are and how you can add worth and value to your contributions in the discharge of your functions. Like resumes, cover letters are also required to be custom-made for different companies.

· Post-submission, case was not pursued assiduously: With unemployment being what it is, organisations and companies are flooded with resumes. Except when absolutely essential, most resumes are perused perfunctorily and are filed. When you forward your resume to a potential employer, your aim is to have it considered favourably and elicit a call for an interview. If that be so, you ought to follow up by making discreet inquiries and subtly enthuse him to believe your suitability for the job applied for. Such follow-up inquiries will make them recollect your name at the time of interview and psychologically consider you on a better plane.  

· Preparation for the interview was deficient: Quite a few applicants give a dismal performance during the interview. They go through the process sans any preparation; astonishingly they display a poor knowledge about the company because they made no efforts to research. Ignorant of current situations, they have no idea about the role that they would be required to perform. Resultantly, they fail to respond to even the most rudimentary of all questions. It is essential that when you are face to face with the interviewing panel, you are able to exhibit your knowledge, expertise and experience in an exclusive way so that you come to be regarded as the most suitable candidate for the job. Your responses to questions posed should convince the interviewers that you will make highly priceless contributions towards the progress of the company.  

· Deportment during interview was dishonourable: It is rightly said that the first impression is the last impression. You are required to make an impact. The interviewer is gauging you for your appropriateness for a job and will form an impression about your professional abilities with regard to discharging your assigned charter and gelling with the company culture. You are likely to miss the bus if your deportment is dishonourable in any way. You need to be present at the venue dressed appropriately at the correct time and refrain from indulging in a behaviour that smacks of fault-finding, antagonism and impudence. During the course of the interview, you will have to communicate a sincere message that you indeed are aware of what the job entails and that you will be able to come up to the desired standards of performance. While how you do that is your ingenuity, the fact of the matter is that you need to come prepared for the interview.  

· Failure to take appropriate post-interview continuation action: Having gone through the interview, it will be wrong to presume that you need not take any follow-up action thereafter. It is in the fitness of things to send a letter of thanks to the interviewers; doing so will convey your eagerness to join the company. You could also take it as an opportunity to highlight any specific issues that you missed out during the interview. A telephone call made after some time seeking to know any further action required to be taken by you will also reiterate your keenness.

· Unfavourable reportage by references: Feedback provided by references are very important. You need to make certain that the views of the references indicated by you are indeed favourable towards you otherwise you could well be in for a shock. To that extent, identifying references and making available their details to employers is a task that has far-reaching consequences.

Job rejection hurts, particularly if you have very high hopes. But the manner in which you deal with it that describes you in your job hunting endeavours. Like while courting, it is vital for you to realise that rejection should be accepted as an actuality but concurrently maintain some element of scepticism about its truth. If you remain upbeat, you can always transform any repressed feelings into positive energy to push your job search further than what you ever imagined.

Forge a successful career

All ventures have to have a starting point, even the longest and most difficult of them. Everybody knows this axiom, but yet do not know how to go ahead from the starting point. In your career too, moving ahead calls for a crucial first step and that is formulating a career plan for yourself.

The difficulty in steering yourself to the pinnacle of the career is not about how to reach there. It is the long time-interval that lies ahead of you that can be gruelling. Therefore, rather than taking off like a rocket from the word go and trying to grasp each and every job opportunity that whizzes past you, a slow, gradual approach to work out and understand your eventual objectives is what is necessary. You need to craft a line of action that will assist you with specific efforts that will be called for to make to the pinnacle of your career.

How do you craft that line of action? Some plans and strategies are:

· Widen your contact base: The action plan that you make can be supported and reinforced by your contacts. You need to build and expand your network on a continuous basis; the people you get acquainted with will facilitate building meaningful relationships with people who matter, including the who’s who of your current company. Resultantly, you will be able to get wherever you set your sights on – be it in your present organisation or in another one.  

· Work to hone your knowledge and skills: You have to make persistent efforts to improve your current skills and leave no stone unturned to acquire additional qualifications. Whether it is an interview for a new job or a career change, organisations will invariably try to gauge your worth. When you hone your knowledge and skills, you add value to your profile.

· Strike a workable balance between your personal and work obligations: There is no denying the fact that your career advancement is vital, but it should not be at the cost of your personal life and domestic obligations. It is up to you how to strike a workable balance between the two to ensure that the bonds and associations that you have built are not rendered vulnerable.

· Identify what contributes to your happiness and pursue them: It is important that you pursue a career that is in consonance with what you are. Doing so will relieve you of several worries. You can easily determine what makes you happy by recalling specific aspects of your work that made you feel on top of the world. In addition, you must introspect to determine facets of your present job that you both like and detest. Is it possible to carry on with the present state? Your honest responses will prompt you to take an appropriate decision with regard to carrying on or making a change.   

· Have no ambiguity about who you are and what you stand for: Your self-awareness will offer you excellent opportunities to conclude your career plan on a positive note. Getting to know with exactness what your personality is on your own is rather difficult; you can always go for a professional evaluation that will recommend various career options that conform to your outlook and disposition. It is only if you know who you are and what you stand for that you will be able to formulate a fruitful career plan.

· Have great visualisations of your future: The importance of hitching your wagon to the star cannot be denied. But you must appreciate that the career journey is never a smooth ride. If the bumps and potholes that you encounter en route take the better of you, your focus will go haywire. And that will herald your collapse. That does not mean that you cannot have lofty objectives. You should catalogue various things that you aspire for and if at any time you feel that you are going off-track, a perusal of the same will inspire you and put you back on the correct course. 

· Have and uphold an optimistic outlook: An upbeat disposition is inescapable for career success; in fact it helps you in your navigation to the zenith. Your career plan is like an automobile that is powered by your confidence, constructiveness and optimism. You can devise a personal chant to train your mind and nosh it with explicit optimistic vim. That will make you tough when the going gets tough.  

· Pursue you plan with intense fervour: Just like a faint heart that never won a fair lady, your career plan will not be successful if you do not implement it with ardour. Your judgement should never be allowed to be overshadowed by qualms. You simply have to maintain your momentum, keep your visualisation of your future in mind and put into effect your planned line of action. If you have reached this stage, the acme is just a stone’s throw away.

Your career success is contingent on your devotion and stanchness. It is you and you alone who has to make efforts; what you achieve will be commensurate with them. And remember that your success is put together on your capability to do better than what is just good enough for others. You have to set yourself on fire.