Life is confusing and difficult to navigate. It's easy to find yourself in a spot you want out of quickly.
Luckily, almost any circumstance can be changed, though depending on the odds stacked against you, the distance between where you are and where you want to be may be greater and more perilous than it is for others trying to get to the same place.
Even so, setting informed goals and working against them is the best way to put yourself in the driver's seat. When I was in high school, several of my close friends were killed by gun violence.
Knowing I didn't want to end up a statistic, I devised a plan to change my circumstances and to position myself for career success, with the hope of eventually helping others like me.
The plan was successful, ultimately taking me to a top university and to a prestigious job out of school.
As I got older, I honed my approach and distilled it into a framework that allowed me to eliminate my debt, assume several exciting leadership roles and even land on multiple 40 under 40 industry lists.
Here are the four easily repeatable steps I've used help myself and others map out and achieve career success relatively quickly.
Step one: Define success
Every person defines success differently. Start by listing all the most important things you want for yourself in any job; the attributes which lead to your fulfillment (e.g., travel, a team, hybrid work, decision making authority, etc.).
Once you've written everything you can think of, rank them from most critical to least. Look hard at the top of that list and identify which – if any of these – you consider non-negotiable. Bold those. Underline them. Carve them in stone.
Step two: Set a timeframe and establish checkpoints with milestones
At 25, I outlined several milestones I hoped to reach by 40 across a variety of categories (career, financial, family, personal development and travel).
To make them feel more digestible, I included five and ten-year checkpoints with milestones for each. When developing your own plan, you can consider this step 2a and 2b.
Try to ensure that the checkpoint goals you choose are designed to facilitate the successful achievement of your longer-term goals.
One person I worked with on their goals said he wanted to be both financially comfortable and holding public office at either the statewide or federal level by 45.
In order for that to happen, we recognized he would need to save money, pay off his debt and be in a role by 35 that would make enough money for him to invest in hopes of accumulating enough to be comfortable at the comparatively lower compensation levels of public office later on.
By 40, the goal was to take on community roles that would position him more directly as a natural pick for public leadership.
Step three: Identify gaps
This step has three parts.
First, list the experiences and capabilities required to successfully achieve your career goal.
Maybe you need a specific degree to be considered. Maybe it requires a new skill, like coding. Maybe there's an unwritten rule that you need to have experience running a P&L or directly engaging key external stakeholders like investors, regulators or media.
Get ideas by studying the backgrounds of those who have already done what you are trying to do.
Next, make a list of the experiences you already have covered. Be generous in this phase. Much of how people view your experience depends on how you position it.
Besides, you can always get a sense from others you trust whether what you've done already actually checks the box.
The difference between the experiences you already have and those required for where you want to be is your focus moving forward.
If you're aiming high enough, there will typically be significant gaps. That's great. List them as clearly and actionably as you can.
Step four: Put it to Use
As you begin to look at opportunities for your next step, assess them through the lens of your framework lists (developed in steps one through three).
Frame one – success measures. Any opportunity worth pursuing must at minimum meet your non-negotiables. Beyond this, seek opportunities that boast the majority of the qualities you are looking for, with additional weight going to criteria higher on your list.
Your list will provide you with an invaluable tool to talk to your current employer with more clarity about what matters to you and to prospective employers about what you are looking for.
Frame two – checkpoints and milestones. There are countless interesting opportunities out there which could be challenging, fun and even possess all your non-negotiables and most of your success criteria.
The next step is to assess whether it helps you achieve your overall goals. There are often many ways to arrive at the same destination, but if a path you are considering doesn't lead to the destination at all, you may need to think hard about whether it's the right fit.
If you believe it is, you may need to consider whether any adjustments should be made to either your timeframes or to the ultimate goals themselves.
Frame three – gap analysis. Let's say you have two opportunities in front of you and you've determined that both meet your criteria for fulfillment without taking you off the path to achieving your goals. The final filter is your gaps list.
The opportunity that most solidly addresses the highest number of gaps that stand between you and your goals is the one to go with.
This won't always be the option that's most fun or exciting and it will almost never be the easiest option. But it is the one that will bring you the greatest distance towards your goals most quickly.
Reversal
It's important to note that "speed to destination" is only one measure of success. Getting too caught up in the hunt can become an obsession, causing you to miss out on so many other important and beautiful things that life has to offer.
In my experience, I've also found that if your only focus is on the destination, it rarely feels as sweet when you arrive as it does when you've taken the time to enjoy and appreciate the journey that got you there.
When used correctly, this model should help you organize and focus your efforts so that you can get the most mileage out of fewer moves. It should also help make the career development process a lot less daunting.
By centering the experiences that can lead to the type of future you want to have – inside of work and out – you can find ways to move forward that maximize the doors you keep open along the way, while also taking into account the quality-of-life factors that matter most to you.
As you begin to plan for your success this year and beyond, consider whether this framework could work for you.
Inc
