Career Plans – are they still making sense?

November 21, 2021 Katharina Engelhardt

Personally, I never made a concrete plan at the beginning of my professional career, but I always had a vision of what I wanted to achieve. It was only later that I started to approach the topic of career planning in a more strategic way.

I think it makes a lot of sense to create a career plan. The career plan helps you to define and visualize your professional goals. It gives you an overview of the goals and intermediate goals and can ensure that you don't lose sight of them.

So many tips and advice you get....

Countless YouTube videos, blog articles and Instagram posts.... So many conversations with family and friends.... The career tests that looked so promising....

And in the end, a chaos of information, a queasy feeling in the stomach because nothing really seems to fit and the question: How is this going to work? How am I supposed to find the career, the profession that really suits me? What if I make the wrong decision (again)?

But there is one - the tried and tested path that leads to the goal. Towards a career, a profession that really suits you.

The path begins with you: get to know yourself well. Find out what you want in your life. What you need so that you like getting up in the morning on Mondays.

Remember: “If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there.” Lewis Carrol

The first step…

…for me is to go back to the moments when I could really celebrate fun and success in my professional life. By looking at what exactly was fun and then analyzing those events.
- What exactly happened? Which of my strengths led to the successes.
Important questions to ask yourself are also the following:
- What priority does the job have compared to other areas of life?
- What professional goals do I want to achieve in the medium and long term?
- Which values and principles are important for me?
- What strengths and competencies are needed for this?
To answer these questions, it can also be helpful to create a vision board. Inspiration can come from many different areas of life, both internally and externally.

The second step…

Before jumping to premature conclusions, invest some time and find a purpose that’s bigger than you.
●     What are your goals?
●     What do you want to stand for or live for?
●     What are your passions?
The answers to all these questions lie within you and are waiting to be unlocked.

Try these techniques to find your inspiration:

1.    Reflect.
Spend some time in quiet solitude, meditating on your purpose in life, going for a long car ride and considering your future, or talking with friends and those who know you best.
2.    Look at others whom you admire.
Who do you look up to? Why? Read stories of successful individuals who are in the same career field as yours or in a different one in which you’d like to be.
3.    Talk with friends and family.
The conversation, however, needs to go beyond the simple question of what you should do with your life. Ask for advice on how others have figured out where they’re moving in their career and figure out how you can use their advice to chart your own territory.

The third step…

And now comes the next step: making a plan out of all the points and all the answers. A plan that will take you from where you are to where you want to go.
As my mother always says (freely quoted from Brecht): Just make a plan and then make another plan - both of them will not materialize. And it's the same with career plans. Rarely, very rarely, are they implemented on a 1:1 basis because the environmental conditions don't fit or because the family situation doesn't fit. But that's exactly what makes a good plan, it is then adapted quite agile.
It is important to know how to adapt the plan again and again, the more you have dealt with the topic, the quicker and easier it is to react spontaneously. A career plan is a compass that provides orientation.

A career plan helps you take one step at a time and ensure that you are still heading in the right direction.
It is a way to think about and play through scenarios. Ideas that you can explore with yourself and your environment and then clarify for yourself what no-go areas are. The move abroad or a management position. You can clarify for yourself how you want to work, alone or in teams - or decide whether you want to work self-employed, in an owner-managed business or a multinational.
You have a common thread that you can keep an eye on. Especially in VUCA times, it makes a lot of sense to have a career plan. Let´s be honest a 5-10 years is a long time span, but a period of up to 3 years should be taken into account when planning.

Finally…

From this plan you can then crystallize the next 90-day plan quite well. In this way, you can check in with the big goal every quarter to see whether it is still up to date and, if necessary, change the tactics.

So, in essence I find the process to look into a career vision very important and believe in actionable 90 days career plans to ensure your career is in sync with your personal desire.

I am offering a 5-week online course to explore the important areas and to set up a 90-day plan. During BLACK WEEK I am offering an additional 1:1 coaching call so that you start to take action on your 90-day plan.

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