How Women Can Achieve Their Career Potential

Women have made great strides in the march to equality in the workplace, but there are still some vast gender pay gaps and under-representation of women in certain sectors and management roles. Even sectors where women make up the majority of the workforce, the people in the more senior and managerial roles are likely to be men. Change does take time, and some countries are better than others at narrowing the gap; but what can you do to advance not only the cause of women’s careers and job opportunities, but achieve your own career potential?

Being Your Own Person

It’s not much fun and can be very hard work to try and be something you’re not, so when choosing your career path, be true to who you are and what you want. As long as you have the opportunity to pursue the career you feel passionate about, then all is well. It’s when your path is blocked for some reason that you need to bring it to people’s attention.

Working in a traditionally female-dominated occupation like nursing doesn’t mean you aren’t committed to equality; but are you working at the level you wish to be? Being true to yourself means making sure that your own needs and desires are being met by your career choice, and that there’s nothing holding you back apart from yourself.

Finding the Right Career

In a regular, planned kind of life, you’d have a clear career goal, go to college and get the qualifications you need, and start work when you have the right skills and knowledge. In real life, this kind of linear progression doesn’t happen to very many people, and it’s common for careers to take an entirely different direction.

You may have had problems with health or family during high school, or you may just not have been sure what career you wanted. Whatever the reason, there are millions of folk living lives and working in careers they didn’t foresee. If that’s you, take stock; are you where you want to be? Have you got any regrets or unfulfilled ambitions? Are you happy?

If you aren’t 100% committed to your work, you’ll never achieve your potential, so make sure you’re in the right career before you go any further.

Change or Advance

Change is more disruptive, but essential if you want to make the most of your life. Don’t look at what you’ve done so far as a waste of time, as you’ll have gained valuable knowledge and experience from the work you’ve done, even if it seems to bear no relation to what you really want to do. Advancing in your career is something it pays to speak to your boss about in the first instance because they could be willing to help with training and support.

Either way, you’ll need to study your subject and undertake training to equip you for career advancement. Luckily, this is far more achievable than it would have been a few years ago, because of the explosion in the availability of online training. If you work as a registered nurse, that’s most often a vocational choice into which you’ve already invested quite heavily, both in time and money. Now ask yourself if you’re where you want to be, and if there’s any hint or inkling that you want something more or different, start finding out how you can achieve change.

There are many good quality online courses covering a vast array of subjects and careers, including advanced degrees like the Masters in Nursing (MSN). You can match this degree with a specialism, for example, becoming a family nurse practitioner (FNP) which allows you to work at clinics and private medical practices.

You can click here to find out more about these kinds of courses and see which one suits you best.

You could, for instance, move up into nursing management by taking an MBA course with your MSN. You’d then have the credentials to apply for senior nurse manager positions, and move up the career ladder to head organizations or hospital directories in time. Or you could do an MBA degree that specializes in health care management.

There are so many different ways to achieve the qualifications that will transform your life and help you achieve your goals. It’s worth exploring all the many and varied opportunities that are open to you because one thing’s for sure, you’ll never achieve your potential unless you put some effort into making the changes require.

Thanks to Carol