Career Planning Adhoc Tips ..

1. Mantra to stay current and get ahead - Learn, Unlearn and Relearn 
2. Focus on Career goals(you do not have a way know what is your destination (or) measure success without SMART goals)
3. Being in your comfort zone will never take you in a nonlinear path; so move out of your comfort zone and make a difference. Plan & Execute ..
4. Do not explain to the people what you are planning to do; It's sheer waste of time; Just do it as everybody is interested in results not plans.
5. Stretch yourself and build new skills as you go along; Continuous learning is the key for great future.
6. Have someone(a devil's advocate) who can make you accountable and ask questions all the time - 
1. What, When, How & Why ???
2. What is your personal goal in next 10 years ?
3. What is your professional goal in next 10 years ?
4. What is your financial goal in next 10 years ?
5. Why did you take that decision 5 years back ?  Any specific reason ?
6. What you should have done better if given a chance to go back to the past ? Any constructive learnings ?
7. What did you do wrong ?
8. What you will do if you loose job tomorrow ? Do you have any other money generating ideas/business ?
9. What is the worst that can happen to you financially and what's the action plan when that happens ?
10. What will you do if you are bankrupted tomorrow ?
11. How is your life balance-sheet looking like ? success vs failures? energetic vs dull ? exciting vs monotonous ?
12. How is your financial balance-sheet looking like ? assets vs liabilities ?
13. Are you ready for drastic changes in life-style if something unexpected happens soon enough ?
7. Learn something out of your comfort zone (example: a techie learning sales/marketing which helps in influencing people)
8. Choose your priorities carefully; Deep vs broad knowledge
9. Focus on skills you need to differentiate yourself from others
10. Think of jobs that are interesting to you where you can make a difference ..
11. How can you add more value and maximize impact with whatever the resources you possess ?
12. Get biggest and ugliest job and get the job done and show the difference ..
13. Take temporary/short_time jobs out of your Comfort Zone and check how you are able to add value
14. Volunteer more work in your comfort-zone to create a brand for yourself
15. Talk to your manager about your aspirations and see where you can improve on and ask for help to prepare for future – positive collaborative work ; Make him an advocate for your work in your future endeavors.
16. Prepare for your next interview; Preparation is the key. You got to know your strengths and weakness and emphasize/focus on your strengths.
17. Step back and see what's your brand excluding your professional job; Find out the core work you did during specific job execution; Look at the big picture not specific area of work. example: You built a  whole new team in the project which when you generalize is equivalent to running a start-up company.
18. Get to know all your stakeholders and spend sometime with them and create bridges.
19. Find the people who can challenge you to stretch yourself which means coming out of your comfort zone and try something new that you are magically connected to. This personal should be a devil’s advocate and kill you with his questions which means Explore more of yourself meaning growth.
20. How to grow in your career -
1. Perform in your current job and there is no replacement for this ..
2. Have a Mentor (or) group of mentors
3. Your technical mentor
4. Your marketing/sales mentor
5. Your career mentor
6. Join Professional networks
7. Join  volunteer networks
8. Keep in touch with people & build relationships and maintain them ..
9. Professional networks & Personal networks
10. If you want to make a change in career (or) shift job -
1. Build right support system around you; It’s essential
2. Get a person who can make you accountable
3. Get a person who can ask all the difficult questions (like How you differentiate you from other ? what value you can add ?)
4. Is it your comfort zone ? (or) out of comfort zone ?
5. Is it helping in your broader skills of your future role/goal
6. You are never 100% ready but wherever there are more learning opportunities then go for it
21. Be ready for stretching more and steep learning curve and stressful times but that’s how we learn new stuff .. challenging ourselves.