With so much going on in the county and world right now, injustice, uncertainty, it can feel like “what’s the point of being concerned with your career”. As someone who has found joy in finding a career they're passionate about, I know how much loving what I do and serving others, comforts me in times when I feel like there is so much I wish I could change in the world. I think this time calls for coming together and building a solid strategy and plan. I think it’s also a time when we can look at our own career management and ask ourselves “who is in charge of my career”. The world and industries are changing, and solid planning on what we want our future to look like is needed.
Who is in Charge?
When you want to be promoted or move up within your field, are you looking for your boss to promote you, are you looking for a company to come out of the blue and snatch you up. Who are you looking to, to care about your career? Who really is in charge of how far we go in our careers? I believe that we're in charge, and it is the decisions that we make within our career and within career planning that help us move forward. No boss or company is going to care more about your career than you, this is why it’s important to have good career management and planning.
Career Planning
There are four stages of Career Planning, and they are important when it comes to good career management and taking charge of your career. The first stage is self-discovery. This is where we go within ourselves to figure out what we like, our interests, passions, and what we're good at. This is also a great time to ask ourselves how we can serve, what can we contribute to the world, to humanity to make it a better place for all. It's really important to know who you are and what you care about in order to sell yourselves, but also to pick a career that aligns with what you're good at as well as with what you like to do.
Career Mission
The second thing is to craft your career mission. Making a mission statement is so helpful to your career, a mission statement is really what you plan to accomplish in your career and the mark that you want to leave on the world. You can use a vision statement or a mission statement to help you stay on track with how you plan to serve. A vision statement describes and looks towards the future, while a mission statement is focused on your current objectives and goals.
Career Goals The third step is to set career goals. You want to set long-term and short-term career goals, long term focusing on the next five years, and the short term within the next six months to a year. Ask yourself, where are you looking to take your career? Are you interested in exploring other industries or are you looking to move up within your industry or company? What’s your plan for accomplishing these goals? Having career goals is really important and it’s also important to make sure that your career goals are aligned with your mission. The next and final stage in career planning is a quarterly check-in. You want to make sure you are on track for the goals you set. If you're not on track how do you react? Figure out what changes you can make to your plan and goals so they excite you to act. The four stages, self-discovery, crafting your mission, setting goals, and quarterly check-ins are crucial to having a good career plan and will ensure that you have overall good career management. In a time when it feels like so much is out of our control, we still have the power to take charge of our careers and look to a better future.