Know Your Career Goals

What are your career goals? This is probably the most important question you can ask and very few people can actually answer it. It's amazing and a bit of a paradox that most of us career people spend so much time with career planning and working toward goals that we hardly can specify.
In the starting phase of a career, things don't always seem like a big deal; in fact they are pretty easy. Most people appreciate having a job, and when the job is new, almost any assignment is challenging. Our employees record signs of progress and assume that their employers are on track. Many of us are promoted one or more times. But do we know our ultimate destination?
When we grow older and mature, promotions become less frequent, relationships and politics means more while both pressure and expectations escalate both at work and at home and wisdom takes over. Your career or job goals are likely to change more than one time in life. As you grow and develop and learn more about yourself and your jobs, you may change your mind.
So how do you go ahead to discover your real career or professional goals?
Know what You really want - You need knowledge about yourself as well as information about the career options that fit your skills, values and interests.
Interest clarification - You must explore your work interests or preferences. Try to recall what courses or training you really enjoyed and which careers you've considered pursuing.
Value assessment - You must find out which of your values are important to you in terms of job and career satisfaction.
Determine Your Skills - You must list the skills you currently possess as well as skills you do not have and wish to develop. Skills can originate from education, work experiences as well as from experiences from your life in general.
Explore the career options - Do not limit yourself to one but look at various career fields. Find out what each of them entails.
Set Preliminary Goals - Summarize the results of your self-assessment in a prioritized list or statement to serve as a reference as you begin to identify and research employers
If you do a good and thorough research, you will be able to uncover your real career or job goals; what you were meant to do in your life.
Terje Brooks Ellingsen is a writer and internet publisher. He runs the website 1st-Self_Improvement.net. Terje is a Sociologist who enjoys contributing to the personal growth and happiness of others. He tries to accomplish this by writing about self improvement issues from his own experience and knowledge. For example, career goal planning and planning for financial independence.

Build Your Career Decision By Decision

Do you dislike making decisions and avoid the challenge whenever you can?
Take heart. Look around and you will find you have plenty of company.
Management psychologists Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann say people tend to be “reluctant decision makers” because they are “beset by conflict, doubts and worry.” They explain that people “seek relief by procrastinating, rationalizing and denying responsibility” in making choices.
This human tendency creates a big vacuum. Its name is opportunity!
"Organizations cannot function, certainly cannot succeed, without good decision- makers. Organizations reward those men and women who are willing and able to fill those roles," according to Ramon Greenwood, senior career counselor at www.CommonSenseAtWork.com
Therefore, opportunities are available for those who are willing and able to come to grips with decision-making. It's the very essence of management. Success depends on being confident and reasonably comfortable with the process. Of course, success also requires a good batting average of right decisions. That doesn't mean you have to be right all of the time; it means be right more often than wrong.
Why People Shy Away From Decisions
It helps to understand some of the reasons why people dislike making decisions.
All decisions encompass some degree of irrevocability. Once a decision has been made there is no returning to square one. There is a price tag attached to every decision. There are bound to be winners and losers.
Decisions expose us to attention. We may lack confidence in our ability to make decisions. We may not know how to make decisions.
These facts of life breed the kinds of stress that make some people so uncomfortable they had rather let others call the shots and take home the rewards. Others are willing to stick their heads in the sand and let the issues go unresolved.
How To Make Better Decisions
You can improve your tolerance for making decisions and do a better job at it by embracing a few common sense ideas.
It is important to realize that although each decision carries with it certain consequences, no outcome is likely to be the raging success or the unmitigated catastrophe we tend to imagine.
You will not be a good decision maker if your goal is always to avoid losing rather than always trying to win. Nobody in his or her right mind can expect to be right 100 percent of the time. Besides that, as I have already said, you don’t always have to be right in order to come out an overall winners.
You can’t afford to be defensive about decisions that turn out to be wrong. When you are wrong, and you will be from time to time, admit it and go on.
If you want to be a good decision-maker don’t get hung up waiting for all of the facts before coming to a conclusion. Satisfy your self that you understand the issue and have weighed all of the options. Test the alternative solutions among those who know the situation and will be impacted by the decision. Decide. Act.
Learn to trust your intuition. Hunches are not random bolts out of the blue. They are rooted in all the knowledge and experience you have accumulated in general and with regard to the issue at hand.
Decisions surrounding major issues should be broken into smaller, manageable parts. Take the parts one at a time; come to conclusions in sequence.
Resist being pressured into making a decision before you are ready to decide and act. All problems do not require immediate answers. Sometimes issues resolve themselves or just go away.
Don't base decisions on popularity. Or on friendship.
Make Decisions To Grow
Nobody says you have to play the game as decision makers. But before deciding your role, but keep in mind how the real world works.
Organizations grow and profit only to the extent that their managers make good decisions. Therefore, ambitious organizations need and will pay to get men and women who can make decisions. People who have that ability are in limited supply. This means there are opportunities to gain positions of leadership and earn the material rewards that go to those persons who have the ability and courage to make decisions.
The choice is yours. Make a decision today.
For more information on achieving success in the world of work visit www.CommonSenseAtWork.com
Ramon Greenwood is former senior vice president of American Express; a professional director for various businesses; a consultant; a published author of career related books and a syndicated column. Senior career counselor for http://www.CommonSenseAtWork.com

