In life I have found that there are five key skills that you need to succeed accomplishing your career goals. As an undergraduate I studied horticulture, which was quite a practical course with many interdisciplinary subjects including: taxonomy, plant science, business and finance, and management of people and resources. These subjects had prepared me well for a career in the horticultural industry. However, I decided to move into plant biology, which is more focused on the biomolecular aspect of plants. This change was quite tough but the following key skills that I have followed quite avidly helped me to get through the changes. After crossing industries I had successfully passed a Masters in Science Degree in Plant Science and Biotechnology, and managed to get onto a PhD research programme.

Dedication

In order to accomplish any goal such as a degree, job or assignment you need to be dedicated. Dedication is quite hard to maintain, particularly when the goal is challenging. However, if it was easy people would not be motivated to complete a task. To keep your motivation during a goal, you need to keep thinking about the end result, for example, during my PhD times will be tough, my social life will be compromised, and my patience will be tried particularly when things do not go to plan. However, at the end of my PhD I could gain a doctorate, have added to the knowledge pool of science, increase my experience of working in a scientific background, and developed a set of skills, and techniques require to become a research scientist. Along with dedication you will need to have patience. Most of the time things will be delayed, people who you require assistance from will be unavailable, and machinery may breakdown, all due to unforeseen circumstances. If you keep thinking about the bigger picture, these small issues will not matter so much. In my experience I have found that although things may not go to plan, you can still achieve your goals if you are organised enough.

Organisation

Many people are aware that organisation is a good thing when it comes to achieving goals and grabbing opportunities, yet not many individuals describe themselves as organised. For me organisation is like a train time table, you must be able to run several different tasks at the same time to be able to achieve a particular goal, for example, during my research I have several hours a day of incubation times. Instead of watching cat videos I plan ahead and run another experiment parallel to the one I was running before, just like a train time table. If something goes wrong build-ups can occur just like when trains are delayed causing chaos, so detailed planning and schedule is required. On Sundays, I tend to organise the following week by adding events onto my online calendar, and reflect on the last week to overcome areas of inefficiency. Another tip to become organised is time management. If you have a train to catch or a meeting to attend, then arrive with plenty of time to spare. This is obvious, and sometimes it is not practice but it is the best thing to do. If you are bored waiting, then you could practice what you have to say at a meeting, go for a walk to clear your mind, or catch up with friends on social media.

Communication

Clear and concise communication is vital to portray your message through writing or a presentation. The best advice for writing a report is to collect all of your notes, get to know you subject area well, formulate a plan of how to structure the report, put all your notes aside and just write. Even if your word document is full of grammar, punctuation or spelling errors just keep writing. Once you have completed a chapter or section heading go back and get the computer spell checker to check the errors. Once complete, go back and read it out loud and address the issues. Then leave the chapter or report for a few days if possible, and proofread again. Try to get someone else to proofread it for you to check for errors you have missed. There will always been errors, and different people will pick up on different aspects of your writing. For me I do not submit a report unless it has been proofread at least eight times. This is important to clearly and concisely convey your message. The same principle applies to power point slides, articles and flyers; anything that requires you to convey a message. For presentations other methods of communication such as body language are important factors to consider.

Determination

Determination is quite hard to quantify but it is generally what drives people to complete tasks. For me getting results and expanding upon areas of science that are underdeveloped, drives me. For others this could be financial, family-related or just because they are passionate. Similarly to dedication there must be an element of motivation. When times get tough motivation can be negatively affected. During these times, I generally like to motivate myself on a day-to-day basis; focusing on the end goal. If you find that focusing on the end goal is too tough use small treats. These treats can be food such as cake, biscuits or chocolate, going out to buy clothes, or promising yourself to visit a place that interests you. This carrot-on-a-stick approach will likely help you through tough times but this is a short term measure. If low motivation continues then ask for help from your colleagues, supervisor or talk to others that your trust, this generally helps. 

Problem solving

The final key is problem solving. Problems occur on a daily basis and many of them are easily fixed, of which we do not generally think about. However, for bigger problems time is needed to think of a solution. Good problem solving skills are necessary to cope with life. From late deliveries, items going missing, machinery breaking down to computers crashing, it is best to think of a back-up plan if these problems arise. During my research, deliveries have been late, and I generally re-organised my schedule so that I could continue my work. Sometimes this cannot happen as all of your current research requires that delivery. In this situation you would fall back on your organisational and time management skills, and think of additional work such as reading around the subject. To overcome a problem generally you need to identify the problem, understand the problem by observation, look for possible solution through research, then implement this solution, and finally monitor this solution to examine how well it works. Then if the problem is fixed update your way of doing things.