The professionals who advance are those who have been able to know their skills, aptitudes and aspirations and, based on them, guidelines have been set that serve as a guide.
Success is not just an important title, nor a spectacular salary. It is not even just having achieved many "accomplishments", although it has to do with these.
Success is given by the intimate satisfaction that we feel when there is a balance between personal, professional, social and family aspirations... according to the order of priorities of each one.
Making our priorities explicit requires reflection, maturity, responsibility and TIME. We must devote the necessary time to this matter. Priorities and goals do not change many times throughout life. There are people who never change them. Others yes.
We have to stop and think. And we have to decide what we want to BE in life. This cannot be done by anyone for us.
This is not everything. In order to decide who we want to be, we must know who we are at this moment, what we know how to do, what we like to do and what we don't like to do.
And we find this out by examining our previous life in detail, what we have done, what we have enjoyed in each episode, why, what it consisted of,... in short, what skills we have learned and want to continue developing.
We have to stop, think and decide what we want to DO in the rest of our lives.
- To plan our career we need another step: knowing what exists outside of us. That is, what professional activities require the abilities that we have discovered in ourselves. Or put another way, what areas of activity exist in the world of work where I can exercise my skills and knowledge.
- It's not about finding places to continue doing, more or less, what we used to do, with or without promotion. It is a deeper approach, directed towards where to exercise our abilities, perhaps in different combinations, and doing other things that are more interesting to us than what we are doing at the moment, and that bring us closer to our ultimate goals.
- As?. Asking and thinking. Thinking and asking. Once we know where we want to go, and what our starting point is, we have to get information about the different paths. There is a lot of public information available to everyone. There are many people we know who can guide us… perhaps where we can get more guidance.
- Let's find out what the different jobs consist of, asking who develops them. We all like to talk about what we do, if we like what we do.
- Once we know what we want to do, it is time to consider where we can do it. In general, the ideal would be to be able to develop it in the same company in which we already work, in the same department or in another. We already have a lot of ground gained. But if it is not possible, because there is no such work, or someone is already doing it, or there are too many preconceptions about us that we are not allowed to change, then THIS IS THE TIME TO MAKE THE DECISION TO SEARCH OUTSIDE OUR COMPANY.
The way to decide where to change is the same way to decide why to change. We must look for information about those companies where we can do what we want to achieve.
We must get a LOT of information. This is not easy, but it is not impossible. It is a matter of working with perseverance, method and determination. As before, asking and thinking, thinking and asking.
- Once we have obtained the information we need, we must prioritize the results, and at the same time open up enough alternatives. It is necessary to have clear objectives, but not fixed ideas. It is possible that there are very direct paths, but these may be closed, due to market circumstances or others beyond our control. Let's have a “Plan B”.
- And then, let's go for it! We have to build our life, we live it, and we are the protagonists, not the passive agents. We must try to get what we want, not wait for the ideal job, the lottery prize or the savior Prince Charming .
