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.