STEP 5: The next stage of building your career
Deciding
People use different processes to make decisions. Refine your career choices to those that you can really imagine yourself committing to.
One way to help you decide is to number your choices, with 1 for the choice you like best. You may wish to number whole work categories as shown in the Type of Work Chart, or use this system to number occupations you have found in the Jobs Chart.
Most importantly, make sure you talk to others you know who can help you to think through the options.
Reflecting on your choices
This stage gives you the opportunity to review your investigations so far. Allow yourself time to consider the choices you have made. During this stage, you may like to reflect on what you have discovered about yourself, record your thoughts and feelings, and use this summary to describe the broad career direction you want to take. You can then review this at various stages in the future to see if your interests and your desired direction have changed.
Planning
By this stage, you will have decided on a broad career direction. Now you can create your career pathway plan so that the next steps to take are clear.
It helps to set specific career goals and plan the steps you need to carry out in order to achieve those goals. A career goal may be the answer to the question, ‘What is the next step on my career pathway?’ In order to achieve this goal, you will need a plan of action. When planning the next steps you need to take, you should think about what possible barriers you might need to deal with, what resources you will need and how long it may take to achieve your goal.
TIP
Developing a career pathway plan can be difficult to do on your own. You may want to get some help from a career adviser or teacher.
Doing
Now is the time to get active. By now you should know the direction you want to head in, have a better understanding of the possible pathways to your goals, and have done some planning.
Although this may seem like the final stage of your journey, as you take the steps towards your goals, you will find more information and gain new insights. Stay focused on your goals and be flexible with them. Often opportunities will arise, which means your plan may need to be adjusted. It is important that you find time to review your goals and action steps. It is in the ‘doing’ that your action plan can be monitored, added to or refined.