Do you have a well thought out career path? Have you articulated your Career Plan? A lot of the time, we tend to only think about our current job. We don’t spend the time to plan our career ahead, simply shortsighted! Pigeonholing one job at any given time doesn’t create a successful career. A career is a composite of all the jobs you do while you work. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same industry or be a salaried employment, it is simply all the work you do.

When you understand that your career goes beyond your current job, you realize that it’s necessary to think about your path. If, for example, you want to work for the next 20 years, you definitely wouldn’t want to remain in an entry-level position for all those years. At this point, you might rationalize that if you work hard, you would get promoted for your hard work, but that approach would place the burden of your career advancement on your organization, which is exactly what we don’t want.

Your career development is your responsibility.

It is your responsibility to design your career path and begin to take the steps necessary to walk properly down that path. This requires vision, strategy, a lot of effort and dedication on your part. At this point you may be wondering, “Why do I need to do this? It sounds hard. I just want my salary at the end of the month so I can go home and pay my bills.”

Let me just say that life is full of too many possibilities for you, you were created for much more than punching in the hours and going home. You deserve to live your life to the fullest and this includes having a fulfilling and rewarding career, not at the expense of the other arenas of your life, but in tandem with them.

Here’s what you need to do:

  • Articulate your Career vision and plan
  • Evaluate your current position and create a plan.
  • Establish a personal mission and understand your values. This will help you decide what organisations you can work in where you don’t feel deflated at the end of the day.
  • Select mentors in your field, examine their journeys to success, and apply the learnings to yourself.
  • Write down your goals and the steps towards achieving them. Writing creates neural pathways that help reinforce information in the brain. Almost nothing cements thought into reality as well as writing does.
  • Learn what you need to advance in your field, create your Personal Development Plan.
  • Read books, attend seminars and workshops, and network!!

Please find a few resources to get you started below:

If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. It is time to step up and start taking your career exactly where you want it to go. Stop letting it take you where it wants to go.

I wish you Godspeed on a Productivity Plus Career!!