Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

We have recently talked about why career planning is important, if you want to refresh your memory or if you missed them, click here to trace the story.

Ladder Of Dream - Career Sample
Today I will give an example of how simple it is to create a career plan using The Ladder Of Dream (Click on image to get a bigger view):

Method Of Planning
This is a sample of career progression from a fresh graduate aiming to be a Financial Controller one day, not so far in the future. Was that hard to fill? Not really, you just need to know your goal and where you are now. Then you fill in the blanks in reverse (i.e. the logical step just before you reach your goal, etc) and your career path is drawn.

Important Note
It is important to remember that you don’t need to like any of the job in between, they are there as part of a career progression. You need to learn the skills in that position and do well enough to progress and move on. Your dream is that job listed in the number 1 position. But of course, if you like the job in between, it helps to keep you motivated naturally.

Why It Benefits
The number 1 factor that kept many employees from progressing (other then not having a plan) is - “I don’t like the next job that comes along with that promotion” but they love the next job beyond that. The job that incinerated most careers are called “Middle Management”. But with a little planning and a new perspective of it, you will be able to handle it.

Get Your Planning Tool Today
If you have not downloaded the free template and guide, click here to get it absolutely free. Share it with your friends and colleagues. Keep yourself updated when we release new tools, tips, templates and guides by subscribing to our newsletter here

Cheers
James

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

Today’s post is very late as I spent the better part of the whole day getting ready this gift for all you my dear readers

In the last 2 post, we talked about the need to formulate a career plan and the questions of “Who”, “What”, “How”, “Where” and “Why” of doing it. If you missed the post, check it out here:

Formulate A Career Plan, Its A Career Builder (Part 1)

Formulate A Career Plan, Its A Career Builder (Part 2)

Now that you know the basic mindset behind building a successful career, it’s time for you to plan one for yourself. What I am going to give you here is a goal setting tool I used personally and have benefited greatly from it. I have shared it on our blog a couple of months ago but it was brief and I only talk about the concept. This time round, I’ll share with you the template and the instructions or guidelines to fill it up. You can check on that post here:

9 Secret Steps To Life Transformation: The Ladder Of Dreams

So without delaying it anymore, you can get my personal goal setting template along with a basic guide by just filling up the download form at the top of the left side bar. The form looks like this image to the right =>

If you like the tool or have any suggestion, you can leave a comment here to let me know about it. If you know of anybody who may benefit from such a tool. Pass the word on and let them know.

So stop hesitating and start downloading and that is all for today! I need to go for dinner now, I’m famished!

Cheers
James

PS: This tool works for all sorts of goal, not just goal setting for career. I have also used it extensively in setting goals for my business, personal life and blogging

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hey Folks,

I’m back with part 2 of this post. I encourage you to read part 1 first before reading this post to get a full picture.

How Do You Achieve It
To achieve your long-term goal in your career, you need to plan far ahead. For example, if your desire is to be a CEO in 15 years time, You need to plan your career path to learn the necessary experience and skill set that enables you to fill such a solution 15 years later.

You can start by defining the skill set and strength of a typical CEO (by check recruitment sources on the internet) and plan what other pre-requisite positions (again by checking similar sources) you need to fill before that. Soon, you will have a road map that is your planned career path.

More often than not, employees get to where they are by chance. If midway through their current career, they suddenly decide some other job is what they really wanted, they find that they have a huge mismatch of skills or lack of certain criteria to change job. It is still possible to get there but it will take a lot of extra effort to retool their skills and gain the necessary experience to fill in the new job.

Where Can You Achieve It
With your career plan in hand, you will next need to find a company that have a position that requires your current skill set and has the opportunity to learn and progress to the next pre-requisite position on your career plan. Once you achieve that position, reevaluate if you can learn the related skills and experience for the next higher pre-requisite position in your current company, if you can stay on. If you can’t, it is time to move on to another company to further your career.

Remember, your dream is to be a CEO, not whatever position you are holding at that moment, so it is important to learn, gain experience and move on. In this phase, you will always find yourself learning more then you contribute. But whenever you can contribute, you contribute massively. That is how you learn and reciprocate at the same time.

Keep repeating and learning until you have gained all the necessary skills and experience required for your dream job. At this point, you will need to stop moving and work to deliver the massive value appropriate of your dream job. This is the time you make the big push to show case your value, skills and knowledge to make a name for yourself and land the job you dream of.

Why Do You Need To Achieve It
The last question that you need to ask yourself is why you need to achieve this dream job? Here are some typical reasons and the associated job that allows them to meet their needs:

- Wanted a job that pays me to travel the world and meet people (Regional Sales Director)
- Wanted a job that pays me to make policy and help people achieve better life (Civil Servant, Social Development)
- Wanted a job that allows decent pay that allows me to work from home so I can raise my kids while working (Telemarketer)
- Wanted a job that allows me to meet the rich and famous (TV Reporter)

Everyone has his or her own reason but this reason must be a strong pull factor that you are willing to work towards. Focus on the benefits of achieving it, the type of lifestyle that you want to achieve at the end of that road. You will need to keep reminding yourself of what is at stake because along the way, there will be some transitional job position that you won’t like but is necessary. So if that push factor is stronger then the pull factor from your dream, you will most likely give up.

So remember, a reason such as “it’s cool to be a CEO” will never get you there. Find a reason for yourself and make it a good one.

Tomorrow I will share with you a goal setting tool. Stay Tuned!

