Career Success - Find Your Why and Strategies to Stay Positive

This article discusses the importance of understanding why you want a career and how to align it with your brand statement. It also provides strategies to stay positive and motivated while looking for job opportunities. The article includes a table that lists clues to infer the possibilities of career advancement, being paid well, and being satisfied on the job or in the industry. Additionally, it suggests three strategies to stay positive and motivated. The references section includes five sources.

Running head: CAREER SUCCESS
Career Success
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

1CAREER SUCCESS
Find Your Why
What is Your “Why”?
It is understood that in order to have a clear conceptualization of career success, I
need to first understand why I want a career in the first place (Van den Born & Van
Witteloostuijn, 2013). The reason why I would want a career in a particular field would
pertain to my interest in that field and how capable would I be in being able to perform in that
sphere of professional activity. I would also consider if there could be some opportunities for
me to develop my skills further, which would be a big factor why would I want to be
successful in my career with time.
Is Your “Why” Fitting Your Brand Statement?
In the event of me being self-employed or the manager of a start-up enterprise, I
would ensure that the “why” of choosing a career path would ultimately reflect the brand
statement of my enterprise (Lane, 2016). Hence, in deciding upon the image of my brand and
its statement I should make it clear as to how my reasons are clearly discernable from the
way I have branded my enterprise or the products I sell in the market. In the event this is not
the case, I shall accordingly re-work my branding strategy and branding statement until it is
able to clearly reflect my “why”.
My Action Plan
In my attempt to assess the chances of success in whatever career path I choose to
undertake, not only must I understand why I am participating in that particular career
opportunity but I must also objectively seek to analyse the actual possibilities of attaining
success at my chosen career (Qenani, MacDougall & Sexton, 2014) by inferring intuitively
from certain clues and thereby acting on these clues, as displayed in the table listed below:

2CAREER SUCCESS
Possibilities Clues Inspired Action
Possibility of career
advancement within an
organization or within the
industry itself.
This possibility could be
discerned from the position
of the organization within
the industry or how well the
industry is in itself faring.
The action that I would take
is to join that organization or
be within that industry and
strategically work my way
through to ensure
advancement
Possibility of being paid
well and being treated as a
valued customer or well-
regarded as an entrepreneur.
This possibility could be
inferred from the
organization’s policy
towards employees. For an
industry, inter-entrepreneur
interaction could be a
suitable indicator.
The action that I would take
is to work accordingly, to
work hard and diligently
enough to be recognized
within the organization, or
within the industry as an
honest and hard-working
entrepreneur.
Possibilities of being
satisfied on the job or in the
industry.
This possibility can be
gleamed from how an
organization is able to
utilize an employee’s
interests and skills, or how
an industry is able to amply
reward the passion of an
The action to be taken here
is to clearly state my
interests and relevant skills
while applying for a position
within an organization, or
align my entrepreneurship
with my areas of interest.

3CAREER SUCCESS
entrepreneur.
Strategies to Stay Positive and Motivated
Often it may so happen that finding the right job may take some time or there could
be many unsuccessful attempts at finding the job I would want, and this may have a
detrimental effect on my mind and my attitude (Strandh et al., 2014). Hence, I would work
out the following three strategies to stay positive, focussed and motivated even when looking
for the job opportunity I seek:
1. I shall not take any failure, rejection or disappointment personally, even though
they are the natural consequence of not attaining what I wish to achieve. I should
consider that if I am unable to avail one opportunity, others are sure to come my
way. Although my career is an important part of my life, I must keep in mind that
my entire life does not revolve around my career.
2. As a corollary of the above-mentioned point, I shall focus on other important
activities which I like doing to maintain some variety that would also prevent me
from dwelling too much on my past and focus on what could I do now and in the
future (Goodman, Geiger & Wolf, 2016). Staying grounded in the present is helpful
to plan for the future.
3. Lastly, I should spend time with my friends and family as their words of wisdom,
solidarity and encouragement would go a long way in motivating me to find the job

4CAREER SUCCESS
I seek (Brannan et al., 2013), thereby increasing my chances of succeeding in the
goals I have set out for my career.
References
Brannan, D., Biswas-Diener, R., Mohr, C. D., Mortazavi, S., & Stein, N. (2013). Friends and
family: A cross-cultural investigation of social support and subjective well-being
among college students. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 8(1), 65-75.
Goodman, W. K., Geiger, A. M., & Wolf, J. M. (2016). Differential links between leisure
activities and depressive symptoms in unemployed individuals. Journal of clinical
psychology, 72(1), 70-78.
Lane, P. (2016). Human resources marketing and recruiting: essentials of employer branding.
Handbook of Human Resources Management, 23-52.
Qenani, E., MacDougall, N., & Sexton, C. (2014). An empirical study of self-perceived
employability: Improving the prospects for student employment success in an
uncertain environment. Active Learning in Higher Education, 15(3), 199-213.
Strandh, M., Winefield, A., Nilsson, K., & Hammarström, A. (2014). Unemployment and
mental health scarring during the life course. The European Journal of Public Health,
24(3), 440-445.
Van den Born, A., & Van Witteloostuijn, A. (2013). Drivers of freelance career success.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(1), 24-46.