CAREER PLANNING
A sure step for career attainment.
Eburuche Obinna Chimezie Banito
Integrated Institute of Professional Managemement
Everyone is guaranteed a colourful career only if he can
care to plan and pursue his career. No one is luckier than the others as many
proclaim. It is the degree of our preparation in planning and pursuit that we
give to our career that determines the level of exploits we see in our careers.
It is unfortunate that majority of us that go to school only
desire to have a job that will be able to carter for our basic needs. To many,
making great impacts and provoking unprecedented exploits is not in the list of
their strategic objectives (if any). Anyone can succeed greatly in his career
only if he can yield to the demands thereof.
What is Career?
It is a
sense of where one is going in one’s work life. It is a sequence of positions
occupied by a person during the course of a lifetime.
It is the
individual sequence of attitudes and behavior associated with work-related
experiences and activities over the span of the person’s life.
So, what is Career
Planning?
It is a strategic means of knowing and documenting what to
do to have an enviable career. Career planning is wisdom. There is
nothing impossible with planning. Career planning is simply documenting all
that your mental picture carries about yourself and carefully developing
strategies to get these mental picture(s) to reality. If planning is expensive,
then failure will be cheap. If you are too busy to plan, then you will be too
busy to succeed.
Strategic Steps in
Career Planning
- Identify personal goals
- Assess personal characteristics
- Determine how and if goals can be reached
- Obtain more information about goal
- Compare personal resources and career requirements
- Take steps toward achieving goals
- Seek mentors and other interpersonal relationships
- Engage personal development activities
- Periodically reassess goals and progress toward goals
Career Planning
Requirements
- Imagination: What do you see about yourself in the next 5,10, 20, 30 years of your career? If you cannot see, you cannot plan. If the picture of your career is not clear, the path to getting there will become blurry.
- Goals: Bringing down your vision into smaller measurable, realistic, attainable and time-framed goals. Goals are driving agents that push you to achieve. Without a goal, everything will seem fine even when they are terribly ugly.
- Information: If you are not informed, you will be deformed and when deformed, you will lose relevance. Seek meaningful information that will guide you to making a good career plan. It is your information bank that determines the quality of your plan.
- Thinking: Every man is the product of his thought. No one can excel above their thinking level. We are only permitted to become what we have thought about. Until you have thought enough about your career, you won’t be propelled to plan it. You have to think it well to plan it well. You plan it well to act it well. You act it well to live well.
- Exposure: We are naturally affected by our exposure. For you to be able to plan, you need to get exposed to the people who had already achieved in your career so that you can from their story, build your plan.
- Discipline: Irresponsibility is a function of indiscipline. If you are not ready to discipline yourself to plan and pursue your career, then you are not ready for an impactful career.
- Focus: Be single-eyed. Do not jungle and jumble things. You want to do this today and tomorrow you are pursuing another. Do not confuse yourself. Be sure of what you want and focus on it. Focus gives you more power, energy, motivation and zeal to plan and pursue your career tirelessly.
Important Facts About
Career Planning
- It must be strategic. It must be forward-looking. See ahead.
- It must be pursued. Plan without pursuit is a big waste.
- It must be resourced. If you are not ready to resource your plan, you will remain a day-dreamer.
- It must be time-based. You cannot do it anytime it must be at a specified time. Do not be careless with your time. T-I-M-E – Think – Innovate/Initiate – Manage – Engage.
- It must be simple to understand. If it is too big for you to understand, break it down to smaller units that will facilitate your understanding.
- It must be measurable. Not knowing how far you have gone is as bad as not starting. Set measurable milestones that will tell you how far you have gone.
- It must be realistic. Career achievement and advancement occur in phases. It is a ladder-like approach. You cannot jump the ladder. Your career goals must be realistic.
Career Planning Tools
80/20
Principle
According to Pareto principle, maximizing
20% of your time in productive planning will lead to 80% of desired results. We
can completely eliminate struggles from our lives only if we do the right
things at the right time. Out of the 100% of your lifetime, engage only 20% to
effective and efficient planning and you will see great results. By planning in
this way, you kill time and energy diverged to irrelevant activities and focus them on the
most productive activities of your life.
To summarize this, there is no one that had
ever succeeded by mistake, accident, luck or chance so do not think you will be
the first. Carefully plan your way to the top.
See you at the top; it is more beautiful
there.
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