Importance of Career Planning

Career means profession, which we want to adopt for earning livelihood, and planning means proper flow or to make proper decisions. Pre- planning in our life plays very important role in every aspect of life, to work in a proper flow, and pre-planning for career, which we want to pursue in our future ahead after acquiring certain level of degree is also very necessary in today’s competitive world.
According to the Thorndike dictionary
“A goal that you desire to achieve in a selected field or occupation with a well-thought out plan, to get you there is called Career Planning.”
The world is now moving very fast, and the time has come when this meritocratic society accepts only those, having right qualification and right skills. Olden days are gone, when just a degree would help an individual to get high profile job by giving bribe or using some other mean. Now it’s high time, when the transparency in job recruitment has taken place.
Challenges and competition are the part of today’s society, and therefore, Career Planning is the only task, which can guide us to do what we want to do in our life, rather than just aimlessly changing job all the time in future.
We have seen many Pakistani, who after completing Intermediate don’t know where to go, what to do and we have also seen graduates, who aimlessly do graduation without any specialization. As a result, they earns just in 6-8 figures.
Career Planning is one of the broader aspects of learning in our existence. We all have some intentions and we all think to have stability in our future lives, and for that purpose, CAREER PLANNING serves as a key to success.
Career Planning makes a person to think suitably about their positive and negative aspects. All about their interest, about their creativity becomes possible through proper analyzing ourselves.
Career Planning basically starts, when a person finishes Secondary/ Higher Secondary level of education. After that level, a person could opt for that educational degree, which would help them out to have a good job opportunity according to their skills at the right time.
Career Planning helps us to design and formulate our future smoothly. Like, If a person wants to be a banker, then he or she would choose to go for ACCA or CA or MBA in finance after completing Intermediate in commerce and Graduation in commerce/ business administration.. Else he/ she would go for CAT course or Masters in Commerce or even upto doctorate level.
This pre-planning would be effective and would give him/her benefits after achieving educational targets effectively. It also helps us to evaluate our own personality, which helps us to know that which kind of job would suit us according to our need and capabilities.
In short, Career Planning is like mapping our future.
Without proper planning, no one could think of getting a desired job in future.
Think what we want to do and finding out more about the kind of training, education, and skills we will need to achieve our career goal is the core objective of career planning. It help us knowing the nature of the jobs that interest us, such as educational requirements, salary, working conditions, fringe benefits, promotion chances, future prospectus, and help us focusing in the right dimension.
Career planning directs us, motivates us, and helps us to accomplish what we want. A career goal is a specific vision such as an architect or a teacher or a career goal can be a particular field, which we want to work in, such as Media, Education, Medicine, Engineering etc.
For those who will think about their future and career after completing education without any long term desired goals are the one, whose all attempt might end in smoke. There are some cases and situation, which bound a person to pre-plan in advance, such like family high family business status, lack of interest in studies or traditional job, low motivation, low financial status etc or some past educational traumas, which had made a person to plan after wards.
Career planning is a life time process we are always learning and growing, and as we do, our interests and needs also change. Career planning is not just making plans to obtain our career, but it also help us to make many adjustments there will be along the ways we learn throughout our lives.
Those who have successful careers like educators, business man, manager, pilot, architect, banker, doctor etc are the one, who has made their ways through proper guidance.
No doubt, that our parents have some wishes and expectations from us, but we have our own too. Therefore, we should also consider others opinion. For that we could take guidance from an educational counselor to get better guidance towards new dimensional fields as well. Teacher, professionals, career guidance websites, Head educational consultants can also guide us, to have a better approach for our future.
We must have freedom of speaking and freedom of choosing our career as we have to lead our lives which interest us. We must try to have an open mind in order to choose the right career on right time.
According to one renowned professor,
“Few of us like to opt for those degree courses, which their family or friend has advised them to adopt and this inappropriate knowledge trapped them into a great mistake and In this way, they are unable to get good job opportunities according to their interests. Only Proper Career Guidance would help an individual to be on the right path before hand. Few of us try to seek the right path and take guidance from family or teacher to tell them what is good for them, which career is in demand and which career suits their interest.”
The future is un-predictable, however, we could still make our place in this meritocratic world by making career goals and plans in advance, for getting better opportunities in todays pluralistic and globalize world. We must pre-plan our goals under the supervision of professionals in conscious state of mind, so that we could strategically maintain our goals and follow it towards the path of successful future.
Munir Moosa Sewani is one of the famous, prominent and creative name in the field of Education since 8 years. He is a Master Trainer In Special Education, Post Graduate, Teacher Educator and a Teacher. He is a Freelance Writer and Photographer too. He is an author of the famous self-published storybook for children named as "The MORAL STORIES FOR CHILDREN" and has also written Biology course book for Secondary Classes. He has written almost more than 20 articles on social, health, educational and cultural issues, which are internationally recognized and published in most of the famous world wide websites, magazines and newspapers. He is also a Social worker, private tutor, career counselor, musician, lyrics writer and have multi- dimensional talents. His future plan is to write dozens of informative books and articles and to work for education and media also, in order to develop the sense of understanding many dimensions of life through his creativity.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Munir_Moosa

