If you’ve been planning on changing or advancing your career, but through all the wishes and hopes, you haven’t made the move yet, then a career development plan might be the first step you’ve been waiting for. A career development plan will take a short amount of time to work out in advance, but it will save you loads of time in the long-term.
Determine Your Field Or Position Of Interest
You’ve probably got an idea of what type of position you want to move into, but if you don’t, start there. Do a bit of research to figure out what career or position you want to move into To help narrow down your interests and options, take a look at How To Choose The Right Career For You.
Set Achievable Goals
What’s it going to take to start that new career? Once you determine that, set some goals that you’ll be able to achieve given your responsibilities and available time. Do you need to find a program that you can accomplish on your own time with a flexible schedule with self-paced learning? If so, finding that program will be one of your goals. Do you want to be ready to move into a new role in the next year? Finding a shorter program that will allow that timeline will be another goal.
Sitting down to brainstorm achievable goals and writing down the smallest steps related to those goals is an important step toward making your wishes and dream a reality. A dream is just a goal that doesn’t have a plan, so writing down every tiny step that you need to take is moving you closer to turning your dream into a goal.
Set Realistic Deadlines For Each Step
Now, take a look at your calendar and those goals and start putting them in order. Be generous with yourself because unrealistic deadlines can be a motivation killer. You’ll feel a lot better about the process and be more likely to keep plugging along at each goal if you find yourself ahead of your deadlines rather than behind them. Give yourself some grace and wiggle room when setting deadlines for each goal, remembering that life likes to throw curveballs at you and you’ll want a little padding in those deadline dates in order to stay on track.
Check In On Your Progress
Depending on the long-term time period of your goals, you will want to check in on your progress every week or every few weeks. If your final deadline is a year from now, then go ahead and check in on your progress every three weeks or so. Add these check-ins to your calendar; they’ll only take a few minutes. Review your progress and figure out if you’re ahead or behind of your schedule. Make adjustments as needed to make sure your goals and the deadlines are still realistic.
Review Your Goals
Every so often, you’ll also want to review your goals. Are you still interested in the path you put yourself on? Are the goals that you’ve set still realistic? Did you break them down as much as you needed to?
If anything needs to be changed or if you’ve accidentally misjudged the amount of time you needed to complete any of your goals, then go ahead and adjust your expectations. There’s nothing wrong with adjusting based on the realities of your life.
In the end, taking a little bit of time to make a plan will give you the nudge you need to view your dreams as something that you can actually accomplish. This plan might require a bit of effort, but in the end, you’ll be headed down a new career path before you know it!
Washington Technical Institute
If you’re looking for a career pathway that is less costly and can be achieved in a matter of months, then check out the certificate programs offered by Washington Technical institute. Washington Technical Institute’s fully online certificates offer daily or bi-weekly start dates. Such flexible start dates make these programs unique and much more accessible for our students. Most of our certificates can be earned as a self-paced program, meaning that you can work at your own pace to complete your work, even finishing early if you have the time and motivation to do so. An additional benefit of WTI’s programs is that we offer affordable pricing and monthly payments to help our students leave school without debt.
Although our goal is to help our students graduate their programs with little to no debt, we also recognize that some students might need to utilize a loan for their educational investment. We are excited to announce our partnerships with Climb Credit or Ascent, student lending companies focused on financing career-building programs.
If you’re ready to enroll and start working on a plan for the personal and professional benefit of professional development, you can register for your program online through our website. Still have questions about our programs? Feel free to call us at 800-371-5581 or text us at 952-465-3702. Our admissions specialists will be happy answer whatever questions you have.
