Advancing and growing in your career can be a challenge that requires extensive planning and discipline. Not surprisingly, this can be a task that many people will struggle with, but learning these abilities can go a long way in allowing you to progress through your career.

Continually Develop New Skills

In order to advance in your chosen career, you will need to constantly acquire new skills that can help to increase your value to your organizations and to help you qualify for more advanced positions. Formal classes and training are not the only types of skill development that you should pursue. Even information and skills that are self-taught or otherwise not suitable for inclusion on your resume can still prove to be useful as you are addressing the challenges that arise in the course of performing your duties.

Stay Informed About Industry And Career Trends

Staying competitive in an evolving workplace and market will require you to make sure you are staying informed on the changing trends and conditions that are currently occurring in your profession. Subscribing to industry and professional magazines or other publications can be an effective and convenient way of learning about these trends so that you can make the necessary changes to your career plan to stay ahead of the curve in your profession.

Create A Written Plan For Growth

Another simple step that can be useful as you are attempting to manage your professional career can be writing down your plan for growing and developing your skills. To keep this plan flexible, you may want to break it into medium and long-term phases. This can allow you to make changes to your goals in response to changing personal preferences, market conditions or family obligations.

Consider Your Personal Life When Creating A Career Plan

For individuals that are highly motivated, it can be easy to create a career plan that is simply too aggressive to be able to be balanced with their personal lives and needs. This can create tension that may make it difficult for people to perform at their peak levels for their work, and it can also lead to intense emotional stress. Creating a career plan that allows you to continue to meet your personal and family needs while continuing to advance your career will stimulate deep thought and personal reflection as it will depend on your time commitments and personal stamina. Working with a career coach can help you to properly assess your options when creating this strategy.

To learn more, look for resources such as career plan coaching podcasts.