In the business of planning one’s career, what must first be taken into cognizance is the knowledge of the skills and steps to building a successful career. The truth is, every man desires to find purpose and as purpose gives meaning to human existence, it is necessary that man places the energy on a certain career or professional ambition.
Thus, this process is called career planning which by definition is the combination of structured planning and the active management choice of one’s own professional career. It is also called career management. With perfect utilization of the procedures provided by this term, one is possible to meet with success.
Success then is explained as managing one’s career effectively through the attainment of desired positions and other rewards. The outcome of successful career management should include personal fulfillment, work–life balance, goal achievement, and financial security. This involves using the tactics that is more or less assertive, and with assertiveness in the work situation referring to actions taken to advance one’s career interests or to exercise one’s legitimate rights while respecting the rights of others.
4 Skills and Steps to a Successful Career
Let us therefore look into some of the 4 skills and steps to a successful career through deep career planning or career management processes:
Four Skills Needed
Below are the 4 major skills needed of you to excel in the business of planning your career:
- Academic Knowledge
Undoubtedly, you need this knowledge in order to get across to the next stage of fulfilling your career. Academic knowledge is a specific form of knowledge that has characteristics that differentiate it from other kinds of knowledge, and particularly from knowledge or beliefs based solely on direct personal experience.
- Life Skills
As one of the 4 skills and steps to a successful career, you need to have or efficiently be in possession of life skills. Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency.
- Employability Skills
These are the essential skills, personal qualities and values that enable you to thrive in any workplace. These are also called ‘enterprise skills’, ‘communication skills’ or ‘workplace skills’. Examples of this are Critical thinking and problem solving, Teamwork and collaboration, Professionalism and strong work ethic, Oral and written communications skills, and Leadership skills.
- Technical Skills
Technical skills are part of the necessary ingredient to cooking a tasty and scintillating career that will at end of the day capture the heart of people. They are well put as some specialized knowledge and expertise required to perform specific tasks and use specific tools and programs in real world situations.
As hard skills, technical skills are qualities acquired by using and gaining expertise in performing physical or digital tasks.
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Four Major Steps
Check out the required steps to be taken in your expedition to achieving success in your career:
- Activate Possibilities
Take everything you have learned about yourself and your ambitions so far and bring it all together. Create a plan and put it into action. At this point you hopefully have lots of career ideas buzzing around in your head and now it is time to prioritize them and perhaps face a reality check.
This is the time to work out which of your options are really possible for your next career move and which ones might need to go on the backburner for now.
- Explore and Discover Your Self
Another step is about exploring where you are today and what motivates you to take action. If you wake up in the morning and aren’t giving 100% of your energy and motivation to your career you probably haven’t discovered your personal values or your reason “why”.
All of us need a compelling reason for why we do the things we do – it’s what moves us and drives our actions. Decide what your motivation behind your actions is. Align your reason “why” with your actions to ensure you aren’t on auto-pilot and haven’t lost sight of what really matters to you.
- Understand your Emotional Needs
Take care of the emotional side of your new career change. As much as change is a healthy part of life, it can also be somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster. It is important to prepare yourself for the feelings that come with taking a leap. You may experience rejection, feelings of inadequacy, fear, anxiety, and even shock. However, with applying the right steps, these feelings will turn into hope, excitement, focus, purpose, and accomplishment.
- Pinpoint the Reason for Your Pursuit
This last step to achieve your success in your career will involve using your new found knowledge of why you want to be successful towards create your working wish list. What organizations are you going to apply to? What will your new job title be? Where would you like to open your new business venture?
This is all about bringing your ideas together and imagining what your next career move looks like, what you will be doing, the things you will be feeling and hearing. This Step is about being creative and willing to explore new things even if they appear unrealistic options right now.
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