Chapter 3: Assessing Your Current Situation

We are all at different stages in our lives and you may want to take stock of your present situation because you feel you need to make a change. Check and analyze your progress to see exactly where you are now and what may lay ahead.

Checking Your Progress
Everyone can benefit from checking his/her career progress. If you are dissatisfied, it makes sense to stop and ask yourself why. Even if everything is going well, it is still a good idea to check that you are doing enough to maintain this progress. By taking stock of your current position, you can identify what to do next. Look at where you have resources to use and where there are gaps to be filled, perhaps by training, mentoring, or a change of career. Is there any aspect of your current position that you would like to change? For example, you may feel that you deserve more financial reward for your effort, a promotion, or a new challenge.

Stopping to think - Feeling bored or under-employed is sign that you need to stop, take stock of your current position, and identify how to put under-utilised skills to better use.

Analyzing Your Process
How did you get to this point in your career? To find out, consider your career in the three ways. Firstly, pay more attention to events and changes that have occurred. Secondly, study closely the experiences you have gone through so that you can analyze the causes and effects of your own behaviour and that of others. Thirdly, evaluate the consequences of particular types of behavior and decisions that you have taken. These three tools - attention, analysis, and evaluation - can provide the information you need.

Evaluating career moves - Get into the habit of logging events and career changes as soon as possible. Make a start by analyzing what has happened so far, using your CV to prompt your memory.

Considering Your Career

Top Ten Reasons For Career Repositioning
Here are some factors that have motivated others to start managing their career. Do any of them relate to you at the moment?

1. Facing a crisis.
2. Reaching a career crossroads.
3. Having to make a crucial decision.
4. Recovering from a difficult period.
5. Needing longer-term changes.
6. Wanting to improve future prospects.
7. Looking to match the fortunes of others.
8. Ending a period of drift.
9. Feeling confused and unclear.
10. Wanting to take more control over all areas of life.

Key Points

1. Know yourself - this is the key to managing your career successfully.
2. Ensure that you understand all the different aspects of your career.
3. Use dissatisfaction to prompt you to plan your career more actively.
4. Analyze the past to help you illuminate the future.

Read Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

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