Having a career isn’t easy. Progressing ones’ career entails, a high amount dedication, discipline, and dealing with a lot of things you don’t always feel like doing. As tough as this might sound, having a career is incredibly rewarding. It provides opportunities to make money, develop new skills, achieve a sense of purpose, and contribute to others over a long period of time. That’s why a career is an investment. So here are some guidelines to follow to make the best of your career.
Goals, goals, goals! Develop goals and performance objectives. You can’t get to where you’re going if your destination is unclear. It’s your job to plot your goals and lay out your success metrics
Self evaluation. Identify key skills required to do your job well, assess how well you’re doing at the job, and identify ways to improve. A good practice here is to ask: “ what is the one key skill I require to do this job well?”. You can begin with this self evaluation checklist from the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.
Read, read read! read books about your industry, people you admire, read blog posts, become familiar with the trends and outlook for your industry. It’s not just about having knowledge of your job function (which is key), but about being a better-rounded person. Have a read of the newspaper regularly, but read books more.
Keep a journal: A journal helps keep track and make sense of what has been learnt on the job. You can take it a step further by keeping a blog. The process of blogging forces you to revisit ideas, and optimise your learning. A blog can also allow you to connect with other like-minded individuals online.
Get a mentor: A mentor saves you time, effort and making big mistakes. Find someone you admire, shares your values, and has skills and experiences in an area important to your career.
Create a network of a few wise people who care about you and will give you advice. Within this network, include people you will communicate with day to day, people you communicate with for strategic reasons( the future), and people who will aid your social development
Create a personal brand: just like a business requires a recognisable brand to compete in a crowded market, so do you. i.e. you have to PACKAGE. A brand can also help you figure out your deepest desires, and identify how your chosen career helps you achieve this. Invest time in understanding your value, developing a personal mission statement, and clarifying what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind
Specialize: pick an area important to your job and take the learning further. It could mean taking a course, self-study, or attending a training. The focus here is to build special skills as well as transferable skills. And while you’re at it, make sure you learn skills that will be in demand over the next 10 years.
Finally, seek feedback regularly. Have you ever noticed how it’s easy to observe someone else’s weakness? Have you ever felt you could help another person by bringing something they are doing wrong to their attention? That’s the (potential) power of feedback! Your boss, peers, and subordinates are valuable sources of information for your growth. Make sure to ask them how they think you can perform better.
On average each individual is going to spend about 80,000 hours of his life in his chosen occupation. Much like successful financial investing, achieving a fulfilling career requires intentional management and fine-tuning, which for the most part can only be done by you. The bottom line here is that to succeed with a career one must systematically “zoom in and out” of his day to day affairs, and embrace an all encompassing perspective, covering all sides of what could be a very long and promising journey.