Choosing a Professional Career by Kess Ogeh

There comes a time when we go through the long list of questions on Choosing a Professional career or even any career at all; What, Why, How.....checking out the processes and journey to achieving desired success. At what point do we stop pondering, planning and working towards the goals, do we always stick to these plans? do we always make the right choice??

Kess Ogeh writes on 'Choosing a Professional Career'

What you do generally defines who you are. What you choose to do daily makes you who you are. Happiness is very important and most of us strive to achieve it.Success and Happiness aren’t guaranteed by doing what other successful people have done.Choosing the right professional career is Key to achieving the success and happiness you crave. To choose the right professional career, it is important for you to understand yourself in order to know what is best for you.

What is a professional career?

A career is a person’s progress or general course of action through life or a phase of life. A career could mean being a parent, guardian, teacher, friend, pilot, doctor, etc.

A professional career is a career that requires a high level of education and/or special level of training. It is a career whereby we mostly indulge in to make a living for ourselves and our families. Different careers have different ways of being approached as well as different paths and ultimately different forms of recognition. Where some of the professionals have titles attached to them such as Barrister, Doctor, etc., others don’t. But then choosing a successful career shouldn't depend on titles, the publicity of the profession, celebrated success, its perceived acceptance and other factors that won't really determine if you are going to be good at it, enjoy practicing it, or even succeed in it.

Why do you need to choose the right professional career?

Choosing the right professional career is very important because it is a journey you are going to spend a great deal of your life-time in. As a result, it is important to choose one that is enjoyable, enable you grow and gives some form of stability. If you keep changing careers, it will be difficult to grow in any of those careers and therefore getting to the pinnacle of any profession will be almost impossible. So in order for you to be able to choose a professional career where you can enjoy and hopefully go on to fulfil your potential, get to the top and ultimately achieve the success that you desire, you need to consider some important factors.

What are the factors needed for choosing a professional career?

YOU: Who are you? - The first factor to consider before choosing a professional career is YOU. Who are you? What can you do? What do you like? How do you see things? What are/were your favourite subjects? What separates you from the rest? Are you proactive or reactive?

There are so many questions that will help you know who you are. It is only when you know who you are that you can fully apply yourself. Sometimes, you can ask people around you to give you their assessment or opinion about you just to have other perspectives of yourself but ultimately, who you are is mostly best defined by your sincere knowledge of yourself.

You need to understand yourself very well because no one will ever know you better than you do. You need to know what gifts you have, your talents and skills so you know how and where to fit them in.

Passion: What do you love doing? - This is a strong and barely controllable emotion, and a very important factor in choosing the right professional career. It is a strong feeling of attraction which is necessary in a career where you are going to be spending a lot of time in. It takes a lot of hard work to succeed in a professional career. In order to keep working hard to grow in your career and get to the top, you need to be passionate about what you do. You need to stay hungry and focussed, of which passion plays a big part. The more time you spend in researching, practicing and developing the necessary skills required in your career, the better you become at it. Passion sustains the hunger required for such constant development.

Your Current Situation: Where are you? -After recognizing who you are and what you are passionate about, it is also important to know where you are so you can understand how to take the necessary steps to get to where you need to be. Knowing where you are is just recognizing what your capabilities are at present. What resources do you have? How much money can you afford? How much time do you have? How much access can you get to know what is required of you for the career you want? You might be a young student, or a nursing mother, a new spouse, or already in another job or professional career. It is necessary to acknowledge your present circumstance, not as a deterrent, but a way of understanding what your approach should be.

The Path: How do you become who you want to be? -After knowing where you are, you can then determine your approach. This simply implies researching on the various routes, cost and other factors needed to be considered to get the necessary requirements for the desired career. What education or training is required? What values do you need to add? What skills do you need to improve on? What habits do you need to pick or drop? How much is it going to cost? How long is it going to take? Where is it going to be done? These questions will help you to understand the course you might need to take to become who you need to be, to be able to practice your chosen career.

The Future: Who will you become? –It is very important to know who you are finally going to become else you might just have wasted all your time and other resources for the wrong career. Most people only know what their jobs entail after starting. Some become frustrated and begin to struggle from then on. What are you going to be doing daily? How much travelling will this career require? How much time daily will you be working? What is the development structure of the chosen career? Will you be working alone? Who will you be working with?

In most cases only successful professionals are celebrated. This doesn't mean there aren't failures in the professions these successful people practice. Choosing a professional career should be given a lot of thought because that is what we are going to spend most of our lives practicing and also where most or all of our income would be generated from.

Having a successful career doesn’t necessarily depend on the profession but your ability and passion in the profession of choice.

Kesiena Ogeh

@kessogeh