Self Counsel Your Way to Success
CAREER. Does this word send shivers down the spine leaving you wondering what's in store for you in future? Have you found yourself the right kind of job, where you feel contented, give your best and are happy for all that you do for the organisation? If you still haven't and are trying to know what's best suited for you, then you sure need someone to help you out or have to help yourself out of this problem. Career is not just a passing cloud. One has to live with it for quite a few years in one's lifetime. So, we would obviously love to work these years with a career that we like and not a job that would leave us cribbing with our every move.
Every year, millions of graduates throng the job market and find themselves at a loss unable to figure out what kind of career they are made for. You will also come across professionals trying to find a job that will keep them happy. If you are one of those, take heart, there are plenty of career counselling centres spread across the country to help you out by assessing your personal values, personality traits and your needs. However, there's a problem here. Some people would not prefer a third person to take charge of their matters and like to thrash out things on their own. For this genre of people, self-counselling is the best option.
Self-counselling tools: Deciding about a career is much more than picking up one from the hundreds of available options. A wrong move can leave your dream to remain one, a dream. To avoid this and to make life easier, you can help yourself with self-counselling by following these tools.
Carry out a self-analysis: Being open to yourself is a very vital aspect in self-counselling. Don't try to skip the procedure of discovering yourself thinking you are the best person to know yourself and you already know who you are. You might end up not knowing your most important traits that can be of major help in zeroing in on suitable career. So, start off finding out what is it that you want out of life. Ask yourself:
What do I enjoy doing the most?
What are the values and principles I follow?
How do I wish to spend the rest of my life?
What are my goals in life and how do I prioritise them?
What are my likes and dislikes?
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
Identify your career preference
After you know your own self, the next step is to think about what kind of a career you want. You just can't simply do a course and take up something that sounds interesting or looks like a promising career. That can be a real mess. Your interests, traits, strengths and weaknesses play a very important role in identifying your career preference. The only way to go about this is to answer honestly the questions below:
What are my professional skills?
How good is my communication skill?
Do I prefer to be a leader or just a sub-ordinate?
Will I be willing to take risks?
Do I prefer deskwork or love running around?
Do I love taking up responsibilities?
Do I have a long-term or a short-term goal?
What kind of professional life I enjoy?
Plan your next move: The interpretations that you've made out of your responses will push you into deciding what kind of a career you want to pursue. But the task does not end here. Go ahead and define your role in making the dream come true. Write down how well you can market yourself and what are the tools that you would use, the areas you would like to master and need training in, how would you handle adversities, etc.
Pros and cons: The advantage is that self-counselling requires less time and is inexpensive. It is also the tool that is more readily accessible and is total fun. The disadvantage is that the person might not dwell deep into his thoughts and answers might vary and tend to be wrong at times. So, you should be aware of the pitfalls.
On the whole, self-counselling is one of the best tools that can teach you a lot many things. Self - confidence, realisation of self and creating a self-identity are some of them that you learn in the process.
SRINARDHANI J
Srinardhani.hyd@cnkonline.com
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