Success Recipe – Planning Your Career Success Dish

As with all good dishes, knowing what you want to cook and having the right ingredients is only part of the story. Your career success recipe has higher chances of being successfully cooked if you have a plan. This plan ensures that the right equipments are in place just as you prepare the other components to your recipe for career success.

Include These in Your Career Success Recipe:

1. A SMART Plan
A career success recipe is never complete without a SMART plan. What is a SMART plan?

Quite simply, a SMART plan is one that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound. What does it mean? It basically means you need to know what your goal is; can you quantify this goal; can you reach it; can you center on its outcome and is there a time limit to when it should be achieved.

A SMART plan should be part of any good career success evaluation. Even if it does not appear as it is, elements of it should be part of the evaluation.

2. Skills and Knowledge
Yes, you would like to cook your dish of success. But do you have the necessary skills and knowledge to cook this success recipe? In planning your career success, access your skills and knowledge. Imagine someone who doesn’t know how to cook saying he/she wants to cook a 10-course dinner at the first try and make it a success.

Once you have accessed the level of skills and knowledge for cooking this dish of career success – take steps to strengthen your weak parts. What are some of the knowledge gaps? Do you have any skills that need polishing? Know someone who has cooked this dish before?

3. Look for a Mentor
Think of yourself as an apprentice in the kitchen. There are bound to be people who have cooked the dish that you plan to cook before. Learn from their mistakes and emulate their steps. Appropriate them to your character and personality. Some companies have formal and informal mentorship programs. You can always seek out your own mentor.

A mentor can guide you in cooking this success recipe. A mentor’s primary role is to teach and advice. You should accept your mentor’s advice with openness and respect although sometimes these can be a little hurtful. For as long as your mentor is professional and delivers the advice with tact, remember in the long run it benefits your pursuit of career success. In this example, the realization of your career success recipe into a career success dish.

Let’s Summarize
In the previous articles you have read, it is important to know what is the success recipe you want to cook. Next, you read what are the key ingredients in a recipe. In this article you find out that having both of these components are not enough. You need to plan in order to increase the chances of success.

(This is Part 3 of a 5 Part Article)