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When you are emerging into a career field after years of preparation and studying, it can be helpful to seek a mentor who has been in your shoes to guide you along your way. Networking is a critical factor when finding a mentor. If you approach people who are well into careers that you find an interest in yourself, they can provide useful information and you may build a connection that develops into mentorship. For me personally, I have a family friend who has been a high school Physical Education teacher for ten years. When I decided to pursue high school education as a career path, I reached out to her with questions, and she offered to mentor me throughout my journey.

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When you focus on the things about yourself that you are good at and proud of, it encourages success by exercising those strength more frequently. One way to bring out these positive qualities in yourself is by taking the time to identify them. Personally, I would identify my best quality as having a big heart. I care deeply about people and want to care for others. This trait translates into many aspects of life. When I am teaching youth, I can provide nurturing care for students. When I am in customer service roles, I connect easily with people and aim to make their experiences positive.

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When I was growing up, my mother would often tell me that I can only treat others as well as I treat myself. As I have grown, I have realized that my self esteem determines my attitude in many areas of my life. When I am critical of myself, I am irritable and impatient with others. However, when I am kind to myself and allow myself grace to be human and make mistakes without it impacting my perception of my worth, I am often more patient and compassionate for others as well. I will only succeed in life as much as I allow myself. If I believe in my own abilities and value, I will thrive.

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I have been working with a therapist for the past few years, and have come to a realization that I have a tendency to overwhelm myself by comparing where I am with where I want to be. One thing that has helped with this is creating a game plan for what I want to achieve and when a reasonable time frame for doing so. This allows for a clear vision of the path I want to take and acknowledgement of achieving milestones. When I chart out what I want by what time frames, I can monitor my progress, adjust my future goals as needed, and maintain a point of reference when I start to feel overwhelmed.

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One thing I have struggled with through my early adulthood is the idea that I have to follow a predetermined path. When I assess my goals and passions, it often does not align with careers I am familiar with, or the paths I have seen my peers take themselves. One thing that helps me to refocus is the knowledge that I can create my own opportunities. My abilities for success and achievement are only limited by my determination and creativity. If you take a risk to propose an idea that has not been done before or is not being done currently, you create new paths and open new doors for potential. For example, I believe that at my current job there should be a permanent Assistant Management position and I believe I could successfully fill that role. If I propose this idea to upper management, I would be creating an opportunity for myself rather than waiting for changes that may never come.

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As you can see in the image above, you can have an idea for creation, the proper tools and skills, and all the bests intentions and still fail. The idea here is that if you want to succeed, you have to plan for success. To elaborate, being proactive is an important step because you are planning for your main goal, but preparing for potential changes, mistakes, and needs for adjustment before they happen. Planning does not mean that you will not fail or have to adjust, but it means that the failure or need for adjustment will be less detrimental and allow for composure and flexibility.

One example of this in my own life that I am currently experiencing is that I planned to be an English teacher, due to my financial means and current career, I chose a degree that was similar but did not get me to this goal. When I realized my mistake, I began planning for alternative career options and additional education so that regardless of what I chose, I knew that I would be successful in either endeavor.

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Whether it is personal growth, career growth, your life path, or something else, you will stay exactly where you are until you decide intently that you want to change something. This has appeared in many ways in my own life. I grew up in poverty and knew I wanted a different life for myself, so I chose to go to college despite my fear of the financial burden or potential failure. I knew I wanted to live a long healthy life so I chose to exercise despite fear of judgement or doing it wrong. Your comfort zone is where you sit when you have grown to be complacent. It is an area where you know things could be better but choose to stay there and just complain. When you step out of your comfort zone, taking risks, you fail forward. You make progress and grow as an individual.

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Motivation using loss aversion is a new concept for me. It is the idea that most people avoid taking steps towards success due to the fear of losing what you have now. By using this a tool for motivation, you can assess if the goal you have is actually worth what it costs to get achieve it. One way I can practice this in my own life is through my education journey. I am currently faced with a choice of pursuing a Masters degree so that I can be a teacher, or taking my bachelors degree and pursuing a different career path until my finances are more suited for the pursuit of higher education. I can then assess what I would lose by immediately pursuing my Masters degree and if being a teacher is worth it to me, or if I can find fulfillment in a better paying job in a different field without accruing more debt.

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Regardless of the career path you choose, whether for financial gain or a passion pursuit, your work place is where you will spend the majority of your time until you hit retirement age. If you spend everyday hating waking up because you don't want to work, you will be miserable by choice. With this in mind, I believe it is my responsibility to make my place a work an environment I enjoy. Personally, I thrive through human connection, so finding people in my workplace that I can relate to and enjoy being around creates a feeling of play.