5 Steps to Being the CEO of your Career

Do you want to earn more, work less, and find greater enjoyment in your job or business?
Are you stressed out or burned out and ready to get into the driver’s seat of your career?
If so, I’d love to help you. Here is a five-step program to help you take your career where you want it to go. As the CEO, you’ll be in charge, and you’ll create the profitable career you really want. Before we get started on the journey, answer this question:
What are some important characteristics or qualities of effective CEOs?
Here are some of my answers to this question: • They have a solid vision and plan for their company• The have specific short-term goals to attain long-term objectives• They understand the strategic positioning of their company in the marketplace• They are inspirational, proactive, action-oriented leaders Here’s how you can create these qualities of effective CEOs.
Step 1: Create a Solid Vision
As a CEO has a strong vision for where the company is headed, you need to have a vision for your career. This vision will guide decision making, inspire and motivate you, and keep you going in the right direction.
The most powerful vision will be motivated by what’s important to you. When your vision is built upon your values, it’s more likely to be achieved. You’ll feel like you’re on a mission.
Exercise: Brainstorm your core career values. These are things like, “Achieve balance to have time for family, “Earn a lucrative income,” and “Have room for continuous learning and growth.” Come up with values and rank-order them. Then use them to create a vision for yourself.
Step 2: Have a Solid Plan: Short Term and Long Term Goals
Goals are great if you make the right ones. Make all your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.
Create your shorter-term goals for 1 year and 2-5 years. Then create your longer-term goals for 5-10, 10-20, 20+ years.
Make sure that your goals are driven by your vision and career values. Once you have your goals, it’s time to brainstorm creative ways to make them happen.
Exercise: Write down all your career goals- don’t forget to put them in the SMART format. Then divide them into categories: Short-term (1-5 years), medium term (5-7 years) and long-term (7+ years)
Step 3: Strategic Positioning
For a company to be successful, the CEO must have a clear understanding of where the company’s market values lies in comparison to competitors. What’s your market value? Do you know? If not, ask people, “How do you think I contribute to this company?” Look at your performance evaluations and find your key strengths.
As CEO of your career, do a SWOT analysis on your own competitive position in the marketplace. Analyze your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Exercise: List your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats in comparison to your peers, colleagues, and coworkers. Once you know your strengths and opportunities, start promoting and marketing yourself and achieve the goals you described in step 2.
Step 4: Bottom Line Profits and Success
Carefully review whether your career is currently in a deficit or creating profit for you. Use your vision and values to make this determination. Remember that profit includes money but also things like time, happiness, and significance.
What you are getting out of your career and what you are putting into it?
Do the liabilities and losses outweigh the assets and profits? If so, you’ll need to take action (see step #5).
Exercise: Create a P & L (profit and loss) statement. Determine exactly where you’re benefiting (profits) and where you aren’t achieving what you want (losses).
Step 5: Be Daring and Take Action
Now that you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can take positive action!
Address your weaknesses by requesting additional trainings, partnering with a colleague, speaking with more people who you can learn from, hiring a consultant or coach, and gaining confidence by pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
Address your strengths by celebrating your successes, recognizing opportunities for advancement, requesting a promotion or salary raise, mentoring others, or starting your own company.
And don’t forget about the P & L statement. Be proactive and turn your losses into profits. For example, if your “loss” is that you work too much and aren’t earning enough, look for ways to delegate, become more focused and less distracted, and get organized so you get your work done more quickly.
Exercise: Create one action step for your strengths and opportunities, one for your weaknesses and threats, one for your profits (to build on what you’re doing right), and one to turn losses into profits. Make sure that all action steps are in line with your values, vision, strategy and goals.
Follow these five steps and you’re sure to have the mindset, confidence, strategy, and action to be the CEO of your career. Enjoy the profits and rewards you create for yourself and others!
Larina Kase, PsyD, MBA is a business psychologist and the author of Anxious 9 to 5. Her work on building rewarding careers and businesses has been featured in media such as The New York Times and Entrepreneur Magazine. Get a gift: the e-course 7 Steps to Career Success ($79- value) at http://www.pascoaching.com

