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Hello and welcome to a brand new year!

It’s a great time to revisit your career goasl and current direction, even in the postion you currently have.

How are you today?  Today we will explore how to turn your job into your dream job.

Plan your pathway within the role

Whether you are in a new job or an old one, you will now be in a position to plan your pathway within the role either formally or informally. You are now in a position to make some informed plans for how to move forward. There are a number of types of action plans that may be relevant to you.

There will most likely be a probation period that will protect both you and the employer if the initial settling in stage does not work out for either party. Visualise how you would like to be performing in this role. Begin to develop your action plan.  If you want personal help with this you could engage me for a one to one session via http://www.winc.net.au/career-coaching.

Successful action plans are:

• Exciting – what you are planning to do has to motivate you!
• Specific – clear, with time-bound goals and definite actions
• Realistic – well researched and reality tested with input from others
• Flexible – able to adapt to unexpected circumstances or setbacks

Having the best-developed goals in the world are worthless without going to the next step and organising how to achieve them. While the amount of planning that people are willing to engage in varies with the personality of the person, some action planning is essential. For some of us it doesn’t come easily, but the more you focus on planning your actions, the easier it is to enact your plan and the sooner you will achieve your career goals.

i. Consider your longer term career plan within the context of this role

This is your big picture or master plan for the next 10 years of your career. Your career plan should include:

Goals – these include your short, medium, and long-term career goals.

Key Tasks – the components or steps that express your strategy for accomplishing your goals. You could consider your real and perceived barriers and obstacles to your goals and include strategies/tasks for overcoming or avoiding them.

Actions – important actions you can identify to achieve your steps with a particular focus on the next 6-12 months.

Resources and support – the information sources, organisations, training and people that you can identify to support you in implementing your actions and accomplishing your goals. Importantly, this should include motivational support from family, friends, networks or mentors.

Timeframe – when you expect to commence and complete your specific actions.

Back-up Plans – your “what if” plans if the goal in its current form can not be achieved. It is important to recognise that there are many ways to achieve your goals and many ways around perceived and real barriers.

A good practice is to take each key task, step, or strategy from your career plan and do a complete action plan for implementing it on a separate sheet of paper. Alternatively, you could create a table and tick off each task as you do it. It is easy to become side-tracked by what is termed ‘the shiny red apples’.

ii. Training and development plan

Your career plan may include an action plan for training and development. To create a training and development plan you identify the knowledge and skills you will need to achieve your career goals and work out ways to acquire them. If this is not a major area of need it can be incorporated in your career plan. However it is usually a good idea to keep it separate, but linked, to your career plan. It also will need the normal action plan elements: goals, tasks, actions, resources, and a timeframe but with a focus on training and development.

Next week we will look at how to develop positive trusting relationships with your colleagues.

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