The message is everywhere – in order to be successful you must have goals. Well, that may be true, but most people have very little understanding of how to develop, manage, and maintain these goals. Good news – help has arrived! Your Career, Your Way takes this overwhelming task and breaks it down into a step-by-step process.
For those who have struggled with letting their career manage them, have been overlooked for career advancement, or have a hard time selling themselves in interviews, this book will help you find your way. Taken from the perspective of strategic product planning, the book points out the importance of understanding your product (assessing your assets and liabilities), assessing differentiators (your distinctive assets), obtaining customer feedback (testing your beliefs), evaluating your competitors (determining what you need to do to be the best for the job/position you seek), determining your goals (short and long term stepping stones), and creating your strategic plan (pulling it all together to create your career roadmap). Once you have completed the exercises and are on your way to making your career goals happen, it’s important to check your progress, stay the course, and celebrate and reward achievements. The book provides templates for working through the process as well as sample stories to provide guidance throughout the steps.
The book sets such simple and clear guidelines you’ll wonder how you ever struggled with goal setting. The satisfaction of taking control of your career and the self confidence that will come with understanding your product (you!) will make you wonder how you ever survived without these vital tools.
Lisa Quast spent years writing strategic plans that created roadmaps for products and businesses to be successful in the market place. Suddenly, while feeling discontent with the direction, or more specifically the lack of direction, her career path was taking, it occurred to her that she could apply her strategic plans to a new product – her career. What has resulted is a brilliant tool to guide woman toward taking control of their career, understanding where they want to go, and what they need to do to get there. This is an absolute must read for anyone – while written for women the tools and techniques apply to everyone – and every goal.