How To Achieve The Perfect Career
Success in a career, like In life, means different things to different people. To some people, success means joining an organization as an intern and rising through the ranks to become the CEO or a partner.
To others, success means sharpening their skills in one field and transitioning to become self-employed in the same field. However, the expected similarity in these definitions is that a successful career means doing a job that you enjoy, love, and give you a fair wage and a perfect work-life balance.
If you want to achieve the perfect career, follow this guideline.
1. Start By Choosing A Career That You Love
The best way to do this is to identify the industry and narrow it down to a specific department. For instance, you can apply to a reputable medical assistant program or choose to work in the consumer non-durables in the marketing department and build a fantastic career in the field.
Loving what you do is the best way to give it your best. You won’t be motivated, you won’t be driven all the time, and there are day’s external factors that will make you dislike your job. Passion is the one thing that can keep you going, even when all odds are against you.
Steve Jobs said, if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. Loving what you do is the best way to find a fulfilling career. More recently, Elon Musk reiterated Steve’s words by mentioning that passion is an essential quality that he looks for in a potential employee.
Steve Jobs is a perfect example of someone whose passion drove him to build a successful career in the tech field. After being fired from Apple, Steve started other companies that helped him continue coding.
It was his love for computers that sustained his interest in a field that had seen him get rejected, frustrated, and despised. As luck would have it, he returned to Apple when the company was facing numerous challenges and managed to turn around the company into the successful tech giant that Apple is today. Thus, find a career you love, something you would do even if you were not paid a cent.
2. Define Success In Your Terms, And Find A Mentor Who Can Steer You Towards Success
The parable of the Mexican fisherman is the best lesson teaching why you should define success in your terms. Here is a synopsis of the parable; An American investment banker was on a coastal trip when he met a Mexican fisherman.
The fisherman had little fish, and the American couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stay longer in the ocean, catch more fish, sell to the processor, and make more money and eventuality retire in a small village where he could fish a little. The narrative’s irony is that the American banker was advising the Mexican fisherman to pursue a lifestyle that he was leading already.
This is a similar scenario with career achievement. The perfect career is earning millions in wages every year to some people. To some, it is working for the biggest brands in the world.
To some people, a perfect career is joining the public service and devoting their lives to serving the public. To some, a perfect career means starting a small company and growing the company to a multi-billion dollar company.
What does a successful career mean to you? Who is a successful career person in your view? Once you understand what you want to achieve out of your career, find a mentor who has succeeded in the field.
3. Take Risks In Your Career
To some people, risk-taking is a preserve of entrepreneurs, but the reality is that risk-taking is an ingredient of success in anything in life. Risk-taking separates an average profession from an exceptional career. By risk-taking doesn’t necessarily imply quitting your job and starting a startup that will revolutionize the world.
Risk-taking in a career means taking more roles, even those outside your job description. It implies accepting a lower position to put you on the right career trajectory. It means being willing to get out of your comfort zone physically or professionally to get ahead in life.
For instance, if you work in a bank in the operations department, you might be forced to switch to the sales department to scale your career upwards. This might mean more responsibility, working under pressure, and being pushed to achieve high targets.
Sometimes, such a role can expose you to being laid off if you fail to meet your target consequently. However, it is also the role that prepares you to be a regional sales manager and other highly competitive positions.
4. Network With People In Your Industry
After defining your ideal career, strive to interact with other professions in your industry. One way of doing this is by joining a professional body in your career. For instance, if you are a banker, join the banker association in your country. Also, if you are an accountant, join the professional accountant body in your country.
You can also join international professional bodies like ACCA for accountants. After entering the professional body, strive to be an active member.
Attend the annual conferences to stay updated in your field, and contribute to your area of specialization.
For instance, if you are an accountant In the real estate sector, present the emerging issues in the real estate sector to the profession to ensure your employer’s concerns are handled at the national level.
5. Be Patient
Like in life, patients in a career is a virtue. People who built exceptional careers stick in one field and an employer for some time—as a young person in your twenties, job-hopping from one employer to another is accepted as a regular self-awareness strategy.
However, as you grow older and gain experience in one field, potential employers value people who stay. Thus, strive to stick with one employer for at least 2 or 3 years before switching jobs. This way, you will be gaining experience in your field while giving employers value for taking a chance on you.