Career Advice: You Can’t Get There If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going

I’ve never met a person who denied that planning is necessary to achieving career success.

To paraphrase the legendary merchant, J. C. Penny, “Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I will give you a successful manager. Give me a stock clerk without a plan and I will give you a stock clerk.”

Why, then, don’t more of us make plans and stick them?

There are four reasons, none of which meet the test of common sense.

1. One is fear that we will be seen as failures in our own eyes and those of whose peers if we make a plan and then fail to execute it. (The experience of successful people proves that it is better to set lofty goals and fall short than to not have goals.)

2. We don’t plan because we are convinced there are so many variables beyond our control that it is meaningless exercise. (Sure, there are some variables in every situation; many of them can’t be controlled. But it is still better to have a plan, and work around the variables as best we can, than to float along hoping for the best that fate can deliver.)

3. We are paralyzed by inertia. Our hopes and dreams are just too big and overwhelming; we don’t know where to start to create a plan. (Visualize the path to your goal as a series of small steps, taken one by one. Getting started is half the struggle. We always feel better after we take the first step in any action plan.)

4. We are put off by the prospect of being obligated, locked in to a course of action that we no longer want to follow. (The very essence of good planning is to allow for changes that have to be made along the way to take advantage of every opportunity.)

I wish you career success in ’09!

Ramon Greenwood, Head Career Coach
Common Sense At Work