How to Start

Step one.

Most career planning processes start by asking you your interests. This assumes that if you find something that suits your interests, you will be happy in your work.

The reality is that it is a bit more complicated than that. The first question I ask is always: What type of lifestyle do you want to lead?

If I asked you how much money you would need to be happy most would come back with a big number, like $5 million dollars, for example.

That number lacks context, however. What does $5 Million dollars provide in terms of your monthly salary?

Most people can define what they want out of life in terms of how big a house they want to live in, what kind of car do they want to drive, how many kids do they want to have, and the like. In fact, these may be the only concrete things you can define. Many would think of these things as superficial, but the reality is that they are the only things that we can quantify.

These things all come with a price tag. For example, if you are currently living on a salary of $2500.00 a month and you are not happy with your current lifestyle, then what would it take to make you happy. Not in a whole dollar amount, but in a monthly or weekly salary?

Would $5000.00 be enough?

What would be the monthly mortgage cost of the type of house you would like to live in. If you are married, then make sure your spouse is part of this, including their wishes as well. Now take that mortgage cost number and triple it. This is the minimum monthly salary you'd need to support the lifestyle that type of home would suggest. To be comfortable, I would quadruple the number, but that's just me. I like to eat well.

So .. if your desired monthly mortgage cost was $2000 a month, then you would need a minimum of $6000.00 a month to support it. $6000.00 a month, or $72,000 a year, is your lifestyle cost amount. To do so on less will be a struggle, but it could be done, just say hello to Overtime.

Now we can ask what you are interested in. If you are interested in becoming a medical assistant, for example, and you have no additional sources of income other than your salary, then your career choice and lifestyle cost may very well be out of sync. Most medical assistants are NOT going to make $72,000 a year. Most would be doing well at half of that.

What does this mean? Well, once you have your lifestyle cost amount calculated, you then need to ensure that jobs that you are interested in can provide for your desired lifestyle. If not, you are setting yourself up for disappointment from the beginning. Let me assure you, being unhappy with your job because it can never provide you with the lifestyle you desire is not a good thing.

Of course, you can go back and modify your lifestyle to the types of jobs you are interested in, there is nothing wrong with that logic. However, if you make a conscious choice to live a particular lifestyle because you find a particular job rewarding, then you have removed your frustration in advance by making an informed decision.

There are a number of other steps in this process, however, this one may very well be the most important. If you can not define the lifestyle you want to live and it's associated cost, how can you set any type of achievable goal?

Please. Give this some thought before going on to the next step.

copyright by the author, 2009