Powerful Guide To Setting Career Goals In Nigeria
How best do you set your career goals? This is a very important question that you should answer irrespective of your field of endeavor. Sometimes we ignore the important things in life and focus more on frivolities.
We dream of our next vacation, pen down our expectations on how we want it to look like but never pay attention to vital issues of life such as setting career goals. A career goal is a unique result we aim to achieve in our chosen career; the accomplishments we desire to make in our chosen career. Setting and implementing career goals makes us unique in our chosen careers.
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The manner which many of us consider career goals can be ascribed to someone who goes to the market not knowing what to procure hence runs into the “goose chase” of buying whatever that glitters until the fare of transportation is also used for purchase in the market.
A reasonable way to be a buyer in a market is to have a budget of all items needed before going into the market and also having an adequate skill on bargaining of the cost of items because an approximated or sure known cost of items has been budgeted.
Many of us treat career goals just as the instance stated above. We have fantasies of where we want to go but we don’t have a list (a budget) to guide us. A list here represents a guide in written words which will lead us up from where we are now to where we desire to be. Setting your career goals will help you achieve a happier and satisfying work life.
Five Steps To Consider While Setting Career Goals
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Increase clarity on your career vision
Develop a clear view of what you want out of your career. A means to achieve this is to think critically. Have an image of a perfect career for yourself, such as considering questions like what will you be engaged in? Who will you be working for or with? What kind of skill does the career you wish to opt for requires
2. Write down all your career goals
Just when you must have been done with thinking and coming out clear of your career, next is to write down your career goals. Write down all that you hope to achieve in your career life and make sure to be specific on each of them. For example, your dream career is to become an academician, your goals could be:
- Buy books to read.
- Complete my first degree in four years.
- Enroll for a higher second degree immediately after my first degree.
- Get a job in college and work for three years.
- Write two books in my area of specialization.
- Get back to studies in order to acquire a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).
- Lecture at the university.
- Keep writing and work hard to become a professor.
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Identify long term and short term career goals
Here you are to specify each of the above-mentioned goals to either short term or long term goals.
Long Term Goals
- An academic professor with written books to your name.
Short Term Goals
- Complete my first degree in four years.
- Acquire master’s degree immediately.
- Get a teaching job in a college for three years and write two books.
- Acquire PhD.
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- Keenly implement every career goal that has been set: You should finely implement each of the career goals you have set, for instance, for a goal such as to acquire a PhD. You go out to meet three or more people who have been successful in acquiring PhD, interview them on how they came about their success is an action geared towards being successful. For a goal to become a professor you go to libraries and read extensively and also buy books and reading them extensively.
- 5. Review and update your set career goals: In the process of pursuing your career, you may run into roadblocks or you may want to change your mind or make some adjustments, don’t be scared or discouraged, go on and do it.
You should understand that the world of works is not static, it changes and so should you. Be very flexible about your goals because a career is a life long journey.
