Know your druthers before a career change

It is only after having been in a career for some time that you realise whether it has been your cup of tea or not. There are many people who, given an opportunity would certainly go in for a career change. But they have no idea of how to go about doing it. This predicament of not knowing what or how to do is not uncommon among working men and women. But it is an outcome of a lack of flexibility, helplessness to alter one’s outlook and incapability to think unconventionally. What follows is missing out on opportunities.

Some issues that you must reflect upon to come out of your shell and to facilitate taking trailblazing and innovative career initiatives are:

• Understand that appointments & designations are irrelevant: Do references to appointments and designations limit your thinking process? If you had to catalogue all possible jobs that come to your mind, you are bound to miss out on several of them. If that be so, it simply proves that appointments and designations are not at all relevant. You should focus your efforts on the prime ideas that are important to you as an individual and for your job.
• Make a list of things that you shouldn’t do: This will not be a big effort at all, particularly if you happen to be in a job that is not to your liking. You will be able to identify irksome and dissatisfying tasks and in the process, be able to concentrate your efforts on those that you derive pleasure from. And thus when a job offer comes your way, you will be able to evaluate it better and accept or reject it without having to unnecessarily wasting time.
• Make a list of things that you like to do: How do you envision your new career? Are there any yardsticks related to remunerations, position or status that you have set for yourself to attain? You must look within to find out if you are adhering to any tenets and following somebody else’s ideas. This will help you discern what you aspire for or what others would like you to be?
• Where do you aspire to reach in your career? If all your wishes were to fructify, where would you be heading to? You must keep it in mind that you are all set to move forward and hence, you should not have any limitations on your imagination. You need to be clear about what your career ought to be, including the direction it should take. In the light of the foregoing, you must harbour great, but attainable ambitions and work hard to accomplish them.
• What is that you would like to accomplish? It is we who do not allow ourselves to impede attainment of our objectives. The aspirations that you harbour should always new worked upon without bothering for what people may opine about you. It is essential that you discern what you need yourself to be permitted to get hold of.
• How would you restart your life all over again? You need to discover your life’s destination and not be reined in by any factor. If you were to be transformed into an absolutely new personality, how would you like to be? The work that this ‘new you’ would like to do should be found out. Obviously, all these things would inspire you and you should find out where such motivation will lead you.
• Dream big and work to make it a reality: The new career that you envision for yourself need not be anything extraordinarily splendid. Little alterations can serve to change your life and career momentously. Therefore, it is essential that you think that achieving success in a career change is all about discovering what is apt for you.

The people who succeed in this world are the ones who are ever dynamic and create situations that are favourable to them if they do not come about the natural way. Remember that your life is your life and the earlier you realise this fact, the better it will be for you. A career change can be a disturbing experience but should not be allowed to knock your mental peace down. You need to make a decision on it after due consideration of all factors involved. 

Embark upon your career path confidently

You could well be in a job or still pursuing your studies. But the issue of what your career should be like worries everybody. In order to find out a good answer to this vexed question, it is essential that you identify your career objectives and prospective career, including the way forward.

You will realise that your prospective career is all about discovering yourself. Selecting the right career may appear to be difficult because you may not understand which one will go best with your personality and qualifications. Today, you have qualified people who can show you the way out and way forward; you can always seek their help.

The first step in finding out the course your career ought to take is finding out the real you. You may actually be something, but somehow portray something else. It is quite possible that you cope with workplace negativities well, but that may not be your true self. The real you could be waiting to fly and give wings to passions. If you are plagued with such circumstances, you surely need teenage yourself to:

• Discover who you are:  How do you do this? You can reflect upon your capacities and capabilities; and find out more about your skills and inclinations. Having done that, you can open up with them. Alternatively, you can take special tests to discern your likes.   
• Understand what you seek to attain:  This is an important exercise. You need to know precisely what you want to accomplish in life. You may have to do some research because your actions will impact your life and wellbeing alike. That is how you will also be able to decide on a career that gels with you as an individual. career counsellors can prove to be of help too in this regard.   
• Identify means to gain employment: Most job seekers land up in difficult situations by going in for high paying jobs. You should not regard money as a very important factor at all. Aline of action should be drafted by you to facilitate accomplishment of whatever you set out for. It is advisable to write down the career that you seek along with actions required

The issue of identifying your career objectives is very important. It is quite likely that you are clear about them, but are unable to attain them in the timeframe that you desire. If that be so, you need to draft action plans that will facilitate their accomplishment. In order to remind you continuously about them, it is recommended that you reduce them to writing in a diary. You should remember that your career is an embodiment and representation of your personality; and hence. the career path that you select should befit you in all respects. There are many people who fail to seek approval from their inner self about their career; on the contrary, they resort to seeking approval from third persons. In the light of the foregoing, when true endorsement comes from within you, you will invariably enjoy a better sense of direction. 

