Significance of a career development plan

You may be just about to start a career or have been into one for a couple of years. Whatever be it, it is crucial to have a career development plan. As it is, your career journey will have its ups and downs, however, sans a plan, the ups and downs will become very arduous. Under ideal circumstances, there should be somebody to show you the way right from day-one.

Your career development plan is similar to any itinerary that you make when going on a holiday. You will have an embarking station and a destination with a number of objectives strewn in between to be attained. In essence, this implies picking a job, applying for it, getting selected for it and moving ahead thereafter.

It needs to be appreciated that your career path will change with the passage of time. And it is not necessary that just because you drafted a plan, you will have to adhere to it all through and through you career. A career development plan is intended to help you have a relatively clear impression of where you want to be in your career and help you tide over difficult stretches of your career journey.

The world is witnessing a state of flux and hence it is understandable that sticking to a plan is not feasible. Your career plan will be subjected to change and that will call for flexibility to adapt to altered situations. The foregoing notwithstanding, the need to have a career development plant cannot be dispensed with; you may perhaps go for professional guidance for its origination. However, you can do it yourself, provided there is no ambiguity in your mind about what you seek and the method to go about it. The bottom line of course is that your career development plan has to be one that you can follow. It has to be meaningful for you as an individual. 

Career planning is a critical step in your life and inescapable for achieving success. You simply cannot jump over it. Every individual has his or her own particular objectives; and your career development plan facilitates their attainment. However, a significant part of the planning process comprises developing specific career goals and charting out a route for achieving them. To do that, you must know what matters to you. In case you are not very clear about what you aspire for, there is nothing wrong in taking help from a career counsellor. You will be able to discern your fortes and establish how they connect with the creation of a successful career. Knowing your fortes is essential before you plan the next move, which happens to be setting objectives.

When you set objectives, you need to reflect on various factors. Are you simply in a job and not yet decided about your career? In your job, what is that puts you off the maximum? If you are already in a career, what is about it that you like? These questions are a part of a jigsaw that you should be adept at to create a concordant picture. You will have to persist with your contemplations to discover more about you so that you can identify your poise, fervour and meaning. It should be remembered that sans identification of your passions and aims, you are likely to go off-track and land up in a job that is not cut out for you. To preclude career mismatches, a career development plan is unavoidable.

All things considered, the importance of a career development plan cannot be undermined. It will inevitably be focussed towards you and what goes in to make a person that you are. Hence, finding a work-life balance is both a prerequisite and an entitlement. You need to enmesh your zeal, purpose and individual realisation in your career.  It is only then that you will attain a level of satisfaction that people fancy. You have to superintend your career if you want your dreams to materialise.

Career development planning implies laying the future of your career in front of you today so that you can start doing something about it immediately. There will always be some costs and risks to the action that you take, but they would be far less than the long-term perils associated with zero planning. Your planning will help you shape good career decisions and make even feeble dreams become reality. That is why they say that failing to plan is planning to fail.

When you prepare well, the prospects of poor performance are obviated. In case you do not plan the development of your career, you will have to subsist with just your wishes and hopes. But if you do, the sky will be the limit. Eventually, it is your resolution, zeal, action, commitment and tenacity that will bring you success in your career.