How to Choose a Career

• How to choose a career?
• Finding your Passion
• Converting your Abilities into Market Valued Skills
• Planning your Goals
• Importance of goal setting
• Growth Comes with Experience
• Maintaining a healthy lifestyle
• Work Don’t Expect

How to choose a career?

Choosing a career could be one of the most important decisions of your life, and trust me, when the time arrives to make the decision, it is going to be one heck of an adventure. It is not simply a career; it is a lifestyle because it is you deciding how you want to spend every waking moment of your life for the next one, two, three, five, ten, or maybe fifty years. 

Also Read : 7 most useful skills to learn post Covid-19

Various factors can help you to choose the right career. So, instead of choosing the wrong career and later regretting the decision, it is essential to consider all the factors discussed below:

Finding your Passion

One of the most important things before searching for a job is first to find your passion. The mindset of always wanting more is a healthy mentality (if practiced appropriately), and only passion can drive a man towards this mentality. Let me explain: Imagine you want to be a car designer, and if you have a passion for cars, automatically, you will be motivated to come up with more innovative and unique car designs. 

But the question arises how to find your passion? It’s simple, every living person on the earth is gifted with a unique ability. It is just that you have to find this ability. Now you must be wondering how to find the talked about ability? Right! Well, ask yourself these questions: 

• What do you like doing? 
• What is the one thing that excited you? 
• What activity makes you motivated? 
• During which activity, you seem to forget to keep track of time? 
• During which activity, you never get tired?

Write the answer honestly to these questions. Don’t worry, and your answers can also be childish and lame. Now analyze your answers and try to think about the activities that are mentioned in your answers. Now make a list of all your abilities related to these activities, and that’s it. These are the unique abilities that you are passionate about.

After finding out the abilities you are passionate about, now is the time to select a field, a job, a profession, or a career where you can work and improve upon your skills related to these abilities and learn new things. Once you have mastered these abilities, multiple opportunities are waiting for you. The SKY is Your LIMIT.

Converting your Abilities into Market Valued Skills

Knowing the abilities that you are passionate about is not enough. You should know how to use your abilities. Only then can you be successful in the market. The market only cares and respects those who can use their talent to generate results successfully, and these results can be anything. Learning how to make your abilities productive is a very important tool to survive in the market. 

For example: Imagine you like painting, and you can produce 5-6 high-quality paintings per month, but if you don’t have any knowledge about the market for the Art industry, you won’t be able to make any growth in your career as a painter and also fail to generate income out of your paintings, this situation can lead to mental stress, social anxiety and also lead to a financial failure. I am sure you don’t want to waste your time and your talent that you are proud and passionate about for building a career that has no future.

To avoid such situations, it is essential for you first to learn the ability to convert your current abilities into soft and hard skills that are respected in the market for the respective field. But how to convert your abilities into skills? You have to first learn about the profession you want a career in and then work on the skills required by the respective profession. After working on the skills, you have to use those skills and information as a base. Then, build your career on top of it. Always remember, you can never create anything of VALUE without having a Solid FOUNDATION.

Planning your Goals

If you want to have a stable career, it is important to put effort into making a well-structured plan for your career. Yes, there can be many hidden surprises, challenges, difficulties, or obstacles along the journey, but planning your career can reduce stress and anxiety and provide you with confidence to face any unplanned situation.

Making a plan for the entire journey of your career sounds difficult. Right! Well, let me make it simple for you, simply follow these steps to ensure a stable and safe career: 

• Step 1: Write down Your Ultimate Goal.
• Step 2: Write down the skills required for achieving your goal.
• Step 3: Write down the resources and the amount of time required to master these skills. 
• Step 4: After making a strong foundation, search for job opportunities and keep making progress. This will provide you with the required experience and work knowledge for your ultimate goal.
• Step 5: If you can implement the four steps properly, you will be able to achieve your ultimate goal. 

Importance of goal setting

Let us now understand the importance of goals. Setting goals are vital as they act as a daily reminder for the work that we have finished and also allows us to acknowledge the work left. It is advised to set short realistic term goals, as they provide motivation and promote a healthy attitude towards work. Unrealistic goals are a BIG NO, as they can severely affect the work quality and induce stress and anxiety, leading to a hostile and unhealthy mindset. 

Growth Comes with Experience

Learning the skills required for a particular profession won’t help you to achieve your ultimate goal. It is very important to understand the application of the skills learned. You should focus on gaining experience because you can deal with unwanted difficulties more calmly and appropriately, which results in fewer errors and increases work quality.

There are many internships available where you can gain initial experience. Many internships also provide offer letters that can be helpful and ensure a stable career. While working for various internships, we learn to apply the skills that we have learned.

We get better at managing time, understanding the stress and pressure of the work environment, learning various problem-solving skills that help us deal with unwanted difficulties, and making many connections, which can be very helpful. 

For Example: Imagine you are a lawyer. You might read all the law books available, attend all the classes that your law school has to offer, even score great makes in your law tests, but if you don’t have any real-life experience, no client would ever want you to represent them in the court.

Experience plays a very important role in developing confidence, as the more you use your skills, the more you get better at it, which increases your confidence. Each new experience brings maturity, situation awareness, and greater clarity of vision.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle

As mentioned earlier, choosing a career is not about the job and the salary; it is more profound. Career is the choice of lifestyle, and before making any decision related to a career, it is important to consider your current lifestyle. 

For example, if you have a family and can’t afford to stay away from them, then taking a job requiring you to relocate can be a problem. It might hinder the relations and lead to unwanted situations that can seriously affect the quality of your life work. It is best to go for a job that doesn’t demand relocation. 

Work Don’t Expect

You have to put 100% of your heart and soul into building your career. All you have to think about is the work you have to do to achieve the goal you have decided. You have to focus on delivering quality work instead of quantity because the market only values quality. Always be aware of the naysayers, don’t let your work get affected due to their comments, taunts, or opinions. 

Be realistic and always consider all the factors while making career choices. Deciding on a career simply based on childhood dreams and not considering other factors won’t take your career anywhere. Instead, it might lead to stressful and unwanted situations. 

Always remember when starting a brand-new career, there are some difficulties and challenges that might come in your path. They are common. You have to face these obstacles with a positive attitude and overcome them with a positive mindset. Also, you should not quit a job due to these challenges.

It might affect your mindset and turn you into a person who leaves anything if there are any difficulties associated with it.  This might result in you becoming a job hooper which is not a very good reputation to carry in the market. At Least try for six months; even after six months, you cannot achieve any results, then you should consider changing as investing any more time might severe other opportunities. Professional courses can help you find a career path for yourself.