Promote Yourself To A Better Job

Promoting your own image is simply a question of letting your friends, colleagues and acquaintances know what sort of person you are. Their impression of you helps them to form an opinion of you and so influence their idea of your personality. Once you realise this fact, it becomes obvious that you can begin to work at promoting your image. If people perceive you as off-hand, distant and aloof you will not make much of an impression on people with whom you work. If, on the other hand, you are viewed as being cheerful, friendly, helpful and knowledgeable, your status and value increase immediately and you are see as someone worth knowing. From that point on it is easy to develop skills which will help you enormously in your career.
Analysing this skill from an employment point of view, it is not difficult to realise that if your colleagues accept you and find you responsive you will soon become trusted by them and earn their respect and approval at all stages on the management ladder. If you work at it you will find it easy and the benefits you receive will far outweigh the effort you make. Being helpful to and interested in your colleagues, helping them to solve problems and offering advice when requested will quickly be noticed by your immediate superiors. The next step should consist of letting your immediate superior know you are quite prepared to help in putting forward any new ideas or procedures with which they may need assistance.
Build a rapport with your boss so that he appreciates your help and co-operation and you will find that you become more valuable to him. By taking these steps you have promoted your image to staff and management as a trusted, helpful, respected, flexible and co-operative employee. You can now begin to promote your own image even further. The next objective is to sell yourself as somebody who has the qualifications, skills and personality to be seriously considered for promotion. If people come to you for advice and your advice is trustworthy, taken and followed, you are now considered as a respected and trusted adviser. This is important because from that point you can quite easily build your reputation into a valuable asset which can now be used in promoting and planning your career.
One of the most important tools at your disposal is the ability to communicate. This is a skill that needs developing with constant practise, as the most important feature of all is CLARITY. If you can express yourself clearly no matter how complex the subject and your listener can understand and follow your dialogue, this will give you a huge advantage over other people. This skill is extremely important and needs to be used constantly until it becomes second nature. People will then be in no doubt as to what you are saying.
Planning a strategy for self promotion is not the same as planning a career path, although it is unlikely that you will be able to do one without the other. As previously mentioned in the Introduction it is absolutely necessary to fully understand yourself. Only then can you identify your weak points and remedy them so that you can eliminate them totally or at the very least improve them so that they're no longer a handicap.
One of the most critical areas is your self-assessment and the action you take as a result of that assessment. Self promotion entails being able to sell yourself to others, thus gaining their confidence, particularly to those people who can influence and further your career. This requires effort, knowledge and personality, as opposed to obsequiousness, toadying or any other undesirable forms of attracting attention. Consequently you will be less likely to alienate people around you and so retain their respect and trust and possibly generate another positive attribute, 'Admiration'.
To summarise 'How To Promote Your Own Image', firstly you must be able to see yourself as others see you. You then need to work on eliminating your problem areas and make every effort to become friendly, trusted, flexible and respected by your colleagues. Learn to be articulate, factual and positive in your approach to problems. A smart appearance and confident 'body language' are tremendous assets. Developing a clear strategy to organise these skills, not only at work but in your social life, will quickly become second nature to you. Finally, never overlook an opportunity to sell yourself as a person who wishes to be considered for promotion.
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Self Help