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FEATURED ARTICLE
EXPRESSIONS/ Building Successful Career/ Aug-Sep 2020
By Col. Rajeev Verma
WHOSE CAREER IT IS?
“Old order changeth yielding place to new”
Alfred Lord Tennyson’s old order rules have certainly come of age, as the host of opportunities in the world today have brought a renaissance in the job scenario across the world. But, alas, what has not changed is the dilemma in the minds of the students to identify the so called most appropriate course.
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Ambiguity of choosing the right career
Life is but a roving experience characterised by a mixed bag of thoughts which tend to sway a person without realising to stay in the moment and enjoy its fruits.
Similar are the thoughtful bags of the youngsters today, who in the race to nowhere, many a times tends to leave a moment, for a moment, for which there is an ocean of uncertainty and the high tides can end a pleasant journey in wilderness. The lives and times of current cult is dwindling in the decision ambiguities where on one side there are hardships which everyone undergoes to achieve something and the other side is to follow their passion, which may or may not give them desired dividends in a sea of competition.
It’s also a battle of softer options and hard ground realities. But we can’t blame the children for this changed scenario where a perverse environment with seas of opportunity is denuding them to choose the ideal which will bring the best in them in times to come.
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Peer Pressure
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The pressure of our friends circle has been immense in deciding our careers these days. Due to our oversight to identify our Unique Selling Proposition(USP) we tend to get get misled by the colleagues we live with and get carried away by their thoughts and in certain case just to prove a point to the environment about their capability, least realising every soul in this world is required to fight one’s own battle and there is no need to prove in case you have it. If you are onto singing/ dancing and following an app few times, one gets carried away by the accolades one receives and starts dreaming to be a singing /dancing sensation and when they realise that it is not even going to fetch them a livelihood they either tend to go into depression or try to switch onto a new field but a considerable amount of precious time is wasted. As Otto Van Bismarck, the powerful premier who unified the Germany had remarked once, "Fools learn from their own mistakes, the wise people learn from mistakes of others."
So we have to choose what we are at an appropriate time for our future growth.
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Nurturing the skills
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Now how to unravel this mystery of electing the right one where many destinies have been hurled into chaos just by an inappropriate decision. So let us first introspect where we lie in the sea of opportunity. Firstly what life skills we have nurtured both hard as well as soft.
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If we turn our clocks back to the yesteryears, we happen to know the host of toppers who could not climb those peaks which they aimed at and many an average lookers are now doing exceedingly well for themselves. The question arise before is WHY they were left in the race despite being the best in their schools? The possible answers to these will give a clue to the current race so as to how to plan.
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First and foremost there are responsibilities and liabilities in our life which has an impact on us however even those can be handled by tolerance and a positive approach. So we need to inculcate a positive outlook towards life and also needs to be patient while taking decisions of a lifetime.
This brings me to the aspect of soft skills which are either there in a person because of grooming or few can also nurture it in their due course of time by experience and meeting a variety of genes in their life. Yes! Having appropriate soft skills to meet the demands of the job is the key to success in today’s world.
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Soft skills are the basic routine features of an individual which has been ingrained in him over a period of time like honesty, punctuality, sincerity, diligence, how to handle people, crisis management to name a few.
There are other hard skills which a person has achieved in his lifespan by academics etc eg degree, medals in sports, winning debates, knowledge of foreign languages, computer application etc.
But the difference between them clearly puts soft skills as having a clear edge over hard skills because hard skills can be gained by hard work but honesty in a venture is either there or not there.
Just take an example of an individual who has excelled in all his academic ventures but tends to lose his temper every now and then. Such guys may be a misfit in most of the organisation because of lack of soft skills called attitude towards environment however an average individual who can handle people successfully will be a better choice for climbing the ladders of success. Yes, that’s why many of top performers in their childhood are left in the race!
But it’s not the end of the world for them, may be with a little control over their emotions and appropriate choice of a job they can do well in a different field.
