Importance of scheming your career path

Any person who has been successful and is contented will invariably opine that the significance of planning your career path is to make certain that you do not become purposeless and directionless in your career journey. And this aspect assumes greater importance when you understand that no organisation is in a position to promise its employees a lifetime career. All organisations perpetually tend to focus on organisational interests and which need not be always in harmony with employee interests.

A company can always assist you in superintending your career to an extent that training, job progression and increased responsibilities can offer. But it is you and you alone who has to actually plan your career by setting objectives, initiating appropriate midway measures and taking suitable jobs to make your imaginings come true. If you think that anybody else will understand the importance of career planning, you will be in for a shock. You only have to do that.

What is the importance of planning your career path? It is something like having an insurance policy that caters to various risks. When you plan your career path, you derive immense gains like:

·  Expanding your skills: A widened skill base will make you more desirable to several other companies.

·  Facilitate in making job changes: A career path charted by you will help you discern and appreciate various skills and work charter that you need to look for in a new job.

·  Shouldering greater responsibilities: Because you would have identified fresh qualitative requirements, you can improve upon your skills to perform better.

·  Having more windows of opportunities: You will be in a better position to comprehend the place where a particular position or responsibility measures into your overall career plot.

·  Making sound decisions effortlessly: You will be able to understand the larger mosaic of things and thus be better poised to evaluate both your alternatives and preferences.

·  Earning better remuneration: Just because you would have delved into details of all career issues, you will be aware of industry packages and what exactly is your worth. Your earnings will thus be in consonance with your expectations.

·  Deriving greater contentment: The direction in which your career moves will be such that it compliments your inclinations, pecuniary objectives and everyday life.

The career path that you draft should manifest your objectives and requirements. With the passage of time, you will invariably be required to take re-looks and apply corrective measures as deemed appropriate. In your career journey, you will have different phases and stages that through which you will have to transition; these are periods between:

·  Late teens and mid-twenties: During this phase, parental influences are immense and so are the sways exerted by your teachers and friends. There is every likelihood that a career that you select may not necessitate extensive educational qualifications. And in case you want to pursue higher education - engineering, medical or any other field – your preferred choice is bound to be influenced by your friends and parents. Though unfortunate, but this happens to be the truth because you have very little contact with people who can actually render you an all-inclusive career advice.  

·  Late twenties and early thirties: This period is in actuality a threshold. The career that you possibly embarked upon while you were still a teenager or while attending a technical college is still plaguing you. But you gain practical experience about life as a whole – tests, trials, contests and skills alike to name a few. Perhaps you may also enter into matrimony in this phase; the views of your better half will be imposed and become an important factor for compliance. A woman may decide to become primarily a home-maker. Developments that take place in this phase may serve to be a spur for you to support or have a change of heart about your elected career path.

·  Mid-thirties to late-forties: This period is of the most importance. You either make it to the top or have a fall. The period is one of growth and progress; and career decisions arrived earlier together with whatever experience you have to your credit will present before you new opportunities. The high degree of importance that this phase deserves will manifest in varied career-related choices that you make to ensure that your compass bearings are set favourably. Some mid-term corrections will have to be applied in case you happen to not be satisfied with your career and the progress that you may have achieved in it so far.  

·  Fifties to mid-sixties: This phase can be quite bothersome for a large majority of people because of the need to have supplementary career planning to put up with a job loss or a decision to call it a day. Your career path can undergo a radical alteration as you seek more flexible work that calls for special concentration of efforts.

·  Mid-sixties & after:  This is the time when most people decide on the precise role their career should play in your very life. Your focus can change and you may accord greater priority to things that were neglected so far.

Your career planning has to cater to changing times. You will have to assess and reassess things on a continuous basis to see if you are actually fulfilling your aspirations and meeting your objectives. Modifications and alterations can thus be prompted to bring about improvement on various fronts. And in case you fail to take stock, you are likely to go astray. The importance of having a good networking capacity under such circumstances needs no emphasis because at that stage it is only through word of mouth publicity, information about new openings will get known to you. It is necessary that you keep abreast of all developments all around so that you can gear up suitably to take on challenges. Remember that it is good planning that helps to make elusive dreams come true.