The ultimate responsibility for your career lies on you. If you plan early and take the right decisions, you could well be on your way to a successful career. Career plans are useful whether you currently hold a position or will be entering the job market in the near future. The purpose of a plan is to simply focus your thinking about a viable set of career options, goals and preferences.

Life is an exciting series of challenges and opportunities to be seized. You have to plan for exercising the right career choices and grabbing the right opportunities. Making a career choice is not easy. Planned procrastination rather than a hasty decision is desirable as far as your career is concerned. You need to analyse what occupational groups, specifications and types of organizations seems suitable to you. What will give you job satisfaction? How do you assess yourself in relation to your qualities, interests, education and skills, your strengths and weaknesses? Which kind of career will give you better mobility within and between organizations? What are your career goals?

An individual today has many more degrees of freedom in determining his or her future. Few of us realize this or take full advantage of this freedom. Most of us let the future be determined by what is going to happen rather by our personal life goals and plans for the future.

Individuals may be reactive or proactive. Reactive individuals merely responds to events; they leave things to chance. Proactive individuals, on the other hand, seek to shape the future in their own interest. They plan for success. For them, career planning becomes an integral part of their life. For them, a career goal is a product of their past experiences, desires and visions of the future. For them, success is a journey, not a destination; occupation choice is a process, and not an event.

The natural question is: In an increasingly competitive world, does one really have a career choice? How much influence can an individual have over his own career? Can one really plan and prepare for one’s future? I certainly believe you can and must to become successful.