Monday, January 8, 2018

Start Your Career On The Right Note - An Important Read

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. "  - Steve Jobs (Apple)




It is important to start your career on the right note. Many people, in their eagerness to get a job and start their earning life would accept any job that comes their way. They just want to get employed somewhere and somehow. They don't start their career on the right note by choosing the field that is right for them.

Do not make this mistake. Do not enter any profession or field that comes first. Exercise some patience and self control. Do not be hasty and do not get too anxious if any suitable job in your desired field does not come to you quickly.

What you need to do before you start job hunting is to take a good measure of your skills, talents, passions, interests, likes and dislikes as well as your strengths and weaknesses. Take a few blank sheets of paper and write down detailed, complete lists of all things that come to mind for the above categories.

For example, on one sheet of paper write down all your strengths. Take another sheet and write down your weaknesses. Take time for each list. Let your mind come up with items to add to the list. Do not hurry to complete the list as quickly as you can. Just keep jotting down whatever thing comes to the mind to be added.

In the same way, make a list of your passions and interests. Make a list of things that you like and another list containing things that you dislike. I am talking of likes and dislikes related to work. I am not talking of the foods you like or dislike. Rather note down whatever tasks or work you particularly enjoy and also the tasks that make you cringe and make you procrastinate. Add each of these tasks that you can think of to its respective list.

An important point - there is no need to try and finish all these lists in one day or one sitting. Let your mind dwell over things and keep giving you more things to be added. Sometimes you might find that as you are sitting with your friend and chatting casually some things come to mind in which you have lot of interest. These things might not have occurred to you earlier, but only after a couple of days.

Anyways always keep an open mind and make sure to write down whatever new idea comes to you. Do not think you have already completed this particular list and dont want to add anything new. Very soon you may get a feeling of completeness or emptiness which signifies that you have exhausted/completed all things for that particular list.

Once you have these lists ready, now is the time to go through these in detail so that you become more aware of your own personality and taste. There may be many things here that may surprise you. You might make many strange discoveries about yourself going over these lists.

Keep mulling over these lists for few days. No need to rush or hurry. Avoid the temptation to hurry things. Let the mind absorb what it has seen and observed and discovered. Let it all sink in. Very soon some ideas may form in your mind and heart about what direction would be best for you. The important thing is not to force yourself to come up with something. Let it happen by itself in its own sweet time.

After a few days you can take the lists and shortlist some items from your likes, passions, strengths and interests. See what you can do with these. How can you utilise these for earning money or getting employed? For example if one of your strengths is helping others solve their problems, think of where this kind of strength would be useful. This strength would probably be useful in management or human resources area where you have to work with people and it is your responsibility to look over their problems and help them solve the problems.

A person with such a strength is better off in working in jobs where he has to deal with people. Such a person is unlikely to be happy and satisfied in a technical or clerical job where interaction with other people is minimal.

So you can use these lists for better self-awareness and for wisely choosing which career field would be better for you. Try to find about what jobs exist which would suit your style, strengths and likes. If you are able to find a job which is suited to your taste and strengths, you may find it lot easier to make  progress and achieve big milestones in your career.

Warren Buffet reportedly said once, 'I did not work a single day in my life'. What he meant was he is so passionate about what he does, he loves his field so much that it does not feel like work. It feels like pleasure, fun and play. That is how you should feel about your work and your chosen field. If you don't feel that way then you are probably not in the right field.

There are many professionals with seemingly successful careers but on the inside they feel exhausted and unsatisfied. They feel something is missing in their lives. Every morning they dread getting out of their beds and going to office for the simple reason they don't love their work. They are just doing it for money. For this reason it is important to choose the right career from the start because once you take the first few steps, it can get very difficult to go back and start all over again in a new field.

And dont forget to check out our huge directory of jobs to find the right one for you: jobsource1.com

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