Follow the advice of Dawn Rosenberg Mackay and create your own career plan. Choosing a career, or deciding to change careers, is a crucial topic. It's not just a matter of deciding what work to do. If you think about the amount of time you spend at work, you'll realize how important your choices are. After all, 71% of our year is spent working.

Important points to keep in mind

When you're determining the direction of your work, there are four important steps that can help you orient your work.

Getting to know yourself better will help you decide what kind of job you want and explore the possibilities for you to try.

To increase your chances of landing your dream job, here are four steps.

Step 1: Evaluate the value you are looking for in your career

In this first step, you'll use a variety of tools to gather information about yourself, such as:

• Your interests: Things you love to do.
• Your work-related values: Thoughts and beliefs that are important to you and guide your actions.
• Your personality type: your social traits, motivations, strengths and weaknesses, and attitudes.
• Your gifts: natural gifts or abilities acquired through training and education.
• The working conditions you want: What kind of working conditions you want. For example, indoors or outdoors, in the office or at home, noisy or silent.
• Your developmental needs: Your cognitive abilities have an impact on the type of training or education you can receive and the type of work you can do.
• Your actual situation: Circumstances that may affect your ability to train or work in an industry.

In this self-assessment, you'll find out which job factors are most appropriate for you, but you'll need to know more before you can make a final choice. Step 2 will help you in your work.

Step 2: Investigate

Career exploration focuses on finding out which careers seem to be a good fit for you based on the results of your self-assessment and information that catches your attention.

Get job descriptions through some materials on the Internet, so as to know more about what the position entails, and gather some relevant information about the salary level and career development of your industry.

Once you've done this initial research, you can start weeding out those that aren't of interest to you and learning more about those that interest you. This is a great time to conduct informational interviews and schedule mentoring opportunities. In an informational interview, you'll ask people who are working on the job you're interested in asking questions about their work. "Undertake" refers to knowing what someone is doing by "following" him.

Step 3: Match your desires with work

In Step 3, you'll combine what you've learned in steps 1 and 2 to decide which career is best for you.

Identify the career or job you're most interested in, and identify one or two Plan Bs or Cs to have a back path if you can't continue with your first choice for some reason.

Think hard about how you'll prepare for your chosen career, the costs associated with training if necessary, and how you'll handle if you run into obstacles.

Step 4: Create a career development plan

In this step, you will write a career development plan. It will serve as a guide to achieving your ultimate goal of finding a job in a career that you think is a good match in step 3.

• Identify the short- and long-term goals you need to achieve to get a job in this new field.
• Start looking for the right training program, such as online training, certification, or university courses.

If you're ready to apply for a job, make a job search plan for your job search, write a resume and a cover letter, and start preparing for the interview.

What else you need to know about career planning

It's important to note that there is no end to your business plans. At various stages of your life, you may need additional training or certification to achieve your goals. Sometimes, there may be a new turning point in your career, and maybe you will redefine your direction and goals. In either case, taking the time to plan will keep you focused on your goal-focused path.

You can try to make a career plan on your own or find a career counselor who can help you. Working with a consultant, a coach, or a professional will give you a better understanding of your profession and uncover new opportunities that you didn't notice in the field.