Achieving Career Goals

Fail to plan, plan to fail. I am sure most of us heard this maxim before. As with anything worth achieving in life, we need a good plan to advance our career and move up the corporate ladder.

From my reading and personal experience, there are several steps that we can take to plan our career (and personal life).

Know where we are - In this step, we do a self-audit, analyzing our own knowledge, skills and attitude (KSA) that help us to perform our current jobs. We can ask the opinion of our trusted colleagues or friends and be open to their feedback.

Know where we want to go - The next step is to ‘peek’ into the future and ask ourselves what we want to achieve in our career. An increased in salary? A promotion? A career change? Another important questions to ask are “When do I want to achieve it?” and “What set of KSA do I need?”

Identify the gap - At this step, we look back at our current set of KSA and compare them with the ones needed to achieve our objective. For example, to be promoted from a sales executive to say, a sales manager, we need strategic marketing skills.

Identify resources - In order for us to upgrade our KSA as identified in step 3 above, we need resources. Money, time and people (contacts) are examples of resources that can help us. We also need other tools such as books, audio tapes, seminars and training.

Write an action plan - Next, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write an action plan on how to upgrade our KSA. Remember to make it as specific and objective as possible (ex ; I will attend two sales training per year beginning next year; I will read one sales book per month starting next week). As you can see, we need to include time frame as well in our plan.

Take action daily – Lastly, we need to take action daily based on our written action plan to move us closer to our desired career and personal growth (ex ; reading books on sales one hour every day; saving 5% of monthly salary for personal development).

One important point to remember is that our plan is not carved in stone. As we go long, we may need to re-adjust our plan as we find new resources or discover new opportunities.