COMMIT to a Development Plan – Part B: Align Your Plan With Your Long-Term Career Goals
Personal development is more meaningful with a clearer view of your ultimate goals. Taking a step back and reflecting on the bigger picture questions of your interests, motivations, relationships, ambitions, and long-term financial needs in relation to your chosen profession and current position can help you clarify your career aspirations. This in turn provides better context and direction for your immediate development plans.
You can use the AM Career Framework to help identify the role(s) you would like to attain in the next 5 to 10 years and the competency proficiency you need to achieve to allow you to succeed in those roles. Then you can adjust your Competency Development Plan to align with those longer-term desires. In this way your plan becomes a record of a larger journey and a living document detailing how your career evolves over time. While it is likely to change over time, just as you do, this future goal still gives you a direction to move in with purpose and structure.
Your career aspirations are also important to communicate to your supervisor. Once they know what your aspirations are they can assist you in moving in the right direction and possibly provide you with opportunities in the areas you wish to develop in. Your organization will also have long-term strategic needs to consider, as well as requirements for succession planning for key personnel. Being able to engage in a transparent conversation about the overlaps, gaps, trade-offs, and alignment between personal and organizational needs is important for both staff and supervisors as well.
Using the AM Development Tool to Assist in AM Career Planning
Tab 6 of the AM Development Tool can be used to assist in discovering and documenting future career aspirations so that they can be used to adjust the Competency Development Plan that has been developed. These bigger picture issues are most likely to impact the goals and strategies identified. It may be beneficial to use these considerations as a check to evaluate an initial plan before engaging in detailed activity planning. Don’t forget to revisit your notes here on a regular basis to confirm whether or not they still apply as your career evolves.
