All our lives, we were taught that having a job is our ultimate goal. We keep stressing about grades during our academic life just so we can have a good job when we graduate. When all is said and done, and you really think about it, can a job be the ultimate goal in life? Do you want to be just another employee of an organization?
Corporate Trainer and One to One Coach.
He is the Chief Inspirational Officer at Don Sumdany Facilitation and Consultancy.
In theory, a job is what a person does in exchange for money but a career in the pursuit of a lifelong goal. A person who has a job aims at finishing his work by 6 pm and getting home but a person who wants to build a career doesn’t measure work with time. He or she will go the extra mile and do more than what the job responsibility implies. Money is a key driving force for everyone; thus, when a fresh graduate enters the job market, the first thing that he or she looks out for in a job advertisement is the salary range. In the initial days of your career, it is completely acceptable to secure your future. But what about five or 10 years down? Do you still want to be in the same position that you started with? I assume most of you would answer with a clear “NO.” But shockingly enough, there are a lot of people who are happy being in this comfortable area. For them, getting money is the ultimate goal. But if you want to build a career and not just go to a 9-to-5 job to make ends meet, you have to start collecting experiences and chalk down a lifelong plan of a well-built career.
If you are adamant to build a career, you have to start from the very beginning because these are the golden days of your life. So, take up that extra assignment at work, attend that conference, build a network, plan ahead, and go above and beyond. Don’t sit around and wait for the weekend. Create such a career plan for yourself that you don’t need weekends to enjoy life.
As already mentioned above, job and career are two totally different concepts. To give you a clear view, let’s look at some pointers that differentiate between job and career.
The energy and drive that you have now, you will not have in your 40s. I blindly follow the concept of taking advantage of a situation, to see opportunity in crisis. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean it in a negative way, but you have to be smart enough to have a mind map of your career. You have to take full advantage of the great years of your youth so that you can build a name for yourself when the blissful younger days are over.