You should also, rather invariably remember that your career should always be a manifestation of your aspirations, aims and goals – something that you would love doing. After all, the time that you would be spending at work would make up a very large chunk of your life. Therefore, it is judgmental correctness to pursue what you love. It may not be very easy to discern what you actually love doing, however, the following time-tested tips will be beneficial:

• There is no point procrastinating embarking upon a career path. The earlier you do that, the better it will be.
• You should focus on whatever you delight in or whatever gives you contentment.
• While pay and allowances are important factors while selecting a career, attaching more than necessary importance to pecuniary factors should not be done.
• You can spend as much time as you want to find a job that you love.
• There should be no reticence on your part to seek whatever you aspire for or desire..
• You should not waste your time and resources on anything that is not your cup of tea or irrelevant to you.

Going back to what was asserted ab initio, the crux of the matter is that your job search efforts ought to be preceded by a question directed at yourself to find out what precisely you seek to do in your life and career alike. The search will end when you have a permission to from yourself to go in for one or leave your current one to join another. That is how you will be able to bring about cheer in you.

Set right your career path

In the working world, there are many men and women who are at the same position for donkey’s years. They have not made any progress and are stuck up perhaps in a career that is not to their liking. There will be chefs who wanted to be pilots, doctors who wanted to be lawyers, scientists who wanted to be artists and so on and so forth. They have seemingly taken up career paths that they were not truly passionate to embark upon.

There are several reasons why people embark upon wrong career paths. They may have been compulsions, financial ones perhaps heading the list because it is financial stability alone that gives you satisfaction. There are primarily four reasons why people embark upon wrong career paths: 

• Placing more trust on intuition: The general tendency among people is to not trust gut feelings. Intuition, it should be understood is your sixth sense that cautions or prompts you about impending things, the need to adopt a specific course of action or maintain status quo. Put differently, gut feelings gear you up to move forward. However, it is important that any action you take should be well deliberated upon; in are you fail to consider the pros and cons of it, the results can turn out to be unfavourable. Yes, it is agreed that gut feelings are also some sort of forewarning apparatuses, but true shrewdness and astuteness on career related issues entails a detailed evaluation of all factors. It is only then that your future will roll out contentment and happiness to you.
• Not heeding to advice of others: It is necessary that you catalogue all activities that you derive pleasure from. The process of such cataloguing will also afford you pleasure and therefore will not be a difficult affair. However, you should guard against getting carried away by extraneous issues or being unduly influenced by others. Simultaneously, any tendency to not listen to the advice of others, specially those who have years and years of experience or have been your confidants should be curbed.  It is quite likely that some advice may not be sound and you should keep in mind the same. Going about all on your own may put you in a tight situation, thereby making your career advancement an extremely difficult affair. You need to be practical in your approach and keep your wits about. 
• Not admitting mistakes: It has been seen that people who are not pursuing a correct career path are themselves responsible for all associated predicaments. If at all you have made mistakes, you must evaluate how they took place and initiate necessary steps to preclude their repetition. Turning a blind eye to blunders that you have committed can be catastrophic. At an opportune time, you may decide to look for assistance so that you do not go off-track. It is also essential that you do not suffer from eternal feelings of guilt and regret as they can incapacitate you. You should see your mistakes as learning experiences and hence be motivated to do well. If at all you made a mistake in arriving at a wrong career decision, you should not feel shy in admitting the fact rather than be arrogant and refrain from instituting any remedial measure.
• Inability to put your qualifications to gainful use: There are many men and women who display great fervour during the initial years of their careers, but with the passage of time, lose out on their steam and adopt a rather callous approach to their job. It is understandable that a career change may be very difficult because of apprehensions that qualifications and skills acquired over a period of years would go down the drain. Harbouring an outlook like that is not recommended; you cannot live your life backwards. Therefore, it is necessary that you remain confident and self-assured; and not allow any fears to have the better of you.

Your career path may well be wrong, but you can always steer yourself in the correct direction. To be able to do tis, you should be able to discern any and every development of the future. Not only that, you should have in place measures to handle adverse occurrences. After all, life is all about maintaining your calm and balance; and hence the need to adopt a practical approach and remain self-assured at all times needs no emphasis. 

Be innovative & avoid stagnation in your job

You just cannot permit slackness and stagnancy to creep in your job. Most people who tend to become despondent with regard to their jobs do so more on account of their inability to perform smartly and not because of incompetence or absence of efforts. It is of importance to remember that while working smartly, you need not sacrifice our principles and values.

