You can ask yourself: Is my career helping me achieve the ultimate goal of life? If the answer is no, then simply change your career. If changing careers is unrealistic, then you can further ask yourself: Is there a way to align my current career with my basic life purpose? The answer to the second question is often yes. For example, a successful lawyer who is not satisfied with material wealth might use some of his energy to do public welfare work and gain spiritual satisfaction from it. Another example is an auditor employed by a company who might work part-time as a lecturer at a nearby university during his free time, gaining satisfaction from summarizing practical experience into theory that he cannot get from his daily monotonous work.
The so-called major life purpose should be a fixed goal that you pursue throughout your life, around which all other events in your life revolve. For some people, this process is a happy one of self-discovery; but for others, it may be more painful. Because they need to pull their emotions back to their youth when they had not yet doubted the ideals they embraced. To find or regain your major life purpose, you can ask yourself several questions, such as "Who am I?", "What kind of cause do I want to accomplish in my lifetime?", "Looking back at the end of my life, what will satisfy me the most?", "In my daily life, which type of success makes me feel the greatest sense of achievement?"
Many people have compared life to playing chess, and these two indeed have similarities. Chess requires calculation, and life has its own set of rules; the process of chess is full of twists and turns, just like life which is filled with countless turning points; the style of chess moves reflects the style of life, some are conservative, some are aggressive, some are calm; the ending of chess is also like the ending of life, there are winners and losers, those who succeed and those who fail... But perhaps the biggest similarity is: every move in chess is a choice, and life is the same. There's a saying in chess, "One wrong step, and everything goes wrong," "One careless move, and the whole board is lost." Similarly, if life's critical moments are chosen incorrectly, it can lead to lifelong regrets that are hard to make up for. I have carefully formulated the following personal career plan to ensure that I take each step of my life well.
Step Two: When you can express your life purpose in a simple sentence, then you should start preparing to achieve this goal.
Step Three: After figuring out how your career will help you achieve a greater life purpose, you should begin considering the specific details in your life and career plans.
You need a detailed personal career growth plan. This plan can be a five-year plan, or even a ten-year or twenty-year plan. Regardless of the time frame, it should at least answer the following questions: 1. What specific career or personal goals do I want to achieve in the next 5, 10, or 20 years? 2. How much money do I want to earn or what level of earning ability do I want to reach in the next 5, 10, or 20 years? 3. What kind of lifestyle do I want to have in the next 5, 10, or 20 years?
Step Four: After forming the above specific short-term goals, you should plan how to achieve them.
How to plan your life?
Step One: Discover or figure out what your major life purpose is.
There is an ancient Chinese saying, "If you prepare for everything, you will succeed; if not, you will fail." Regarding life, you must set yourself a goal to avoid losing direction.
The answers to these questions will provide you with a list of your short-term goals. In forming these goals, don't rely purely on logical thinking. This type of decision-making requires creativity, and you should mobilize all factors including your emotions, values, and beliefs. If you are married, you also need to consider your spouse’s emotions, values, and beliefs because in any major decision, he/she always influences a part of your personal life.
In this aspect, the choice of career is the key issue you need to focus on. You should know that a career is a tool, a means to help achieve your ultimate goal. The importance of your career-life plan is akin to a general planning a war or a football coach determining the strategy for an important match.