Balanced Diet for Your Career after College
A very important component of your life is the career you have chosen for yourself because it defines your success, your attitude towards, and is a measure of your influence in this fast paced world. College education is one of the most important crucial phase of life, because it lays the foundation of a successful career ahead in life. Your success is a result of many key habits that you should learn and implement while in college, So as to shape a balanced and blessed career. These important components of the career diet are:
1. Critical thinking: is the ability to think clearly and rationally. Maintaining an objective outlook in life is essential for success. Biased and impulsive decision making hampers your ability to balance and manage various aspects of your career as well as general day to day activities. From a career point of view, people who think clearly and independently are able to understand the logical connections between ideas, detecting common inconsistencies and fallacies in reasoning and solve problems systematically. Evaluating all aspects of the given task at hand, equips you with the ability to come up with solutions faster and accurately.
2. Time management: Time lost is never regained. Thought it is one of the most important universal truths, but few realize its importance in life. Giving time to both personal and professional life, and understanding the importance of deadlines is essential to mental and physical well being. It is more of an acquired skill rather than a personality trait. Thus one could always improve and utilize his/her time more efficiently.
3. An up to date and well composed resume: To the corporate world your resume is showcase of your suitability for a particular career. Take time to prepare your resume, listing out your achievements, qualities and putting these in a proper structure. Take help of experienced professional or use a professional service to help you build your resume better and stand out from the pile of resumes that an HR department of a company receives every day. An unbalanced, crowded, or incoherent resume can lessen the chances of your getting your dream job despite having the right qualifications and work experience.
4. Network: People come and go in and out of your life every day. Identifying the presence of their impact on your life is important. Staying in touch with resourceful and successful people is as important as cherishing a good friendship. A professional network helps you leverage the influence a particular person holds in the professional world.
5. Stress management: In this fast paced and competitive world, one is required to be in the best mental and physical health to work and live happily. Managing stress is all about taking charge; of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems. It’s about discovering your limits and effective ways of handling pressure and responsibilities that one has to manage in his/her life.
6. Putting into practice what you have learned: Practice makes one perfect. Success does not come easy, it requires hard work and diligence. Practicing helps you discover your errors and correcting them keeps you on the path to success. Looking for easy way outs and copy-pasting might look easier to achieve in the short run, but definitely harms you in the longer run. Internships, certifications and professional work experiences during college help in strengthening your concepts and give clarity to you approach towards problem solving. This is really important for a fresh graduate looking to make his/her mark in the corporate world.
These are the components of a well balanced diet that can help you achieve a successful and satisfying career as well as maintaining your physical, emotional and psychological well being.
About author – Aman Bansal is a recent Computer Science graduate from IP University, New Delhi.
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