Set your career goals

Quite a few men and women are not happy in the jobs and positions that they are presently in. The dissatisfaction that they suffer is largely on account of tiresome timings, an odd annoying co-worker and inadequate remuneration. The reason why these prompting factors surface is that people do not accord much consideration to their career goals.

A career, besides being a source of livelihood, is also a pursuit where one spends a major portion of one’s life. Regardless of what career an individual may opt for, there is no way in which an individual can do away with career goals to promote career prospects. It is inescapable to have a clear idea about career goals and objectives if one seeks to derive job contentment if career progress.   

Career goals are aims and objectives that a person sets for his or her career duration and may embrace each and everything related to it. The identification and articulation of career goals is as important a life move as working to achieve them. The process is rather systematic and includes a gradual methodology to accomplish personal hopes. In this context, some vital issues that ought to be considered are:

· Increase in resources: Be it a routine chore or a specific pursuit, the only unvarying aspect is change. Businesses, trade and other professional activities are experiencing intense change. This calls for an inescapable need to regularly improve and increase awareness and wherewithal that can be made available to both customers and businesses alike. Therefore, up-gradation of skills and augmentation of skills is essential to make progress in any career.

·  Financial issues: This is the most important issue because if an employee is not remunerated adequately, discontentment will set in as a result of which work productivity will be adversely affected. On the other hand, if an employee is paid excessively, lassitude is bound to set in vis-à-vis his initial stages of employment and again work productivity will be negatively impinged upon. Hence it is essential that pay and allowances should be commensurate with the job profile.

·  Satisfaction: No person will ever indulge in any activity without a motive. And this has an across-the-board application. Being satisfied with one's job should be any individual's key requirement. But this does not imply that one should not try out newer projects and theories or slow down one's development progression. It should be ensured that absolute contentment is derived from whatever work one may be doing.

· Learning & awareness: A man spends nearly seventy per cent of his life working for his livelihood. Therefore it is nothing wrong in peeping into occupational pursuits and move forward. This would entail gaining fresh experiences, from which new lessons need to be learnt. Experience is the most brutal of all teachers and the only source of knowledge. Considering this, there is this need to learn more about people and their culture because in doing so, tolerance levels increase manifold. What follows is a change of outlook, viewpoints and attitude.

· Balance & stability: Every person standing at his or her career threshold ought to be looking for permanence and stability. As and when he or she gets an employment with a stable establishment, issues related to daily requirements or petty needs should be relegated to a lower priority. Efforts should be directed to achieving individual progress and emerge as a thorough professional. An attitude and mind-set like this will make the organization prosper.

Career goals can be of two types - short-term and long-term: While short-term goals may appear to be trivial in nature and the advantages resulting from them trivial, they prove to be immensely beneficial over a period of time. However, short-term goals have to be chased on a day-to-day basis; some actions that should be adopted are promptitude in responding to letters and mails, keeping deadlines, maintaining good relationships with colleagues, having an upbeat outlook, keeping own workstations clean, working towards overall organisational efficiency, boosting productivity and staying abreast with latest developments.

On the other hand, long-term goals extend into relatively long periods of time. But the pertinent aspect is that various related factors work themselves out. Long-term goals facilitate assessment of own devotion and seriousness towards current job or career. They are easily identified by individuals who have a clear insight of the future. Novices in a particular field may not be in a position to visualize things, just as they would not be able to respond to their perception of own position or status a couple of years hence. In actuality, they are based on short-term goals but warrant long-term consideration. Some examples of long-term goals are maintaining proper workplace balance, having adequate savings for an emergency, creating a brand image, switching jobs if required, boosting revenues progressively and ensuring that you remain suitably qualified at all times.

Career goals help us to be in complete control of our lives. It is surely worth the effort to reflect upon where one should aspire to be in the years to come. Having done that, it is necessary that a route chart to be there is drafted by incorporating career goals as elucidated above.