A successful career is what everyone strives for. It has taken years of hard work and dedication to get where you are right now. What you do right now will pave the path for your future. You cannot take it for granted or lose focus. If you feel your career needs a direction and an impetus, it is time to take control.
Let us try and understand how you can take ownership of your career.
Chalk out a plan
You need to have a goal in mind. Start with a short term goal if long term plans always seem to fall apart. Know exactly what you want to be at the end of the period. For some, it could be a year and for others, it could be as less as 3 months. You need to know the steps to achieve your goal and work your way towards it. Have clarity as far as your targets are concerned but be flexible with the route to achieve that.
Overcome your fears
What is stopping you from taking the leap? What are you weaknesses? What is holding you back? Take out time for yourself and identify your drawbacks. You need to be honest with yourself at the least. Make sure that this exercise does not become a self-loathing episode. Do remember that the only purpose of this is to identify and work on your weak areas.
Never stop learning
It is important that you inventory your present set of skills. However, do not stop at that. You should have a constant quest to learn and acquire new skill sets. Make sure whatever you are learning is aligned to your goals and targets. Think of yourself as a product that is going through its final stages of production. Your goal should be to make yourself as skilled and useful as possible.
Keep yourself updated
You need be agile, alert and updated. Make it your habit to stay abreast with the latest trends in your professional field. Successful people are excellent trend spotters and they know how to make the best use of an opportunity at hand.
Power of networking
Networking presents you with opportunities that are otherwise impossible to identify or come across. The word networking is often viewed in a bad light. In reality, to evolve as a successful professional, you need to network and connect with the experts in your field. These relations that you build over the years will help you in everything from referrals and recommendations to inviting to be part of bigger and better projects.
Get rid of the herd mentality
If you want to do better than others and want to be more successful than your peers, it is time to do and view things differently. The first thing that you need to do is demonstrate your ability to do things out of the box. Do not fear when you are presented with fresh challenges and are asked to do things that are clearly out of your comfort zone. You will be spotted by the right people only when you are different from the rest of the crowd.
Try implementing the above-mentioned points in your day to day life and see your career take up. It is, however, important to remain patient and persistent. Your career probably won’t take a 360 degrees turn overnight. But, if you remain consistent and resilient, you will see that things are changing for the better and in no time you will have a complete control of your career and can maneuver it according to your will.
If you are to succeed, you have to plan. This is not just a set of few words rather a ‘mantra’ to achieve the most of what you could not, otherwise. It is thus essential that you plan on your career. You must be always open to learning and never let the air of arrogance surround you. Learn to network, be kind to people and trust me, you will earn respect more than anything else.