Activity: Career Planning

Evaluate personal assets and external factors to inform your career direction and decision-making

Drawing from the information you gathered in the Personal Assets and External Influences modules is important! You need the information you have collected as a reference for the next part of this worksheet. If you have not completed these modules, consider doing so now.

Your values are running in the background whether you are conscious about this or not. They influence your decisions in multiple areas of your life, from the clothes you buy, to the people with whom you choose to associate. 

Review your list of values that you identified from the Uncovering Personal Assets Worksheet and add these values to the Values area on the Career Planning Worksheet. 

Also, if there are values you feel that are the most intrinsic or core to who you are, then list them as well in the Values area. 

Continue with this process with the skills you enjoy, the skills you want to develop, interests (from the Personal Assets Inventory Workbook), and your personal factors. Enter them in the spaces provided - follow the prompts on the worksheet, or write them in your personal journal.

Next, carry on with the same process from your External Influences Worksheet and enter what you identified in the spaces provided. These external influences can provide direction. Perhaps, you found the healthcare industry of interest, this is a clue for further investigation.

Another area to give some attention to is, why do you work? What does work mean to you and what is its purpose in your life? Is it for: 

• financial stability, 
• higher income,
• ambition,
• reputation or status,
• sense of identity, 
• intellectual pursuit, or 
• purpose and meaning? 

Here are a few additional ideas: 

• “to make a difference..., 
• for a cause you feel deeply about,
• to leave a legacy,
• to create a better future.”

(Say, 2006)

Now, move to the next page to reflect on this important information!