If you haven’t already taken the steps outlined in the previous story, you may recognize yourself in one of the following excuses. As creative people, we can come up with some pretty clever rationalizations for not having written goals – and they’re all bogus. “I already have goals’.  Fair enough. Are they written down? Can…

Someone once made the observation that you spend more time planning a vacation than you do planning your career. Why is that? Think about how you plan a vacation. You start out thinking ‘oh, i think i’d would like to go to someplace tropical (or historical, or educational, or exciting). Then you start to narrow…

It helps to expose and explore some of the myth surrounding creative careers (and careers in general) before you go any further. Things can look pretty glamorous from a distance, but once you are within spitting distance, you realize that this is not anything like it was advertised to be. It also does not help…

Realistically at most you should pursue only three paths at once. If they all come under the umbrella of one career, all the better. This means everything you do feeds one or more aspects of your career. An umbrella title like storyteller, designer, inventor or performer can get you started on a career path, while…

Early in the planning process, you need to find out evertyhing you can about the field you think you want to go into. What exactly do you do day to day in this career? What are the trends? Hoe did others get their start? How do you get ahead? What are the negatives, the benefits?…

Who are the most successful people in your field. Would it be possible to write, call, email them, or meet with them, ask for their advice? Could you learn more about their path by reading articles about them? How did they get where they are? Any patterns you could follow? What are they doing that…

Right brainers are big picture people, but when it comes to detail (the devil is in the details) they get distracted. The possibilities are limitless, which makes the concept of planning a career overwhelming. The answer is to break it down, then simplify it and streamline it further. Who is doing what I want to…

Visualize exactly what it will look like, feel like, be like when you reach your goal. For instance, you want to have a novel published by a large publisher and sold and promoted nationwide. Picture yourself signing your finished book for anxious readers. Whom must you persuade to publish your book? An editor. How can…

It is not where you start that matters, it is where you finish.  It may be that in the early years of a career (or career change) you have to get the coffee, make the copies, and do the grunt work. Do it with a smile and some savoir – faire. Give people more than…

Money both helps and hurts when planning a career. Too much, and you get soft and are unwilling to take any risks. Too little, and you can’t function. Even so, that is the biggest obstacle people throw out when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of planning a career: How do I survive while I…

Do you think you are above having to work a ‘real’ job to tide you over while you work your plan? Try to find a job within your industry (for an actor, it could be a behind the scenes job, for a dancer it might be assisting the choreographer or teaching kids to dance, for…

Choose either a or b for the following questions:  Success in a creative career is the result of:                                                                          …