Cheers,
James

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hey Folks,

Welcome back to our new series - Build Your Career Like A Business. If you have decided to build your career like a business, most important thing to do first is to set some goals and get a business plan (or should I say career plan). There are 5 questions that you can ask yourself to help your planning.

Decide Who You Want To Be
You have to decide who you want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years time in the future.

Most employees I have met, including myself when I was younger, hate it whenever they were asked this questions. Some even dread the question. During appraisals and goal setting exercises, most employees would happily fill in the 1-year goal but often left the 3 year goal and 5 year goal blank. And their 1-year goal is often “To do my best and deliver my KPI or targets set”. Which tells me that they have no idea who they want to be!

The standard excuse given was “Why worry about what I want to be in 5 years time? I don’t even know what is going to happen tomorrow!” Or “It’s just a waste of time, do you think management cares about what we want to be? Just give me my pay increment and I’ll be happy”. The thing is, if you know who you want to be, you will never have to worry about what to do tomorrow.

Oh, just in case you are still thinking that working hard will get you a good pay increment, you might want to check out this post - “Misconceptions of Key Performance Indicators, Promotions and Pay Increments“.

What Do You Want To Be Known For
If you are just starting out, you may not have any idea of what you want to be known for. So the best course of action in the earlier years in your career is stick to being an asset. Check out this article to learn more about it - “How To Be An Asset And Not A Liability To Your Company“.

When you have established yourself as an asset in your company, you would have some solid work experience and already getting constant feedback about your work performances, strength and weaknesses. It is now that you should look into developing your strength and uniqueness. Here are some categories of strengths, just to name a few:

The Operator - People with this strength have the ability to micro-manage all sorts of day-to-day issues that happens in the company. They can multi-task with ease and thrive on details. Any well-run operations need one such talent.

The Planner - People with this strength are blessed with foresight and creativity. They have the ability to draw out strategic plans and directions that will help a company achieve its goals set far into the future. This strength is common to senior managements.

The Executor - People with this strength can take any plan or idea and make things happen. Companies love such traits when considering hiring someone to launch a campaign, product or services.

The Troubleshooter - People with this strength thrives on solving problems. Any and all problems can be solved and will be solved. The only worry they have is running out of problems to solve. A CEO hired to restructure a company typically has this strength.

Some of us have strength in more then one category, you could create your own unique strength by develop and combining them together.

To Be Continued
To keep this post short and sweet (500 - 750 words), we will talk about the other 3 questions in the next post. But before I sign off, I want you to understand something important here:

“Building a successful career does not mean staying in one job for 30 years.
Many successful careers were build over 20 years
by moving from company to company and delivering the massive values you create
when and where it is needed.”

Think about it.

Stay Positive,
James

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

Welcome back! If you have just joined us or you were so busy that you weren’t free to come by for the pass week, we have just completed our latest series called “Are You An Asset Or Liability To Your Company?“. In that series, we talked about what are the factors affecting how your boss determine how valuable you are and tips on how you can become a valuable employee. You may want to check it out.

Now that you know how your boss evaluate and decide how valuable you are and assuming you did all that and you are very successful at it. Does that make you indispensables? Is your job secure? Unfortunately not. The fact is anyone from the cleaner all the way up to the CEO can be replaced when the situation warrants such a change. The real truth is that there is no sure thing as a secure or indispensable job.

There Is No Indispensable Job
Look at Steve Jobs, he lost his job in a company he founded! Look at what happens when an MNC relocates it’s operations to oversea when it decides that it is no longer cost effective to operate in country. What I am trying to say is that sometimes, the factors are beyond what you can control. So what can you do about it?

Well, we can’t do anything to change those external factors but we can change the way we look at our job and career. This is what you can and probably need to do:

Treat your career as a business
and the jobs are services
that your business render to the customer,
which happens to be the company you are working for.
Only thing special is that this business takes on
only ONE contract at a time.

With just this change in perspective, you will never handle view your job in the same light ever again. Here’s what will change:

Looking For A Partner
When you look for a company to join, you will never lulled into getting a job that you have to compromise. You will actively be looking for a company to partner with to form a win-win partnership.

Branding
You will always be looking for ways to brand yourself, to differentiate from the crowd and creating uniqueness that other companies desire and are willing to pay for your services.

Renumeration
You will look at renumeration as a business would their profit and loss statement. You will fight for what you deserve and deliver what you were paid for.

Delivering Value
You will always be looking for ways to deliver a better value to your customer (the company you are working for, just in case you are lost) for the contract price (your renumeration) they awarded you. You will never be happy until you do so.

Efficiency
Time is money and OT is cost to you. Hence you will strive to work as efficiently as possible during office hour and minimized the OT whenever possible.

Self Improvement
A business that does not continue to innovate and improve is bound to get obsolete and you probably don’t want to be redundant at age 45 right? So self improvement becomes an important aspect that you cannot ignore.

All these changes comes naturally the moment you treat your career as your own business. Your focus shifts from having a narrow of a job to a much broader view of looking at your career. When you build up your career sufficiently, other companies will be fighting for the chance to partner with you. So who should be worried now, you or the company you are working for? Look at Steve Jobs again, he was so well branded that Apple has to get him back.

In the following post, I will be elaborating on how to fine tune your mindset and Build Your Career Like A Business.

Cheers
James

PS: Sorry I am a bit late today, I had to rewrite this post 3 times before it felt right. I am not sure how long this series will last but I’ll try to keep the following post to around 500-750 words (was not very successful the last round, my post got longer and longer. The last post was nearly 2000 words in length).

Popularity: 8% [?]