Saturday, February 11, 2012

Crafting Your Personal Career Strategy

By Lindsay Barnes


When you first started working or embarked on your career, did you really stop to think about how your future was going to shape up or did you simply grab the first work opportunity that was available to you? If you did the latter, you may be feeling burned out or even unfulfilled by what you do, and you're not hoping for much anymore since you think you're already stuck and you have no other direction to go in. If you find that you're in this particular situation right now, you might be thinking that you're stuck with no hopes of advancement anymore. Fortunately, that isn't true and you still have the opportunity to change your path and find the right job and career for you.

One of the first things you should do is to take stock of where you are at the moment. How far have you gone in your particular career or field? Do you want to continue on this path or go down a different one? Were you just going with the flow or the natural progression in your career or did you actively seek any promotions? How happy are you at the moment and what changes do you want to make?

The second half of the last question is something that can help you steer yourself to a better career and a better future. You should be able to determine what things make you the happiest and how you want your life and your career to improve. Deciding this clears up your mind, strengthens your resolve, and gets you started on all the actions and decisions that can make change happen. This also establishes the big vision you have for yourself, and you need to keep going back to this vision from time to time so you can stay on track.

Next, figure out the things you need to do in order to make this vision come true. You might need to become more assertive and productive at work in order to be seen as someone with very real potential to rise to the top. You might want to take classes in things that interest you so you develop your skills in those fields. You may even foresee leaving your current job in the future so you can work full-time on your goals.

Developing a career strategy mainly involves identifying where you are, where you want to go, and what you have to do to get there. Don't forget to plan for possible bumps along the way. You don't want mistakes or small issues to get in the way of your plans or discourage you.




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