If it were possible, I would grab every person reading this article (in fact, every person who works for a living) by the shoulders while shaking them and looking them in the eye and say “Don’t make this mistake! Don’t make this mistake!” The majority of people who work are just working for a living. Statistics indicate that 85% of all people in the workforce are unhappy with their careers. Most people approach their career selection with the best intentions. Many people will spend countless hours trying to get into the best colleges and obtaining their degrees, give a certain amount of consideration to the field they will go into, make a good effort at finding a job, but when they finally get started, that’s it! The daily grind sets in.
The mistake that most people make is they never plan out their career. It has been said that if you fail to plan you plan to fail. This I believe is the reason why so many people are unhappy in their chosen careers. They are like a boat without a pilot – drifting out at sea wandering in the ocean without a navigator to guide it. They are going nowhere because they have no idea where they want to go.
If you want to be truly fulfilled in your career you must have a plan. Treat your career as if you were a business owner. What is your mission statement? Set up a business (career) plan. Do you feel passionate about your career path? If not, then find something that you DO feel passionate about.
Here are the key questions for you to ask yourself:
What is my long-range strategic plan?
Where do I want to be in my career 5, 10, 20 years from now?
Where do I ultimately want to end up?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can begin to formulate your plan and then implement it.
