When you’re young, you’ll often have a vision in your mind of what you want to be when you grow up. A fireman. A dancer. A doctor. A scientist. The careers you think of are usually huge, exciting, and extraordinary. A child doesn’t think about what it takes to get there, and there’s no fear. No cannot or should not ever comes into the picture. Instead, they dream. It doesn’t matter what you dreamt of being when you were younger, because it’s likely that you forgot all about it. Or, more realistically, you were told no. Someone, somewhere, stomped on your dreams. You never did send in that application or apply for that course – not because you didn’t want to, but because someone, somewhere, told you that you couldn’t. Or that it was implied. Or, even worse – that your experiences have meant that your brain went to feel fear, and you just told yourself that you couldn’t.
So, you settle. You let yourself take a backseat. You do what all of the other normal kids do. You stay on at sixth form, take the subjects that you’re supposed to, and you go to university to study something practical – regardless of what you actually want, and you get a job! Yet, it’s never too late to backtrack. To start again. To chase your dreams. Instead, you can actually decide that you’re ready to chase down that dream. And then go after it. Here’s what you can do to propel your career.
- Be Authentic
First of all, before you start off on this journey, you need to be real with yourself. Wholeheartedly and unashamedly real with yourself. You need to be authentic and you need to be honest with what you want. Do you want to be a writer or a pianist? A doctor or a coach? Whatever it is that you what to do, it has to be what you really want to do. It can’t just be what you think you should do. Because when you open up about what your career really is, it can help you to then make it happen.
- Set Goals
When you’re able to be real with yourself, you need to make sure that you’re able to set the goals necessary to make this all happen. Without goals, you still won’t really know where you’re going or how you’re going to make this career yours. So, work out what you want to do, by when, and then, you can start making magic happen.
- Do Your Research
But you can’t just move forward. You need to do some research. What do you need to move careers? What skills should you have? What education do you need? Do you need to make changes to your lifestyle? Or move? This is all the stuff you need to work out during your research phase.
- Set Intentions
At this point, you may find that you’re able to connect your goals with your research – but you now you need to set intentions. You need to make sure that you’re able to set intentions with what you’re trying to achieve and how you can move forward. Without the right intentions, you may struggle to actually achieve your goals. So be clear, have a vision, and then make sure you nail the next step.
- Take A Step
And now you need to act. So you need actionable steps that you can follow. While you may not need a complete and concrete plan, you do need to make sure that you have a rough idea of what you need to do to get to where you want to be.
- Learn
Now that you have your goals and you know how you need to be moving forward, you’ll want to make sure that you’re able to learn as much as you can. Because if you need to get a new qualification, or you want to advance what you know, you need to look into that right away. Whether it’s something formal like a Norwich University, or something vocational online, sign up. Because if it advances your career, it’s time to do it.
- Network
Another thing that will always help you to supercharge your career is to network. It can sound scary, but you need to make sure that you meet new people, that you connect with others, and that you’re linking up with industry events, as you can get new opportunities this way.
- Put Yourself Out There
You’ll also want to make sure that you’re putting yourself out there. Because if you want to grow your career, you cannot stay in your comfort zone. You need to move forward. You need to take action and shake off any fears or worries that you have, and you need to realise that you’re going to be just fine when you do. No – more than fine. You’re going to flourish, and you’re career will too.
- Try Something New
As a step on from that, the next thing that you need to do here is make sure that you’re trying new things. Because your career can’t move on unless you’re trying different things. Don’t just stay within your comfort zone or just say that you’re going to do something to help yourself grow. Push yourself. Try new things and do it because you feel scared. Learn something you know will give you need skills or help you to progress, even if you’re scared.
- Persevere
Finally, you just need to keep going. Being positive and intentional and learning is all great, but if you’re not putting the work in, it’s just not going to work out for you. Instead, you need to make sure that you’re absolutely pushing through struggles. And that you’re working when you don’t want to. And that you don’t give up. Because this will all work out for you if you persevere. No matter what your ‘this’ is. And that’s how you supercharge your career.
Have you started again in terms of career? Let us know how you did it and where you are now.
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