Things you can do that have a positive impact on your career.
Many of us leave our career decisions to chance. We are reacting to the environment in which we live instead of being proactive. Others rely on their supervisors for career management thinking their annual performance review is enough to enable career success, when in reality it is not. It's time we take control of our own careers.
Taking control of your career requires you to be consciously involved in setting and achieving your career goals. Below are some actions you can take to help you start managing your career.
Dream and Reflect
To be able to manage our careers, we need to know what we want. If you are fuzzy on your career goals, try spending some time on introspection. Take some quiet time and think seriously about what you really want and need in a career.
Remember when you were young and dreamed of what you wanted to be when you grew up? Did that dream stick with you or did you develop new dreams?
Very few people stick with the dreams we have as youth. Recently I came across some school records from my seventh grade class. We were asked about our occupational plans after we graduated from high school. Among the questions were:
“Have you decided what you are going to do to earn a living?”
"If yes, what?"
One of my classmates wanted to be a teacher, but things changed between seventh grade and college. Instead of a teacher, he became a successful medical doctor. As he matured, his interests evolved and he decided on a completely different path.
Begin your career management by taking some time to dream and reflect. Let your mind wander…think about your skills, interests, passions, wants, experience, strengths, weaknesses, achievements, values, and priorities. Ask yourself,
“What do I really want from my career?”.
Our dreams may not be what we do, but rather the location, or the lifestyle it enables. One person may want to work where they can live on the beach. Another, may want a career where they travel around the world. Still another wants to be recognized as an expert in their field.
The important thing is to give it considerable reflection. Many people never give their careers much thought after graduating from college and securing a job. Your first job is only the beginning, or your current position may be just a step on the path to where you really want to be, if you know where that is.
Identify Conditions
We all have parameters that we work within. For someone fresh out of college with little or no responsibilities, it may be easy to set forth and follow a plan to achieve their wildest dreams. After we have the responsibilities of family and a mortgage, it may be more difficult, or we may need to modify the dream to accommodate these responsibilities.
Someone I recently spoke with told me how her career evolved. She was an “A” student, but decided to get married right after high school. They started a family within a couple of years. A few years later she saw her former classmates graduating from college and she began to regret not having gone to college.
With a family and working full-time, she knew her options were limited. She had always dreamed of becoming an architect. Architecture was not among the degree programs offered at night by the local college, so she chose accounting instead. For the next eight years, she worked full-time and attended college part-time at night to earn a Bachelor of Science degree. After a break, she returned to college and earned her MBA through an Executive MBA program that enabled her to attend classes on weekends.
Though she did not achieve her original dream, she did not give up her love of architecture. Now, as a hobby, she photographs places with interesting architecture.
Identify responsibilities and parameters that must be considered.
In adulthood sometimes our one-time dreams become an outside interest or hobby, instead of our career. Another option is to take a different position in the same field. This doesn’t mean that we abandon our dreams, but that we change their perspective and develop new dreams that are better suited to our situation.
Remember to consider your responsibilities and incorporate them into your career plan.
Develop a Plan
In our reflection, we determined what we wanted. Then we identified our responsibilities and constraints. Now we need to develop a plan to bring it all together.
Many employers require employees to draft some form of performance plan or job plan that is reviewed with their supervisor annually. We must avoid thinking that our supervisors are looking out for our careers. They have their own careers to consider, multiple people to supervise, and projects to manage. The career plan we develop for our employer is important and shouldn't be taken lightly. However, we still need to look at the bigger picture and develop our own overall documented personalized career plan.
In developing our career plan, we need to set goals, both short term and long term, to enable us to achieve career success. According to Indeed.com, "goal setting is a helpful way to build the career you want. By setting objectives and creating a clear roadmap for how you’ll reach your intended target, you can decide how to apply your time and resources to make progress."
SMART is a great tool to follow for establishing your goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. I like the updated version of SMARTER goals used by some today, which adds ER (for Evaluated and Reviewed) to the acronym and better fits career-planning.
Next, develop actionable steps for each goal that has been set. These are things you can do to move toward accomplishing each goal. As steps are complete, identify new actions and create new steps, always moving forward. Even a lateral move to gain experience is moving forward when it's part of a plan.
Communicate with Your Boss
We briefly mentioned the plan you may prepare for your company and the annual reviews. These plans when reviewed with your supervisory manager can give you some insight into what is expected by the company you work for and the opportunities available. Take advantage of all meetings with your boss to learn. This is a part of the overall process. Be sure to communicate clearly your goals and aspirations.
If you are interested in a promotion, ask what you need to do to be considered for the position. You may need experience in other areas or additional training. Even if you are a shining star you may get passed over for a promotion if your supervisory manager doesn't know you are interested in moving up. Silence may be seen as disinterest...so communicate clearly.
Review and Update Plan
At a minimum, you should review and update your plan annually or more often, if needed. Circumstances change and your career plans need to be updated to reflect those changes.
Last year you may have been focused on climbing the corporate ladder and willing to work long hours, if necessary, to achieve this goal. Today, your primary focus may be to take care of a sick family member.
Furthermore, what is most important to us in our twenties, is usually different when we are in our forties planning for our children’s college education, or when we are in our fifties and thinking about retirement. Each phase of our life brings different goals and focus.
As changes occur, it doesn’t mean that you abandon your career or your career plan, but it does mean that you modify it. Each year you need to take the following steps.
1. Reflect and review your current plan. Give some thought to:
What have you accomplished over the last year?
Are your goals still relevant?
Has your situation or interests changed?
What else do you need to do to move forward and closer to achieving your goals?
2. Modify plan elements as needed.
3. Update short and long term goals.
4. Develop actionable steps that can be taken to achieve your goals.
5. Put a reminder on your calendar for next year's plan review.
For most of us, our jobs are a big part of our lives. If you are satisfied in your job, that satisfaction will most likely flow over into other areas of your life. Continue to review and update your career plan every year so that when things change again, you stay on track to making your dreams come true.
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