Let’s first talk about why thinking about career goals is extremely important. Or in other words what happens if you don’t have a career goal. If you have no career goals then it would be journey without any destination, you will be going ahead but you won’t know where you are going, its like sailing in ocean aimlessly, sometimes you will reach some random place but since you really don’t know if it is the right place for you to be you will either stay there or move in some other random direction. It will be all chaos and at the end you won’t feel satisfied at all. On the other hand, when you have a goal in mind you will reach the destination much faster and when you reach there will be extreme satisfaction. And journey won’t stop there, you will try to go on to follow your next goal.
Each person career goals will be different and will depend on many factors. Some people whole motivation is to earn more money. Although, personally I think you should do what gives you most satisfaction. You should really love it doing. To identify it I generally apply I small test, if you can work on that particular thing for hours yet it still feels like minutes then yes it is probably giving you satisfaction. Also, important t o note that it is not about happiness, there will be times you will feel sad but you still want to complete it because you really like doing it, because it gives you satisfaction.
How to set your career goals?
Divide and conquer i.e. divide the bigger goal into smaller manageable goals and try to achieve it. For e.g. if you want to become a software engineer then you to divide the bigger vague task into smaller tasks. You must know the fundamentals of programming, if you want to become software engineer at company then you have to apply to that company, you have to prepare for interview, you have to prepare resume etc. After you set up all your plans you must start working on it bit by bit.
An unorthodox choice
What if you don’t really care about money and really want to follow your passion. For e.g. You like table tennis very much and want to pursue it as a career, what should you do? You should first be aware of all the pros and cons of making such decision, what are the success rate of choosing such career, what are your aims, do you want to become an olympic champion if yes then it is going to be a really really difficult journey. If your aim is more benign for example being a national level champion and then becoming a coach then yes it is going to be a bit easier. And despite all the challenges if you think you are going to get pass through all the hurdles then yes you should go ahead and choose this as your career option.