In such a challenging economic and workforce climate, career development means different things to different people:

getting that first job, keeping your current job, returning to the workforce after a long hiatus, dealing with redundancy and unemployment, starting an entrepreneurial venture…

Having personally been in all these situations, I wish I would have had a mentor back then, a coach, a book, someone or something to help me through the process more quickly and with more ease.

Unfortunately, back then I didn't even know there was help available, and therefore I had to do it all on my own.

Thankfully, you don't have to do it on your own any more. Whichever part of your career path you are at, you can benefit from the learnings that have allowed me and many other entrepreneurs achieve great and lasting success.

But first of all, you must know what you want.

Having a vague idea of what you want in life will bring you... more vagueness. Knowing what you want but using all sorts of excuses as to why you won't be able to achieve it will bring about, well, not much.

In or to get what you want you need to know what it is that you want. And you need to write it down too, by following the following NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) coaching rules for well formed outcomes:

1. IT NEEDS TO BE SPECIFIC: What do you want specifically?(write it in short affirmative sentences), when do you want it (dates!)? Where do you want it? With whom do you want it? and what for?The more specific you are the better. Why? Because your brain, just like your computer software, likes orders short and to the point.

2. HOW WILL YOU KNOW YOU'VE ACHIEVED IT? What will you be able to see, hear and feel? By engaging all or as many of your senses as possible you will make it more real in your mind. And your mind does not know the difference between a vividly imagined memory and a real event!

3. What are the good and bad points in terms of impact on your life? IS THIS WORTH IT,and why?

4. IS IT UNDER YOUR CONTROL or influence? Sometimes we want for things that are completely out of our control, such as winning the lottery. Winning the lotto is not a goal, is something that may or may not happen, but unless you are Derren Brown, it is not under your control or influence.

5. What'll happen if you get this?

• What'll happen if you don't get this?

• What won't happen if you get this?

• What won't happen if you don't get this?

By asking yourself and answering these last four "convincer questions" you'll either realize that you want what you want more than you thought, or you may decide that it's not for you after all. These are challenging questions that will make you go inside and come up with some insightful answers.

6. WHAT RESOURCES DO YOU ALREADY HAVE to help you achieve this?

7. WHAT RESOURCES DO YOU NEED? Resources are: people, books, training, money, materials...

By now you'll have a good idea of whether what you want actually an objective worth pursuing, something that will enhance and enrich your life, something you can do.

The next step is devising a plan of action:

8. WHAT'S THE FIRST STEP you can take towards your goal? What has to happen for that to happen? What is the next step? And so forth...

The steps to take should be small enough that you can do something about them within the next 24 hours, and challenging enough that when you think about them you want to get going right now!

Want to know more about how you can take your career to new heights?