Therefore identifying ones soft skills are the most important for ones progress. Coupled with this are the requirement of those skills in the job concerned we are targeting.
So children while identifying a stream for their furtherance of career needs to identify the jobs and the soft and hard skills associated with it.
A physically sluggish guy may still be able to sustain himself in a profession like Armed forces or police by working towards physical ability but a guy lacking punctuality may be termed as a rebel. Similarly a dusky girl can match the requisite of modelling but a beautiful sceptic girl may not be able to walk perfectly on a ramp.
Therefore understanding yourself for the stream, aligning with a particular job is quite significant but the pertinent aspect associated with it are the soft skills we often tend to forget.
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How to identify ourselves for the best option
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Here the most important aspect is who will show us the mirror when we are unable to identify ourselves. The parents, our friends and the teachers. Yes, all of them! Because they see you in the best and worst of your times, the highs and the lows and they are the ones who are fully aware of your strengths and weakness. Therefore, whenever we are unable to trust our thoughts comprehensively, It is better we trust our well wishers before taking an action which is going to have a lasting impact in your life.
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However, still many a times we consider our decision as the ideal due to the following aspects :
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Introvert attitude
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Lack of friends circle and trustworthy friends
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Lack of telepathy of the teachers
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Shying away from a problem
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Parents also in a dilemma
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One consider parents may not be able to understand your aspirations in life
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Lack of intuition
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Peer Pressure
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Few times your own environment around also tend to disregard it when they watch you in your exuberance of aspiring for your passion.
But passion should not become a benchmark to identify a career because few times it may take you to glory while at others it may be an encumbrance which may not allow you to reap the fruits you aspired for. Irrespective of these impediments one must dare to dream but along with it the commensurate diligence and sincerity to sustain itself in the long run are required.
We have seen many a sports star, movie stars who does exceedingly well in a match/game or a movie but are not able to live up to it frequently because each arena requires a sizeable amount of perseverance not only to do well but continue to do well frequently. Therefore we need to identify our skills and once identified we are required to work on the skills which we are lacking. But the pertinent aspect here is again that hard skills can still be learnt but to nurture soft skills we need to carry out routine changes in our lives and if we succeed in them then the world will remain ours and all aspirations are within our reach.
However for a majority of children the distress commences when they are half way through their career building when they realise that the career is not appropriate as they thought. That is the most challenging time for us to sustain ourselves and carry out an analysis whether there is some career were thay can do still better or we can still make a mark to reap better dividends later. That is the breaking point for some and blossoming point for others.
At this juncture again there is a requirement of introspection, counsel and an appropriate analysis can facilitate us in whether or not to switch careers.
Therefore there is a need to listen to your subconscious mind at this juncture which one has been neglecting all through the times. Sometimes critics in your lives are your best friends, they can be your family members or whoever but they can help you come out from the race of inconspicuousness. Here, one may require for going to a career professional expert who may guide to choose career by conduct of various psychological tests existing in the environment which have been time tested and have worked for many a generation.
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Looking beyond a Career
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Once we succeed remarkably also there may be a time in one’s career when we are not able to reach right onto the top then we should have forbearance to accept it and not get into a state of depression. This aspect is more akin to middle and later level age groups who first of all lose their significant part of their family life in elevating their career and then at certain point of time get into depression because of a single failure as they aspired their bar to pinnacles only.
Therefore we should not associate the career with your lives because neither the Career is life nor vice versa. Hence, we should undoubtedly give a significant stress in building and moulding our career but should not develop health issues due to the career prospective.
Make most from your life
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In the race to be numero uno we tend to loose formative years of our childhood which we are required to be enjoyed and ultimately finds us that we are nowhere as per our aspirations wheres many average peers are blossoming in their career. Therefore we require to identify where the happiness and content lie, to be in the midst of our family, to be moving around in lavish cars or something else. Though it is difficult to be worldly wise at that age but attending to genuine parents and teachers counsel can make the future world better for us and our near and dear ones.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.” – Steve Jobs