You probably went to school, picked a career and found your first job (or you wouldn’t be reading Young And Employed), that was your 5-year plan back in the day (maybe 5 years ago), but do you know what’s in our plan TODAY?

I want to SUGGEST 5 categories for this 5-year plan (just to keep it simple); these categories (in no specific order) are:

1. Salary

2. Title

3. Responsibility

4. Power

5. Personal Time

The first thing to do with this list would be to arrange it in order of priorities.  Some are more into money, and others into power, for example.  Arrange it however you feel like, and then expand.

1. SALARY – There is a big difference in price and worth, you may be willing to pay $100 for a haircut, though you could find one price in $10; same thing applies to salaries.  What you are WORTH and what you MAKE are not always in the same line.  I won’t expand too much on this, but bottom-line you should know how much do you WANT to make, and that will give you some ideas of what do you need to get there.  Please take into consideration that some industries pay better than others, if you are in Marketing (like I am), don’t expect to make $200,000 a year like your friends the MD’s; you can make it happen, but it’s not the norm.

2. TITLE – Some companies give these out instead of a salary raise, and sometimes they come WITH a raise; either way, their importance is a variable controlled by you.  For me titles are useless, you can make $70K as an event planner, and $65 as a Marketing Manager or Director, its just a name that USUALLY tries to define your duties and responsibilities.  If you care more about your title than your salary (nothing wrong with that), you should write it down, you should not let yourself feel discouraged for what you make if you are going for Title (or maybe you should re-arrange the list).

3. RESPONSIBILITIES – What type of supervisor do you want to be, or if you want to supervise at all.  Some of us enjoy the responsibility that comes with guiding others; some don’t.  For those of us that enjoy this, it is important to set a goal of an approximate number of people we would like to supervise, the positions they would fulfill, and the kind of people you would like; but most importantly you should prepare yourself to be able to GIVE something back to those under you.

4. POWER – There is nothing wrong with power, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  You may be a natural born leader, with nerves of steel that wants to make important decisions for your employer, or be your own boss.  I know of people who went into their own business, and part of their incentive was to have total control (power) over the decisions of the company.  That’s all fine and dandy, but you need to be honest with yourself and figure out if you are indeed capable of making these decisions, if you are not, you have found something to work on.

5. PERSONAL TIME – Last but not least you need to think of your personal time.  Life comes at you fast, and your professional life should be aligned with your personal goals in life.  If in that other 5 year plan, you have decided you want to be a parent, you should take this into account when you are planning the professional side of you.  Many people don’t put this one as a priority, and that is perfectly fine as long as you enjoy your career in a personal level and manage to have the freedom you need; but for those of us that don’t think this way, it’s extremely important to count our personal life into our professional plan, or all other criteria of this list would fall apart.

There you have it, some unsolicited advice of how to plan your professional life.  Plans are supposed to and will change in time, they evolve, but your goals usually stay similar if not the same.

I hope this helps some of you to figure out the next step in your careers.

- Frank

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