Smart work entails being innovative, insightful and creative but without displaying any rigidity of views or stance. You have to be forceful and zestful in all your dealings; and think unconventionally. If you harbour such an outlook, your enthusiasm towards your work will automatically register an upswing. The outcome will be that you will come out with novel ideas and also facilitate good performance by others, thereby leading to increased organisational productivity.

              When you ideate new ideas, you make the environment positive and also bring about positive changes in the outlook of others. Take for example how compost is manufactured from leaves and waste. It is nothing but innovation that prompted adoption of this useful project and ushered in immense changes in the lives of many. Likewise, the idea of has gone down well with everybody; the result is a tremendous boost to conservation of water. It may be recollected how ‘gobar-gas’ projects came about to be used in villages and led to savings of people staying in rural areas, besides energy conservation. 

            Revolutionary ideas apart, concepts that are uniquely innovative may require external assistance too for fructification. There is nothing wrong in organising and attending brainstorming sessions because they to help people to come out with innovative ideas. The good thing about them is that they can be held anywhere, depending upon the number of participants and their appointments. While at the workplace, the participants could be peer groups and subordinates, at home the list could include members of the family, relatives and friends too. Though it may sound unbelievable, such exercises raise the inspiration levels and which per se leads to more ad more innovative ideas. Needless to state, if such ideas are adopted, the organisation stands to gain more than anybody else.  An important issue pertinent to this matter is that it needs to be understood that creativity and resourcefulness are not synonymous and that creativity all by itself cannot give rise to positive developments.

Creativity is a two-way endeavour that calls for participation by each and every individual at any workplace. If there is active participation by one and all, increased workplace productivity is automatic. You should keep in mind that the result of all efforts are not always favourable and to find out whether or not they are, you will have to look for some indicators. That means constant monitoring will be inescapable. Should you find that you are running into obstacles, there should be alternative plans for the purpose. Remember that if you seek to be successful in your job, you will have to come to terms with different environmental changes that are impacting workplaces throughout the world. To be able to cope with such changes, there is no way that you can shirk from efforts to stay updated with innovations and technological advancements. If you fail to do so, the system will reject you in due course and you will have to stagnate in your job.

Any person can be innovative.  However, you need to put that innovation to good use. This should be done by a display of camaraderie in that issues need to vowed similarly by all members of the team; it is important to ensure that all initiatives taken should be guided by a common desire to accomplish a goal. All stakeholders in a project should remain positive at all times; the foregoing implies being forward-looking and not treating any change with hostility. Any inclination to regard change as negative development should be curbed.  It is essential that one understands that while ideas and proposals may be easy to understand, the impact that they will eventually have is always difficult to fathom in advance. 

All said and done, the truth of the matter is that innovative ideas of innovative people have dual benefits. They wield a monumental influence on your very existence as also on your capability to attain success. If companies and organisations gain from their employees, the employees per se continue to persist with their career advancement. It will never be the end of the road for them.

Hold the reins of your career to be successful

Many people, at some stage or the other of their careers, start suffering from a feeling that they got into a wrong career. They are plagued with such feelings to such an extent that they keep reflecting on alternatives available to them. It is thus essential to know the suitability and appropriateness of the job that you are in. Additionally, you should also be aware of other options available to you, solely because your career advancement stands halted if you do not know where precisely you stand today. If you know where you stand, you will be able to focus on required issues so that you can move ahead in your career. The foregoing thus, highlights the significance of proper career management to be successful.

If you happen to be at a stage of your career where a crucial decision is necessary because it will have far-reaching consequences, you need to query yourself on some issues. The responses that you make will facilitate sound career decisions. To be able to see things in the correct perspective and not let important things escape your attention, interaction with others will help. Five questions that certainly need to be asked are:

