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Career

Your Action Plan to DRI Your Career

Credit: Erik_Karits / Pixabay

Step 1: Review

Step 2: Plan

  1. Assess if it’s time to quit (this will shape how you approach the next steps).
    1. If it’s time to quit, or you think it might be, figure out your constraints versus need.
      1. Do you need to make your current role manageable to give yourself time to look for something else?
    2. If you’re a maybe on quitting, think about what’s pushing you to that point, and what you could try to improve things.
    3. If you’re a no, great! Less overhead for you. Move to step 2.
  2. Look at what options you want to be available to you.
    1. Check yourself on whether it’s a job or a title – what do you really want to be doing in your 40+ hours a week you spend at work?
    2. Assess where you are relative to them.
      1. For those where you’re on track, great – you’re done here.
      2. For those where that is not the case, take them to step 3.
    3. Define your current moment.
      1. What is your current moment?
      2. What do you need right now?
      3. Given those things, what constraints do you have here?
      4. Discuss the constraints with someone you trust – do they have to be true?
  3. Clarify the deal you made under capitalism.
    1. Think about what your employer is renting.
      1. Are you building market value?
      2. Are you undermining market value?
    2. Think about what your employer is buying.
      1. Is there anywhere where they are taking more than they’re paying for?
      2. Are there any boundaries to redefine?
    3. What kind of deal do you want?
      1. What supports your longer term goals?
      2. What do you need to support your life right now?
  4. Identify some proximate objectives.
    1. Come up with some (1-3) shorter-term goals that support what you identified as your overall career options.
      1. Make sure you really nail the `what` and the `why` – achieving this goal is meaningful to you, and will represent meaningful progress.
    2. Put together development plans for each of them.
    3. Discuss and refine the plans with someone you trust.
  5. Think about your relationship to feedback.
    1. Identify what quadrant you’re in for some key relationships.
      1. If it’s receptive and actionable – great, what’s working and how did you get to that point?
      2. If it’s receptive but not actionable, or not receptive but actionable, why is that? What would help?
      3. If it’s neither receptive nor actionable, why is this?
        1. Is there a way to extract yourself from this situation?
    2. Think about what you could do generally to be more coachable. Pick 1-2 suggestions from the list to work on.
    3. Think about some difficult pieces feedback you’ve received. What can you take from them? Is there anything useful here?
      1. “No” is okay!
      2. Even in the worst contexts, there may be something we can learn about ourselves. And then, it’s much easier to let that feedback go.
      3. Some feedback and feedback relationships need to go in the bin. Do you want to put anything in the bin?
  6. Audit your network.
    1. What relationships are good? Celebrate them.
    2. What relationships are okay, but could be better?
      1. Think about how things could be better.
      2. Think about things you could do to improve those relationships.
      3. Decide if you want to make some time to invest in those relationships.
        1. “No” is okay!
        2. So is “not right now”.
    3. What relationships are missing?
      1. Think about what those missing relationships cost you – i.e. if you have a very small professional network, maybe it makes it harder to find new opportunities.
      2. Think about what you could do to build more of a network, what would be the easiest things you could do? What would you enjoy?
      3. Assess the gap versus what you might do to solve it and decide whether or not you want to do it.
        1. “No” is okay!
        2. So is “not right now”.

Step 3: Execute

So excited for you! Let me know how you get on.