Developing a Strategy

To keep moving forward you need to have a strategy. You don't  need to have made any  final decisions – you may still be working on several possibilities. You should:

• Identify and prioritise the strands – be as specific as possible
• Identify any gaps or discrepancies in your knowledge and experiences
• Explore what you can do about these
• Identify a range of possible routes to your goals
• Investigate ‘stepping stones’ for each route
  

Your Action Plan

Whatever your goals, whatever stage you are at in the decision making process, you are most likely to make progress if you break down the tasks you have to do into small steps and then identify the actions you need to take for each step. Many action plans fail because the tasks appear too difficult. You may have several goals – but you need to break each down into a list of tasks. Set a timescale for each action – but be realistic – do not expect the impossible.

Firstly identify clear and specific goals – these could vary from ‘find a job as an editor in Publishing’ to ‘explore the training courses for secondary teaching in Scotland’ or even ‘revisit my responses in Prospects Planner to narrow down my options’.

For each goal determine:

• What actions you will take
• How you will take action
• Who or what will help you
• Why you might not take action
• When you will take action

 
A sample action plan and action plan template are provided for you to create your personal action plan.