International Career Master Plan

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. – Jim Rohn

Before you invest your time and energy in searching for an international job, you should step back and create a bigger perspective around your current professional and personal situations. Designing your master plan for your career gives you the benefit of: 1. being effective and not wasting time and energy going through unlimited information on the web

2. following your personal goals rather than current international job market situation (being pro-active rather than reactive)

3. having a strategy to follow through

4. being able to develop a result oriented action plan

5. building up a professional network that gives you support in achieving your goals.

The most important personal requirements are:

1. be objective

The plan you design for yourself will be different from the one you will design for your colleague having the same personal and professional situation. Solutions and plans we design for ourselves are often somehow chaotic. This happens because we activate a different part of our brain for our own solutions and a different one for somebody else’s. Don’t judge yourself and don’t put yourself under the pressure with brand marks like “I have to do it…” etc., stay always objective.

2. be honest

This your plan! Somebody’s expectations about what you should be, what kind of title you should have etc. don’t belong to your plan. You are the only one taking responsibility for your own actions. Following expectations of others ends (unfortunately) often in blaming.

That is why I call it the International Career Master Plan because it is your plan of becoming masterful in career!

Here are some general tips on how to develop your International Career Master Plan:

1. Plan your life! Remember: having a plan makes you pro-active. What will the life achievement you are dreaming of be? Don’t judge, just go for it! Be creative and bold instead of coming up with a standard goal! Which smaller goals do you have to reach on the way of accomplishing bigger ones? 2. Work out the numbers!

When are you going to achieve every single goal? Mark the goals with dates. What kind of lifestyle would you like to afford? Play with some numbers, even if they may change in the future. The most important thing is to know what you want.

3. Add the skills and expertise!

What skills, what kind of knowledge and how many years of experience to achieve every single goal do you need? An international career requires cross-cultural competency, cultural sensitivity, openness, flexibility and adaptability among others. 4. Add places!

What are the places you have to be in that make your plan possible? Choose your global hot spots (rather than a country) and add them to certain goals.

5. Add people!

Working alone is hard! Create your support system of family members, colleagues, business partners, mentors. Who should you follow to become successful right now? Even now, you can build an international network by having an LinkedIn account. 6. Create a successful environment!

Create an environment for achieving each goal. A successful environment pulls you towards your goals instead of you pushing yourself towards each goal (it is your own interest not to burn out). What do you need to succeed now? What would you need to achieve other goals on your plan? Sometimes it is the best option to be in different cultures in order to acquire certain skills. Create these environments by going from goal to goal.

Be creative and playful about your plan and add more details so you can picture it better.

Finally, you have to know how to measure your success. Would that be a certain title, a leadership position or publicity? How do you know that you succeed now? How do you know you are happy? How do you express your own happiness? Reaching all of your goals only makes sense if you are honestly happy in your life. Having an awareness on recognizing your own happiness makes sure you are on the right path to a fulfilled life and successful career.

Posted By Anna Monka