Decide on what you want to do in your life & career

Choosing a career is apparently an upsetting task, but the problems get diminished when you have options and choices available to you together with sufficient time at your disposal to mull over them. Gone are the days when people subscribed to a lifetime job belief. Today, the line of work that you decide to take up is an important constituent of your life. You need to discern in advance the place where you will spend half your day and the prospects it holds for you to fork on the basis of your prime abilities and skills.

The above evidently calls for careful contemplation so that you can select a field that goes with your personality and intrinsic attributes; and also afford you the freedom to make a positive change, if required. So, how do you get going? Here are some step-by-step tips:

·  Define & decide what you want to do: The first step should be to find out what you want to do. You must do so appropriate research to determine what goes well with your inherent skills and those that are generally required in various arenas of your preferred work. Taking help from others can also be resorted to.

·  Identify skills that make you do things happily: You may be engaged in some activities; you must identify those that you enjoy doing. This will serve as an important pointer of what you want to take up as a career. And once you discern a potential line, you will be geared up to tone it with your skills.

·  Reflect on things beyond your work-field: The implication of a field of work extends much beyond a particular job. In fact, several jobs can be possible from a single field; and hence you should be able to reflect on your training and related concerns for several jobs. You should remember that the extent of any field of work is also contingent on your ingenuity, initiative and efforts to acquire necessary qualifications.

·  Ponder over allied activities & initiatives: This entails determining what you seek to do and become in life; and the qualifications you need to acquire to attain the same. It will be essential for you to deliberate over the likelihood of switching over to various related disciplines. The need to ruminate outside the ambit of your current or future rights and claims also needs no emphasis.

·  Research on additional qualifications that you require: These should be pertinent to the fields that inspire you. Internet, reading and even direct interaction will help you in this context. Your efforts have to be systematic and in-depth to conclude on the type and quantum of further actions on your part. In addition, you will also be able to uncover the shape of things to follow.

·  Identify people working in similar fields: Having identified the jobs that you think match your interests and inclinations, you should establish contact with people already pursuing similar lines. Their suggestions and recommendations will stand you in good stead. Even informational interviews or enlisting for practical exposure will make your perceptions clear.

·  Examine your preferences in the light of your conclusions: Whatever information you have gathered should be evaluated vis-à-vis your own discernment of and stance on your potential career roadmap. You have to arrive at a well-poised reckoning. Aspects related to the type of routine and life that you desire to lead should invariably be factored in to preclude disenchantment at a later stage; it is always prudent to not affect compromises having enduring implications.

·  Fill gaps by adding on to your skillsets: When you do so, you must take full benefits of your contact base so that you keep getting advice on a continual basis. If you lay hands on opportunities to get a practical exposure concurrently, you must not let them go. This will help you to sift and sieve all unnecessary or superfluous requisites; and concentrate on the essential ones necessary to broaden expand and develop your perspectives.

·  Always harbour a positive attitude Now that you possess the prerequisites for your dream career, it is important that you stay focussed. You must maintain a positive outlook and approach towards life as a whole. It is also necessary that you display appropriate flexibility in all your pursuits and transforming challenges into opportunities. This display of flexibility should not be at the cost of your principles and individuality because most employers appreciate such attributes.

The crux of the matter is that you should venture out to live the life that you have dreamt for yourself; that is how you will make your dreams come true.