
In a recent article for Entrepreneur, Sujan Patel (@sujanpatel) gives us insight into his eight best steps for creating a winning career growth plan. After all, a solid plan has the power to commandeer your career and implement success. Here are his eight steps:
Reflect on your failures, successes, hits and misses of the past year. It’s important to consider what you’ve learned and enjoyed and what you want to leave behind. Document your milestones and how they impacted your job and skills. Be specific – the more you can visualize, the easier it will be to design a plan.
Before diving into the plan, research current career trends. You won’t know whether the best idea is to change careers or just make some advancements until you’ve done some solid research. It may even be a good idea to research thriving side businesses that could take up some of your spare time.
- Identify new career goals
It’s not enough to daydream about your future. Brainstorm how to make your goals possible, whether that entails asking for new responsibilities at work or getting a new degree. The more information you have, the more prepared you will be to take control of your goals.
- Create a career marketing plan
It’s important to generate buzz and boost your credibility. One way of doing so is by signing up with a site such as HARO that provides you with alerts from journalists looking for input and expert quotes on their articles. Even just one quote in a publication can make a big difference in solidifying your credibility.
It’s never too late to grow your network, whether that’s through LinkedIn or just attending events in your area. Offer a lending hand to contacts such as by connecting members of your network to each other. The more you grow your network through generosity, the greater the chances they will do the same in return.
Make a new resolution to take action. That can be by investing in a career coach or spiffing your resume. You will have to spend money on yourself, so make sure you spend it on a must-needed investment that will inspire you to commit.
There’s a science behind this. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto’s psychology department conducted an experiment in goal setting and writing and the results reported students turning their lives around, changing their majors and realizing their goals.
Charting out the path to success is just as important as taking the time to celebrate success. Without properly acknowledging your accomplishments, you will be more likely to miss the fact that they ever happened.
With these goals in mind, how do you plan on taking control of your career? Well, 2016 will tell!
Read source article here