A Personal Approach to Career Goal Setting
Career goal setting is a paradox. It is the easiest to take and yet when what matter is a lifetime of fulfillment, it is the hardest to identify.
When setting a career goal, it is not uncommon that influencing factors are at play. Family traditions, self-visualization, potential earnings, popularity of the career, peer influence, role models, and even celebrities. Lucky are the few who without guidance knew what they want and go on ahead and got it.
Luckier still are the people who in spite of the pressures thrown at them by their environment were not influenced by opinions and expectations of the people around them and identified what they wanted and went right on with it. It is not easy.
Career goal setting is even made harder because parents could in many cases, be divided into two extreme categories.
The first category are parents who raise their children to be unbearably and insufferably conceited, heaping praises on them and over estimating their qualities and abilities which twists the children’s self evaluation. On the other hand are parents that raise them to be morbid and self-deprecating not knowing the value of their children, fails to encourage them by a simple wholesome praise that in some cases prevents a child from forming a good opinion of the self.
Both categories could be hurdles for career goal setting as the real worth and true interests could often be buried deeper than it should.
Rare is the family environment that works to strengthen the best in their children by discreet praises and at the same time control the undesirable qualities by kind and judicious approach.
The answer to career goal setting though is not to be found anywhere but deep inside the self. Often it is not easy to identify and if ever the person has to dig deep to know what he or she really wants.
Clues to effective career goal setting are a person’s inclination when they were still children. What it was that engrossed them that when the subject or the activity is done or even just imagined can take their whole creative powers to front or an unceasing interest. When choosing a career, it has to have some kind of relationship to these things. Clarity of what a person really wants is the key. If the person will also remember it well, money was never a part of the imaginings or activity. It may have been incidental but never as an integral part of the interest.
Career goal setting could also play tricks. Many times during the course of the career path, a person may find difficulties and frustrations that will start casting doubts on the career path that was chosen. This is really common even to professionals. Usually, these are only challenges and obstacles that have to be overcome. Persistence and perseverance are necessary ingredients in successful careers. Once that is overcome, the feelings of doubt are over.
What should then be done if the feeling of doubts persists?
Again search deep inside your self and try to listen to what your body is telling you. It could be a time to reevaluate the career goals that you set. It is the person alone who will have the ability to determine and acknowledge his own passions. When the career goal was set on what drives the passions, success and fulfillment are easy to come by.
It is the demands placed by a well-intentioned society on the person that usually spells discomfort and oftentimes failure. Career goal setting is personal paths to take. It will take honest downright hard self-evaluation if a choice of a career is to be taken.
Public opinion we all know is a public syndicate where everyone is a stockholder. The self is a personal proprietorship. When choosing a career goal, it will be very smart to take the personal path.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
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