factors that can influence your choice of career

Career achievers

Let me ask you a question. What is your intention for going to school? I discovered that most people go to tertiary institutions just to be referred to as a graduate. Many people just go and study any course they are been given. It’s not supposed to be so. Have a plan and a direction in your life and it will help you a great deal. Plan your life and follow your plan. That’s all I can say. There are a lot of factors that can influence your choice of career . some of which are outlined below.

Your Passion

The greatest influencing factor of success is to pursue your passion. Your passion is a burning desire that cannot be quenched except it has been achieved. Everyone has a unique vacuum he/she is to fill. When this vacuum is discovered, it arouses the passion for fulfillment. With passion, you work hard to make sure that your destiny is fulfilled. I met a young man who according to him, gets so annoyed whenever he hears that someone died and in most cases as a result of an avoidable carelessness. This aroused that passion to save lives and as such, he decided to study medicine and surgery in order to save as few as he can and as many as he can. Passion for saving lives was the propeller.

There was also another lady who had a dream of becoming a mouth of the poor and oppressed. She wanted to defend the law and stand tall for justice and this led her to study law. Passion initiated and influenced her choice. All the most celebrated football stars today were stared up by their passion for soccer. Some of them started as early as before age 10. You might have seen some of them in your area carrying their soccer boot every evening and Saturday morning and you might think that they do not have any plan for their lives. You might think that they are only wasting their lives but it is not so. These young boys know what they are pursuing. Their passion is simply what they are pursuing.

Do you think that there is anything that when you are been given the opportunity to do, you will do better than the people who did it previously? That could be your passion. The passion to do things better is the basic backbone of innovation and technology. Never pursue a career because other want you to. You will be the one spending half of your life at the job, therefore pursue your passion. Oprah Winfrey said, “make it your intention to serve through your life with purpose, you will have a blessed life”.

Your Advisers

Your advisers could also influence your choice of preferred career of study. When we are surrounded with godly and reasonable advisers, we tend to move in the right direction. For example, I planned studying electrical or mechanical engineering in higher institution but my brother advised me on the importance and relevance of Information Management Technology, which I adhered to his advice and currently, I owe it no regret.

Mind you, you are the person to choose the course of field that interests you since it’s your life and not anyone else. But in choosing your career, you must also give heed to advice from elderly ones who have gone before you. Their responsibility is just to advise you, not to force or compel you into what was not initially your intension.

May I use this opportunity to correct the error some parents make. Some parents tend to decide what their child would study. They believe that since they are the ones to bear the financial responsibility, therefore, the child must study whatever they tell them to. That’s wrong! even God who is the master of us all never compels anyone to do anything but rather permits us to make our own choice. Advice the child only and let him make his own choice because he will be the one facing the rudiments of that profession and not you. Young ones, listen to advice and take counseling but weigh them accurately and appropriately and then go with the right advice. Probably, it might be the same with your passion.

Solving a Problem

There are lots of problems in our environment and nation, ranging from sickness to poverty, and to inadequate technology as the list continues. Therefore trying to proffer solution to any of these problems could also influence your decision on your course of study. There is no environment without a problem and there is no problem without a solution. You could be the solution provider or problem solver.

Discovering a problem with the goal of solving it will make you more focused than you would have been because you are studying the course not just for the passion or because of advisers but because you want to solve a problem. In a bid to be a solution provider, there are three thing to take to heart viz; yearn, learn and then earn. To yearn means to have a strong desire. Desire that a problem could be solved through you.

Learn everything needed to provide solution to that problem. To learn means to gather knowledge about something. When you yearn, then you learn. Get a lot of relevant materials that will aid you in acquiring the needed knowledge and after you must have learnt enough and deployed your knowledge, the next thing is to earn. There has never been a solution provider at any level that never made money through his/her innovation. Many of the multi billion naira businesses that exist in our country today make their money by solving a problem. When you solve a problem, those who benefits from the solution you provide will in turn pay for the service.

Available Opportunities

Bill Clinton said, “the future is full of challenges but there are even more opportunities”. Another factor that could influence your choice of career and course of study is the opportunities available. This will need someone who has fore sight (the ability to see far) to be able to predict the opportunity that will be readily available soon so as to start preparing in time. Have you observed that things move in trend? Twenty years ago, engineers were most sort after because of their relevance in the society and industries.

Currently, people with computer skill and knowledge are now the most sort after. In the near future, another aspect of Information Technology will be relevant whereby if you rely on the skill you have currently without upgrading, you will become irrelevant and obsolete. For example, we are in the era of application development in which if you are good in any programming language you are good to go.

Opportunities abound everywhere and every time but it is only few that sees it. Also, in this 21st century, this few is bound to achieve the right choice of career.....