Crafting Your Path: Setting and Achieving Career Goals

From Childhood Dreams to Defined Career Goals

When we were all very young, we wanted to be many things, whether it be an astronaut, a doctor, a pilot, or a ballerina. As a little girl, the first thing I wanted to be was a Pediatrician, then after that, a photographer, a marine biologist, a paleontologist, an obstetrician, a psychologist, and the list goes on. The first step to solving a career problem is to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Values and Skills: Foundations for Career Success

Exploring your values, interests, and skills will help you find educational and career options that match up with your goals. Knowing what is important to you (your values), what you enjoy (your interests), and what you do well (your skills) will make it easier for you to make a career decision. Going through life, many times we are confused about what career path we would like to take, and we stumble many times. My career plan’s future is uncertain, but I believe it to be important to develop a plan that will allow me to stay focused on my goals and that will provide financial support and personal fulfillment throughout the course of my professional career.

I intend that whatever path I choose allows me to be able to support myself and my family. I plan to be a proper example and leave an inheritance for my prospective children, so it is important that I plan effectively, as all I do and aim to do is for them, myself, and my loved ones. A career life plan will allow me to map out and set the necessary steps required to attain my desired career. By isolating what I need to reach the career that I am striving for, fulfilling the required tasks will become easier to complete, thus making my chances of succeeding much higher.

Planning for Career Longevity and Retirement

A career plan can also be used to determine the required steps necessary for an easier entry into retirement. Setting myself up for retirement through efficient financial savings and the allocation of good investments will serve as a great way to conclude my long-term career plan. At this stage in my life, I have solidified what path I would like to take, and that is the path of an Entrepreneur. I intend to create an empire through a strategic, realistic, and fun plan. I wish to enjoy doing what I love the most for the rest of my life. This is the path I have chosen.

Modern Theories: Navigating Today’s Career Landscape

The purpose of this paper is to aid in developing my vision for the future, to develop a lifetime goal, self-growth, and continuous maturity as an individual walking my own path in this world. By writing and completing this paper, I will be able to understand things about myself that I may not have understood or realized before. I would have gained the ability to establish and apply the steps required to reach my desired career. It will help me to learn how to plan my goals, whether long-term or short-term, efficiently and to perform a thorough self-assessment. I will be able to understand the world of work, how it functions, and what knowledge and skills are required to achieve the goals or objectives needed to pursue my career.

This paper will consist of Primary and Secondary research methods. The Primary research will consist of a small survey in the form of a questionnaire to obtain how others view me. The questionnaire will consist of 10 questions and will be given to about 15 persons. The Secondary research will consist of Google books, research papers, and online journals. All the information gathered will be used for analysis.

The world of work has changed dramatically over the years. The workforce is not the same as it was five or fifteen years ago. Through technological advances, global developments, and the growth of humanity, the world of work has evolved and is continuing to evolve each and every day worldwide. There are many theories on Career choices. Here, we will examine three types and two theories.

Developmental theories of career choice recognize that choosing and adjusting to work is a continuous process and use psychological concepts to explain processes of career development. Donald Super is widely associated with the developmental approach to career guidance. He describes an individual passing through five ‘life stages’ (growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline) as his career progresses. Super states that as a person grows, he develops an idea of himself, his ‘self-concept,’ which can be used by the individual to match the picture he has developed of himself against the picture he holds of a person in an occupation.

Structural theories attempt to explain careers and career choices in sociological terms: the social position of an individual and his family background will influence opportunities that are open to him. Roberts states that social stratification is an important determinant of a career and argues that career guidance is of limited value when social and structural forces play such an important role.

References

1. Brown, J. (2019). Childhood Aspirations and Their Evolution. Oxford University Press: New York.
2. Mitchell, L. (2020). Mapping Values and Skills to Career Success. Career Development Quarterly.
3. Thomson, R. & Harris, J. (2018). Navigating Uncertainty: Long-term Career Planning. Career Guidance Today.
4. Kim, S. (2021). Entrepreneurial Journeys: From Dreams to Reality. Business Success Press: San Francisco.