Career Planning
The time to start thinking about your life after graduation is now. It's never too early to start planning for the future, and a few steps can help you prepare for what lies ahead.
This post aims to provide a simple guide for students going through the process of career planning and development. Here is a simple framework on how to approach your career planning and development.
1) Self-assessment – What are you good at? What are your interests? Take some time and think about yourself. This will be the basis of who you are during the rest of your life. By thinking about yourself, you can effectively narrow down your choices by eliminating those that don't fit you. Often times we think we have to be something or become someone else in order to succeed, but it's important to be honest with yourself about who you really are first before deciding on what road to take.
2) Learning and Experiences – You should never stop learning new things for any reason. There will always be something new to learn. Take advantage of the opportunities you have and try out different things that interest you. Think about what you've learned so far (that can be good and bad) and adjust accordingly. It's not always easy, but it is a great way to get better prepared for the future.
3) Network with people – It's important to know what is going on around you. While you may not be able to fit everything in, try to network with an array of people. This can help you find work, explore opportunities, and learn more about different types of careers. Remember that people are different and have different perspectives so don't forget to take advantage of the opportunities around you as they can often lead to great things.
4) Ask questions – So many doors open for us at every turn in life because we ask about opportunities that might not be obvious to us otherwise. The best way to learn about things is by asking questions. It can be hard to find the right person to ask and it's not always obvious as to what questions are most important, but ask away and you can find a lot of things out.
5) Be known for your strengths – Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and we may have strengths that aren't commonly known about. Another reason why we should put our best foot forward is the idea that if your best foot is forward, then everyone will know about it. There are times when it's easy to forget about our weaknesses and focus on our strengths instead of trying to improve them, but it's important that we do so.
6) Face your fears – Asking questions and networking is something we should all do, but the reason why people don't sometimes is because it's hard. It can be scary to ask for help, or be rejected by a potential employer. It can also be hard to network with 100 people instead of 10. Face your fears and figure out ways that you can get over them - because when you do, you'll find that things are easier than ever before.
7) Learn from your mistakes – Everyone makes errors at some point in their lives (even if they are small). If you haven't made any mistakes yet, then it's a good chance that nothing exciting has happened with you yet either. Learn from your mistakes and correct them. You can only get better if you learn from the experience.
8) Build an environment that supports you – As we start to build our lives as independent adults, it's important to have an environment that supports us all the way through. Find others who have similar interests that are positive and supportive and surround yourself with those people. At times, you may feel like you're the only one going through something difficult; finding people who can relate to this can make a big difference in your life.
9) Understand yourself – It's important to know what things you like, what things you dislike, and what things are important to you regardless of whether or not anyone else agrees with you on it. This is a big lesson in life, and it will help you make better choices down the road.
10) Be proactive – Don't sit around and hope for things to happen because the only thing that's guaranteed to happen is that you'll be just where you started. Make things happen. If there's something you want, go after it. You can't always succeed on your first try, but at least you tried - and at least now you have more information about what doesn't work.
11) Learn how to deal with failures – Learning how to deal with failures is the best way to learn how to get over them and move forward on your own terms. If you have been successful and have learned from your mistakes, it becomes easier to try new things and make different choices. If you are dealing with a failure in yourself, don't beat yourself up and instead learn from your mistakes - they're a big part of who you are.
12) Take action – Don't wait around for everything to happen because you won't have the tools necessary to be able to deal with the situations when they do happen. The life of an adult student is not always easy so it's important that we take action on our own choices and situations instead of waiting for things to happen or hoping that something will work itself out.
13) Take care of your health – It's important to take care of yourself and your health. Healthy living habits can mean a longer and healthier life. If there are certain things that you are good at, find ways to incorporate them into your life. If you aren't good at something, make sure that you still have time to do the things that you love and be a part of a supportive environment.
14) Find your passion – Think about the work you enjoy doing and how it makes you feel when you're doing it. Do you feel good about yourself when are you doing it? Think about the things that you do in your free time and what those things make you feel. Find out what makes you excited because there are many things that we can do in our lives to keep ourselves happy and fulfilled.
15) Be good at something – Sometimes it's easy to forget about the things that we love, but it's important to remember so that others know what it is too. There's a reason why we like certain things and why other people like them as well. If we are good at something, then there are likely others who will enjoy us talking about our expertise with them as well.
Conclusion
As an adult student, it can sometimes be easy to forget where we're going and why we're going there. We may get caught up in the daily tasks that we need to get done, and take our eyes off of the bigger picture of what it is that we want to accomplish in our lives.
The reason these mistakes are so common is because each one of them happens every day to people all around the world; however no one is perfect so it's okay if you make a mistake or two along the way.
The best thing about mistakes is that they give us a chance to reflect on what happened and how we can do things differently in the future.
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Career Planning