Career Planning: How to Reach Career Goals
If you truly want to achieve your goals, you need to back them up with solid career planning. Many people would say, “I wanted to become a doctor” or “I wanted to become a startup founder”, but they ended up in different jobs.
To avoid finding yourself in their shoes, you need to understand the importance of career planning. It is not just identifying what you want to become but a continuous strategic plan dotted with objectives and a roadmap that will help you achieve all those objectives.
Whether you are a fresh college graduate, post-graduate, at an entry-level position or with several years of professional experience, you can reset your career goals and plans and achieve them through strategic decision-making.
Some of the decisions we make during our career planning stage include deciding on the right college, which employer to work for or whether to change jobs/field of work or not. Sometimes, one might be held back by family needs, financial constraints or lack of opportunities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be setting career goals at a later stage.
Let’s look at some tips to help you achieve your career goals.
Tips for Setting Career Goals
A good leadership development programme can do wonders for the professionals who have spent some time in the corporate waters and are now looking at reviewing their career goals. It will help you become better at setting career goals and achieving them. Further, here are some tips that will help you in the journey:
Self-assessment
– Being self-aware can help you judge your strengths and weaknesses. You can achieve professional success only by setting your career goals based on frank and realistic self-assessment. Prepare an assessment chart of things you excel at and those you need to improve.
Seek advice
– Whether you read self-improvement books, consult experts or learn from a mentor, it is important to learn from experts. They have spent time in the industry and have learned from it. They can offer real-life experiences and help answer your questions.
Set tangible goals
– Unrealistic goals are a major cause of failure. Being ambitious is one thing but setting goals by looking at what others have done, can lead to disappointment. Keep your goals realistic and in sync with your talent and the effort you can put in. Calculated risks are fine but not beyond a limit.
Follow a schedule
– Maximum efficiency necessitates creating and adhering to a fixed daily schedule with the right balance for all the tasks you perform each day. For instance, morning routine, exercise, nutrition, sleep, office work, leisure, self-learning etc., are all components that should be factored in.
Start meditation
– The hectic pace of life and the prevalent chaos can sometimes be overwhelming. Therefore, one should integrate basic mindfulness and relaxation activities such as deep breathing, taking short walks or meditation and chant breaks. These can revitalize self and improve focus.
Continuous Learning
– Successful career planning also depends on whether you practice continuous learning or not. You can join online learning opportunities alongside your full-time job or studies. This will not only offer you a chance to improve the skills that you possess but also gain an edge over your peers through additional skill acquisition.
Network
– Social networking is important nowadays, and we are not just talking about Facebook. You have to be active in your professional circles and communities belonging to your field of work on platforms like LinkedIn. Create an impressive profile and be willing to collaborate, offer consultations and even volunteer work whenever possible. This will amplify your visibility and might be instrumental in getting the right job profile or funding to launch your startup.
Accept feedback
– Feedback is a process of learning about shortcomings and working to eliminate them. We give feedback on products and services we use, so why not be receptive to feedback on ourselves? When you receive feedback graciously, evaluate it and focus on making improvements according to honest feedback, you expedite your growth. People who come across as arrogant or non-receptive to feedback are likely to miss out on their career goals.
Joining Courses that help in Career planning
With the rise of digital education, it has become easier for learners to join high-impact programs and certification courses on top-notch platforms such as Emeritus. Such programs are crucial to enhancing your professional knowledge and soft skill development. You might be a good manager, but to become a good business leader, you must bring about mindset changes. This is where the wide range of online courses offered on the Emeritus platform will help you.
The career planning tips mentioned above can help increase your chances of getting the best paying jobs in India. You could also upskill with certificate courses from platforms like Emeritus that provide current industry expertise and offer hard and soft skills development. These courses achieve great professional success and meet your career goals.
