What is All This Stuff About Career Success?

If you are a student, you aspire to have a successful career as you grow up, hence a vital question popping up in your mind may be, “What are the essential ingredients of a successful career?” Choosing a direction for your career is probably one of the most important decisions of your life, and you may be unsure of which way to go. What line of study / career should you choose to ensure a successful career? A successful career depends on multiple factors such as Talent, Opportunity, Efforts, and Affirmation, and each of these play an important role. Let us discuss these factors one by one.

Talent

Talent is the key ingredient, the most important factor that contributes to success in any endeavor. If you possess a natural skill or ability to do something well, it is obvious you have a good chance to succeed. You can see numerous examples of talented people around who do well in different fields like music, arts, writing, finance, science, engineering, medicine, management, etc.
How can you find out if you are talented or not? Actually it’s a wrong question to ask. Each of us is unique and has our own unique talents. If you struggle with math, do not view this as a lack of talent. Your talent may lie in a different field, and you need to try and discover the fields where your special talents lie. These are the things that you can learn quickly, perform with ease, and enjoy doing.
While making the choice of career, give adequate weightage to your talents. This is why education today has so much emphasis on aptitude tests. Testing your aptitude for a field can help determine if it goes along with your inherent talents. However, do not view this as a limit on the choices you have. Even if aptitude test shows otherwise, you can still choose a field against your aptitude, as long as you are prepared to put in extra effort to learn and master it.

Opportunities

If Talent indicates what you have to offer, Opportunities are about what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. It plays an equally important role in a successful career, business, or profession. From a business viewpoint, this is the demand or market for your product. Opportunities vary with time and place. Disciplines like Engineering, CA, Medical, MBA, etc have been popular choices as they offered well-defined opportunities due to the demand. This is why we used to see lakhs of aspirants taking the JEE, NEET and CAT entrance tests every year to become a successful engineer, doctor, or manager.
However, the canvas is much bigger today, with more choices than ever. Today you have new age choices like Finance, Data Analytics, Journalism, Music, Arts, Dance, Graphic Design, Ethical Hacking, Fashion Designing, Content Writing, Blogging, Social Media Management, App Development, Film Making.. the list goes on and on. Take your time to understand the opportunities available in different areas and the ones that are relevant to your aptitude.
Try to choose a field that is aligned with your talent and has good opportunities, as it is the best of both worlds. If that’s not possible, try to strike a good balance between these two key aspects while making your choice. Finally, avoid the following two extremes at any cost:

• The field is very much in demand, but not at all aligned with your aptitude. You may find it difficult to cope with the demands, and the work may be too taxing and unpleasant for you.
• You are super talented in this area, but there is no demand for it. In such a case, you will shine in your chosen field, but it will not create an impact, hence will not result in a successful career. Probably this thought was behind the thinking of parents through the ages who discouraged their children from taking up the careers that were seen ‘unconventional’ at that time.

Efforts

Hard work is the fuel that powers the vehicle of your career. Be it in studies for learning, or preparations for competitive tests to get admission into the program of your choice, getting through the placement, or doing well at work.. you need to put adequate effort at every stage. In some way, your success is directly proportional to the efforts you put in.
A key point to remember is that your efforts contribute in two areas – to produce results and for your development. Examples of results are academic grades, score in competitive tests, contribution to your work etc. Equally important is to spend effort to develop yourself, which includes learning, gaining experience, developing expertise, etc. This is like a woodcutter taking time to sharpen his saw, which makes the task of sawing easier.
Another important point to keep in mind is that effective effort has to be sustained and regular. A sudden cramming of the books on the night of test can help you get good results, but the real learning will not happen. Almost all successful aspirants in any competitive test talk about working everyday towards their goal as the secret of their success.

Affirmation

This is one factor that can multiply the impact of all others. If Someone believes in your success and positively affirms you, it provides you the much needed encouragement and boosts the chances of your success. It does magic to your self-image, which makes you put in even greater effort. It has been established through studies that a child that receives affirmation performs better at studies.
The parents and teachers play a vital role in providing this affirmation. At work, this can be done by seniors, peers, or mentors. Finally, as a grown up, once you understand its importance, you can also use self-affirmation techniques.

Talent, Opportunities, Efforts, and Affirmation are four key components of a successful career. Understanding them well and keeping them in mind can help you make right choices throughout your career. It can also help you analyze where you need to apply more focus at any point.