• What are your USPs that you are projecting? This question is important if you are engaged in a job search. You should know your strengths so that you can make useful contributions in the organisation that you gain employment with. Your fortes could well be your knacks and aptitude too besides tour comprehension of the role that you will be required to play. However, it is your name that is very important because everything that you do and achieve will be tagged to it.  Your contact base is equally important to because that manifests your likes, preferences and influence. It will be difficult to draw inferences alone and hence, you should talk things out to arrive at proper conclusions about yourself.
• What is your operating methodology? Knowing yourself is essential to conclude on the best working environment and the most suitable role for you. You could well be taking up any job, but you should know what your personality is like and the outlook you harbour towards your work. If you have a tendency to maintain a very strong focus on your work, an advisory or consultancy role may not suit you. You should not forget that the way you function is in full public view and therefore, you should not shy away from seeking advice from others. 
• What are your career aspirations? If you seek to be successful in your career, you must have in place a plan. You should identify spheres in which you want to do well. Different aspects that should be your focus for the intended objective should be dovetailed in your strategy. Any attitude of over-confidence and arrogance will be detrimental to your career interests; and should be shunned. Your disposition should be dictated by a practical approach and which will help you move forward in your career. Issues like salary and curating an impact at your workplace should be a priority too and accordingly included in some form or the other in your plan.
• How do you plan to go about in putting your plan into motion? The likelihood of your plan failing cannot be discounted and that highlights the need to have alternative plans too. You could decide to stay put in the same job and work hard or seek a lateral transfer to prove your worth. You may even decide to go in for a career change or become an entrepreneur. It is important that you keep all such possibilities in mind. This will help you to take a call on the matter when the time comes, if at all it comes. However, whenever you decide to seek a change, you must do appropriate research to discern where precisely you stand before going in for it.
• What should be your initiatives to attain your goals? These could be discerned best if you jot down various actions that you think will stand you in good stead. Some actions could well be writing your resume afresh, widen your networking and improving upon your skill-sets by attending training courses in consultation with your immediate boss. You may come out with several plans and actions, however, you must reduce all of them to writing and then set a deadline for their accomplishment.

The need to have clear-cut career objectives is important to have a smooth career journey.  As you move ahead, you will keep gaining practical experience in your profession and also have varied exposure to learning and development activities. However, the point of significance is that you should work hard all along and hold the reins of your career.

Prove that you are better than others

The working environment today is saturated with intense competition and with every person wanting to do well, there is a rat race. You may work hard and do well to the best of your ability, yet, there is no guarantee that you will reach the topmost position. You have to come to terms with whatever you achieve in life. Whatever you accomplish in your life is a result of the efforts put in and it does not happen in just a day.

You can always work hard to accelerate the pace of your career advancement and prove that you are better than others. When you do that, you are better geared to accomplish your career objectives. There could be scores of methods to do better than others and excel in your work, but the best ones are:

• Maintaining high levels of enthusiasm: Your zeal and passions are meaningless if you fail to make use of the knowledge that you possess. The foregoing implies putting to use your knowledge so that you are able to find logical solutions to problems on ground.  You may work and work hard, this is just one side of the story. But you have to ensure that others work too, for which you will need to condition the minds of others. Your enthusiasm will be high if you accept changes and emerging situations in the right spirit. In other words, you need to display a flexible attitude. It is then that your boss will see you in a positive perspective and see your contributions as great add-ons to workplace productivity. It is essential you understand the need to have all your thought processes of a high order at all times. If you are able to maintain high levels of personal enthusiasm, you will be in a better position to handle workplace tedium.  These advantages will accrue to you if you update yourself on new skills and working methodologies; and also dispense with all redundant ideology that you may be harbouring. All this necessitates continued mental stimulation at work; such stimulation evidently leads to happiness and contentment being derived. 
• Ensuring that your resolve doesn’t plummet: Nobody can be certain about how his or her future will unfold itself. There will always persist doubts, some big and some small in your mind regarding your present job. In case you want to remain confident and self-assured at all times, there is no alternative to hard work. You have to pitch yourself at  professional zenith at all times. It should be remembered that practically all organisations are on the lookout for employees who are genuinely industrious and sincere. If that be so, you should strengthen your resolve to make career headway the honest headway. Commitment towards your goals should be kept foremost  in your mind. Your seniors will be able to make out whether your outlook is upbeat or not; if they see you in a positive manner, they will come out to support you. If you comprehend all these points, you will be implored to treat your career with due seriousness, even if there are problem areas. When you start conducting yourself around like that, your popularity will go up too.  
• Making full use of your expertise: If you do fail to apply yourself systematically at work and not utilise your skill-sets, your output will never be great. Resultantly, no acknowledgement will come your way. It is quite likely that you may not possess all requisite skills necessary for an absolutely smooth functioning. And then if you try to portray an impression of knowing everything, people will understand and form an incorrect impression about you. The truth of the matter is that most people do not make optimum use of their skills; this leads to shrivelling away your knowledge base. Your pace of advancement thus gets retarded. The requirement therefore, is to work hard to overcome your deficiencies and remain updated on all professional matters to preclude stagnation at your current position.  

You will never be able to prove that you are better than others unless you become dynamic and adopt a proactive attitude at your workplace. All your initiatives should be such that you do not call prey to complacency and self-approbation. On the contrary, you should display a willingness to learn and also dream beyond your current job.