Transform your career goals with a five year plan by shaping your trajectory and making the most of oppotunities which come your way.
A five year plan is a great way to keep your career on track and achieve your goals. It is in essence a structured list of goals of what you want to achieve with matching ambitions, specific timelines and measurements. The shorter term goals enable you to identify the steps you need to take to achieve the longer term goals.
In this article we will go through some tips for how to create your ultimate 5 year plan. You can do this as you go along with our FREE template for you to use.
Download Your 5 Year Plan Template
Plans Change and That’s Totally Fine – Even a Great Thing
The first thing to clarify right off the bat is that plans change. It is totally fine if your plans change.
Short term planning is essential but it is pointless without a longer term vision. We live in a world that is changing faster than ever and if you don’t have a long term plan you run the risk of lurching from short term opportunity to short term opportunity without making the most of your skills and knowledge, which compound over time.
Careers are long and opportunities are immense, especially in an ever-changing and evolving healthcare landscape. It’s important to remember that careers are individual and definitely not a race. Everyone is different and therefore opportunities, pace and catalysts are often different for each of us. The only commonality between us all is that consistency is the key to success.
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Brad Stulberg, the author of Peak Performance: Elevate you game, avoid burnout and thrive with the new science of success talks a lot about consistency being the most important trait to success, even more so than being heroic.
Don’t aim for consistently heroic efforts. Aim for being heroic at consistency.
Heroic efforts = take a huge toll emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Not a sustainable thing to strive for.
Consistency = compounds over time. Good enough over and over again makes you great.
— Brad Stulberg (@BStulberg) September 18, 2018
How To Make a 5 Year Plan
- Reflection & Forward View
It’s really important to take time to stop and think about what matters most to you to help draw out your values and beliefs to set authentic goals. From your reflections you’ll be able to brainstorm some ideas for goals and refine them. You’ll then be able to add your reflections to a SWOT analysis which is step two. - SWOT Analysis – Leverage Your Super Skill
What’s your super skill? This is a really important answer to have as this is your unique selling point – the thing that sets you aside from your peers. You want to keep developing your superskill as you move through your five year plan so it becomes something truly indispensible in any aspect of your career. That’s not to say you should neglect your other skills as they will need to improve too. - Setting Smart Goals
SMART goals aren’t just for patients they are great for setting your own goals and objectives too. Make sure they aren’t superficial, take time to make sure they are something you want to achieve and authentic to yourself. Remember to stick to your values and beliefs – just because other people are achieving more or less than you and moving at different speeds, doesn’t mean you have to as well! - Revisit & Revise Your Plans
The most important part of a plan is setting time aside in the future to review where you are at. By looking back at your goals you can adjust targets and automatically reflect on your journey. Remember it’s you that decides what makes you successful.
Our Download Your 5 Year Plan Template
We have a really simple SWOT analysis and 5 year plan template for you to use. It’s in the form of a google doc so make sure you make a copy before you edit it!
Download Your 5 Year Plan Template