When it comes to your career, it can be risky to leave things to chance. If you just tend to go about your day, trying to do a good job, you may never get to where you want to be. Because to climb the career ladder and land in the role that you really want, it takes a lot of work. You need to know where you’re going, and what you need to do to get there. This is why having a career plan is so important. Sure, it’s unlikely that you’d create a ten-year plan and follow it to the letter – but this is meant to be more of a guide. Because if you want that big role, you need to work backward. You need to take your goal and look at the steps you need to take before that in order to figure out how to get there.
But when you first sit down to create a career plan, you may have no idea what you’re doing. It can be so hard to figure out where you should start out. Or, you may not know what little extras are going to help you to get to where you want to be on time or quicker than planned! So let’s take a look at the seven components that every career plan should have.
Goals
To start with, you need to have a clear goal. Whether that’s to become CEO or Creative Director or whatever is is that you want to be, you need to be clear on it. What industry do you want to be in or what company do you want to work for? Do you want to do that in ten years or twenty? Really start to think about what you want to achieve, because this then helps everything else to fall into place.
Actionable Steps
Then, you need to work out what steps you need to take to get there. And they need to be steps that you can act on. Not just get a new job or impress your boss. You need to know what levels you’re going to climb through to reach your goals and then also WHAT you need to do to get to the next level.
Skills Development
As you’re starting to get through each of these areas, you’ll realize that you may need to learn something new in order to progress to the level. And that’s only natural. Because there are always going to be good skills that we all need to have. So really start to think about the courses you may need to take or further training you may need. Sometimes you may need to learn things in your own time to get the skills you need to progress.
Networking
And then, you’re going to want to network too. Because right now, you know where you want to be. But you may not necessarily know how you’re going to get there. But networking helps. Networking opens up doors for you. So if you want to make sure that you can get there and give yourself the best opportunities, you need to start networking.
Mentoring
Then, there’s also mentoring too. Because you will always need to surround yourself with industry leaders and people you admire, like Yvonne Yancy, if you want to grow. Getting a mentor can help you to progress and grow at the speed that you want to. And you may find that you push yourself more when you have one!
Challenges
And we all need a good challenge too. Because if you were just just climb the career ladder easily, what fun would that be? Definitely make sure that you’re challenging yourself. That you’re putting yourself out there, taking steps before you’re ready, and diving in at the deep end. This is the easier way to make sure that you reach the levels you want.
Personal Development
And finally, you should definitely think of ways that you can develop as a person. Because this is your career. YOU are the one being hired here. So it’s important that you are the best you can be. Sure, learning new things and picking up new skills will help you, but it’s good to grow as a person too. So what will encourage you to do that? Do you need to travel or volunteer or take up a new hobby to help you develop into the person that will have your dream job in ten years time?