Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Welcome back to our new series - Build Your Career Like A Business. If you have decided to build your career like a business, most important thing to do first is to set some goals and get a business plan (or should I say career plan). There are 5 questions that you can ask yourself to help your planning.

Decide Who You Want To Be
You have to decide who you want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years time in the future.

Most employees I have met, including myself when I was younger, hate it whenever they were asked this questions. Some even dread the question. During appraisals and goal setting exercises, most employees would happily fill in the 1-year goal but often left the 3 year goal and 5 year goal blank. And their 1-year goal is often “To do my best and deliver my KPI or targets set”. Which tells me that they have no idea who they want to be!

The standard excuse given was “Why worry about what I want to be in 5 years time? I don’t even know what is going to happen tomorrow!” Or “It’s just a waste of time, do you think management cares about what we want to be? Just give me my pay increment and I’ll be happy”. The thing is, if you know who you want to be, you will never have to worry about what to do tomorrow.

Oh, just in case you are still thinking that working hard will get you a good pay increment, you might want to check out this post - “Misconceptions of Key Performance Indicators, Promotions and Pay Increments“.

What Do You Want To Be Known For
If you are just starting out, you may not have any idea of what you want to be known for. So the best course of action in the earlier years in your career is stick to being an asset. Check out this article to learn more about it - “How To Be An Asset And Not A Liability To Your Company“.

When you have established yourself as an asset in your company, you would have some solid work experience and already getting constant feedback about your work performances, strength and weaknesses. It is now that you should look into developing your strength and uniqueness. Here are some categories of strengths, just to name a few:

The Operator - People with this strength have the ability to micro-manage all sorts of day-to-day issues that happens in the company. They can multi-task with ease and thrive on details. Any well-run operations need one such talent.

The Planner - People with this strength are blessed with foresight and creativity. They have the ability to draw out strategic plans and directions that will help a company achieve its goals set far into the future. This strength is common to senior managements.

The Executor - People with this strength can take any plan or idea and make things happen. Companies love such traits when considering hiring someone to launch a campaign, product or services.

The Troubleshooter - People with this strength thrives on solving problems. Any and all problems can be solved and will be solved. The only worry they have is running out of problems to solve. A CEO hired to restructure a company typically has this strength.

Some of us have strength in more then one category, you could create your own unique strength by develop and combining them together.

To Be Continued
To keep this post short and sweet (500 - 750 words), we will talk about the other 3 questions in the next post. But before I sign off, I want you to understand something important here:

“Building a successful career does not mean staying in one job for 30 years.
Many successful careers were build over 20 years
by moving from company to company and delivering the massive values you create
when and where it is needed.”

Think about it.

Stay Positive,
James

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