Think back to a time when a “planning your career” surfaced the mental image of a concrete path, not to be deviated least it all fall apart.

Maybe that was years ago, or maybe that’s today.

This traditional pressure to plan your career is largely unhelpful.

A career, and the formation of one, is often a mix of deliberate and unanticipated (or emergent) opportunities.

Holding to a concrete path is only reasonable in certain circumstances.

For example, if you’ve found a job that provides the basics of compensation, respect, healthy work environment, challenging, etc. and now it’s time to take a deliberate strategy and progress in the company.

Or, if you haven’t found these fundamentals, it may be time to pursue other roles.

When planning your career, plan on a constant dance between an emergent and deliberate strategy.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash.