How can you get where you want to be if you don't know where you are going?
Sure, some people luck their way into success...but that's the exception, not the rule. Most successful people become that way by knowing what they're striving to accomplish.
These people take the time to figure out what they want out of their careers in the next 10, 20 even 30 years. Now that's strategic thinking.
How can you know what you want 20 years from now when you can barely decide what to have for dinner? In large part the answer is in stepping back from your life. Life comes at us so fast that we become too focused on daily issues. We don't leave time to think strategically about our life or our career.
We all know the old saying "Can't see the forest for the trees." The same is often true of our lives and our careers. However, if you step back far enough, everything comes into focus.
As a Career Strategist, that's what I help clients do. I provide a structure and environment in which you can clearly understand your priorities and see how to work toward goals that are important to you.
Developing a career strategy doesn't mean you are locked into a single, unchanging path. As people grow, mature, and learn they may decide changes in their path are necessary. That's just fine. There is still value having had the old strategy. Almost by definition, people who have a strategy will accomplish more than those who don't.
This is the reason companies invest so much time and money in developing strategic plans. More is accomplished when there is a focused mission as opposed to when you just take what comes along.
Knowing where you are going and having a plan to get there will not only increase your career success, it will also increase career satisfaction and, consequently, result in more happiness outside of work as well.
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