Are You Searching For True Purpose In What You Do?

Here is a career strategy that might work for you!

Typically, we say millennials get bored too quickly, they dislike routine work, administrative or repetitive jobs because most millennials are explorers. They like to explore various things before finding the true purpose in what they do. Moreover, most of them have the luxury of doing so as they may not have any big commitments before they enter the working world. This gives them the flexibility to be an explorer.

However, they still need a career strategy as there is a high probability of getting lost in today’s global corporate jungle.

A survey of 2,000 of millennials found that one in five has two or more jobs, one in three millennials plan on changing industry within the next two years, 13% intend to change industries within the next year and 45% will be looking to move within three years.

With so much career shifts happening so quickly, how do you make sure your career moves are the right ones – the ones that will get you to where you want to go in the future?

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You might find this interesting: Planning Your Career Path: ‘Where Do You Go From Here?’

Reality check

Based on my personal interaction with many millennials, the majority of them would like to venture on start-ups. It’s a great idea, of course!

However, one of the key questions one needs to ask is, “Am I ready?”

Only a handful of start-ups succeeds among thousands and those are the ones who have done careful planning, made themselves ready, have a right support structure and resources.

No matter what you do, you need a clear strategy. Here are three simple action steps to build and execute your career strategy.

1. Understand yourself

It takes a while to understand yourself. In fact, very few people understand their full potential early on. This may be one of the fundamental reasons why millennials explore or job-hop in search of their true selves.

Exploration could be one of the ways to find your passion and pursue your calling. The most efficient way is not to drift from your role or career, but to use it to understand yourself.

How?

Do a personality test.
The DISC and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are some of the basic ones to know your personality types.
Whenever you have free time, be conscious of the first thing that comes to your mind and capture it on paper.
What are the things that drive you naturally? Which part of the job do you like/dislike the most? Do this over a month or two to find a pattern or common theme.Through these exercises, what do you discover about your strengths? What are you good at and what do you enjoy? What motivates you? What are your values? By working this through, you save yourself a lot of time and pain in the future.

2. Research

Research your career options which will give you glimpses of sectors/industries that are growing. Focus to match your strengths to roles that will give you long-term meaningful work.

Once you nail down the roles you believe will make the best use of your strengths, dive deeper into its details.

What are the skills required for those roles, in terms of technical and soft skills? Again, the key is to have patience, as quoted by Albert Einstein:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

Also read: Six Things To Keep In Mind Before Goal Setting

3. Plan and execute

Career strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your thinking.

Renowned business consultant and speaker Ram Charan once quoted:

“Execution is a specific set of behaviours and techniques that one needs to master in order to have a competitive advantage. It’s a discipline of its own.”

After understanding ourselves and doing our research, it’s now time for us to plan and execute our strategy. Is it just about searching for our “dream job”?

Instead of looking for a job or role which can best leverage our strengths and passion, we need to learn to identify the areas in our roles where we can best leverage our strengths and passion.

Therefore, be vocal about your interest to your leaders. Focus on personal branding and build your skills set.

Check out this formula:

Luck = Opportunity + Preparedness

When we see someone getting his/her dream job, we immediately associate it as being “lucky”. Well, the person did get the opportunity when he/she is well prepared to take it on. So, if you are not prepared, the probability is ‘zero’. In this formula, you have no control of ‘Opportunity’. However, you have full control of ‘Preparedness’.

To prepare yourself, have a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goal to improve your personal branding, build skill sets and expand your network. Regularly check on your progress and ask for help to accelerate your learning. Focus, discipline and execution are key elements here.

In summary

Don’t simply drift or keep changing jobs. It may be painful to stay longer (especially if it is not what you love to do) but you will accelerate your career in the near future. Use the time and experience to understand yourself and discover your purpose.

Research extensively, identify the roles and skill sets needed to match your strengths and passion. Layout a clear plan to build your personal branding, gain key technical and soft skills, and expand your network. Have a written goal and create a purpose statement for yourself, which will greatly help you to stay on track.

All the best!