How to Prepare for Your Career Future

Every person and thing has a future. It's one step from now, an indefinite time yet to come. When career-minded professionals think of the future, they envision growth, advancement or development. This inevitably leads to thoughts about dreams, hopes and positive expectations. But how do you prepare for the future to ensure certain desired outcomes? Here are 4 critical steps to consider when preparing for your career future.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Career Goals
• Personal Vision
• Self-Confidence
• Passion
• Resolve

1. 
   Vision

   Develop a clear vision of what you want in your career future. I spend a lot of time discussing vision with my clients. It's absolutely essential to achieving personal as well as business goals. You've got to know what you want, your beliefs and desires, and you must be willing to stake your future on a dream you foresee in order to develop a plan to get there. Without a vision, you'll run around in circles, waste precious time, energy and other resources, and be subject to disappointment and failure. Are you clear about the future you want? Most people are unsure of what they want, while others may have a desired future but are unwilling to make course corrections as new information becomes available. It takes time to develop a clear vision and to weed out all the "good" in favor of the "best". It's also very easy to speak of vision when your plans are working out and you are successful; but the difficulty comes when things go wrong and you begin to feel you've wasted your time and effort tilting at windmills.

2. 
   Balance

   Make every effort to balance your confidence in order to reach your desired future. A confident person is an emotionally secure person who trusts and is full of hope. When you're confident, you believe in yourself and your abilities, and refuse to doubt that you can accomplish what you set out to do. An air of optimism surrounds you and the energy and certainty you generate from being confident radiate to others. But there's such a thing as having too much confidence and becoming arrogant and egotistical. That’s why balance is required.

3. 
   Passion

   Indulge the passion that drives you and causes you to stay the course when things get tough. Passion is the idea or thing that keeps you up late at night or causes you to awaken early because you can't wait to work on it. Passion makes your vision real and the future happen.

4. 
   Resolve

   Resolve to be unshakeable in finishing what you start. To resolve to do something suggests a firmness of purpose. You've made up your mind to make your dreams come true. Your eyes are fixed firmly on the horizon and you are committed and engaged. Your resolve is the muscle you'll need to make your dreams a reality.

Resources

• Top 10 Career Resources
• Find Your Career Sweet Spot
• What's in Your Career Future?

[momandpopoften]

on 6/19/2008 Awesome advice.