Six Steps to Your Successful Career Path

Am fairly worn-out this lunch-time just reading Alan A. Andolsen’s article in the current Information Management Journal. Are there really only the advertised six steps in there? If so they all seem to have many … what’s the word for a component of a step? A toddle? They have a lot of those. The main headings seem to be:

1. Self-assessment
2. Occupational Research
3. Decision Making
4. Employment Contacts
5. Work
6. Life Planning

In that order. Personally, I like to plan my work as part of my life from the outset (maybe that’s a ‘work to eat or eat to work’ philosophical preference) … even (or perhaps especially) at the moment when work looms so large.

Honestly, though, the Andolsen-advised path is relentless:

Once on the job, the career planning process is not over. Throughout your current job, you must be constantly evaluating your successes and failures in relation to your desired career path. You must use each of these experiences as an opportunity for growth to prepare for the next step along that path. (p.58,60)

Must I? Can’t I just enjoy my lovely job and my lovely colleagues? What about the rest of my life?

The final step in career planning links that effort to what you want out of life. It is an unending process. You cannot relax and coast but must continue to be actively moving the plan forward. (p.60)

Thanks, Alan. With the classic Presbyterian work ethic (cf. Boxer in Animal Farm: “I will work harder, I will work harder”), I never could have dreamt of feeling so lazy …

Ref

Alan A. Andolsen. Six steps to your successful career path. The Information Management Journal, July/August 2008; 56-58,60.