How to Make a Career Change Plan You Can Act on Right Away
If you're here, you probably want to make some kind of change in your work life. Maybe you're skilled, experienced, and underused — and you know you're ready for more. The hardest part is usually deciding what change to make; building the plan that gets you there is the easier part, and that's what we'll do here.
Because clarity comes from good planning followed by action. Once you know where you want to go and you've set your goal, you still need a process — a set of concrete, actionable steps that take you from dreams and goals to a plan you can act on right away. Let's walk through it together.
Step 1: Set a Goal
Articulate your ultimate goal, the new job you’re looking for, the promotion, the advanced skills. (Stuck here? Module One of our Professional Development Course takes you from guided dreaming to goal setting, and it’s free until Labour Day.)
Then work backwards by making some small goals that can be achieved more easily. You want to break the big things in to smaller more achievable things. This might be talking to 3 people in your industry to gain some insight, or identifying alternative industries you could work in.
Take a guess how long will it take to achieve your goal. Identify which people, or kind of people, you need to help you. You’re getting ready to make a plan.
Before you move on, assess your goals:
· Which ones are achievable if the conditions are right?
· How do you make the conditions right?
· Will these goals help you get where you are headed?
Step 2: Research
Once you have a goal and you know the job you want, do some research on where the jobs that you want are: what industry, what town, what employer. If you don’t hit a bullseye right away, you can be a bit nimble, allowing yourself to be surprised and consider new places to work, or maybe a different industry. I mean, if you’re in finance, you can work anywhere big enough to need you: banking, government, tech, start-ups.
If you’re in tech, you can work just about anywhere from small business to big government to big business. It’s hard to get into big tech right now. Or, if you’re in tech, you might take those same skills and add some cyber-security or fintech to them. Those skills are in very high demand right now. Even if you’re not a tech person, learning about cyber-security or fintech so you can work in those areas putting yourself in greater demand.
Then consider the future of your industry and the current labour market within it. E.g. Are fewer people using AI to do more tasks? Are leadership roles typically being increased or decreased? Are geopolitical factors having a current impact? Identify a general outlook of jobs in your area by checking one of the boxes below:
Things are not looking good; I should plan for a change.
Things could go either way; I really can’t tell.
My industry has been through some changes and seems to have stabilized. The outlook is good.
The outlook is good in the short-term but maybe weak in the long-term.
I’m in a growth area and I feel confident about the future of my industry.
Step 3: Assess Your Skills
What skills are in demand in your industry? Do you have what employers are looking for? Do you have the skills you need to do the next job?
Identify the skills typically dominant in your industry. Below are the skills that employers say they want, but have difficulty filling so consider adding to your skillset:
· Soft skills often referred to as the 4C’s: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaborating and communicating.
· Hard skills, in particular, a familiarity with the artificial intelligence being used, or about to be used, in your industry.
Ask the internet, ask industry chat groups and ask people you know. Then think about how you might address those same gaps in yourself.
Consider the following questions, answering high, medium or low:
· How excited are you when you think about the new thing you want to do?
· How much time do you spend thinking about doing the new thing you want to do?
· Are you able to make some time to upskill?
· Do you have some money to pay for tuition or course fees?
· Are you willing to take the time to continue to develop your skills after some training, education or upskilling?
· Are you optimistic about your ability to make something new work? (We call this achievement motivation.)
· In general, what is your tolerance for risk?
· In the last ten years, have you continued to learn new things?
· How much would the new thing improve your life?
Mostly high? You're primed and ready for a next step. More medium and low? You can start small and work up to a bigger change.
Step 4: Talk to People
Ask people what they think of where you’re looking, where they think the jobs are and if they know someone who would answer some questions. Then develop some really good questions!
Identify 3 people you can talk to for more information about your industry and where the jobs are. Make a plan to speak to at least one this week and another one a day or two later.
Step 5: Persevere & Build Resiliency
In your plan, include strategies to keep going when things get hard. Because change is hard and it can take longer than we like. Identify people who make you feel like a champion and make a plan to get with them from time to time.
Identify things you do that make you feel strong and capable. Make a plan to do them when you need to encourage yourself.
Be prepared to take breaks when you need one.
Change is hard and it’s even harder if you try to do it alone. The Career Imagination Lab is here to help every step of the way. Our 5-part Professional Development Course covers all these topics and many more in much more detail. And it comes with two books including our 90-page Career Imagination Workbook, overflowing with questions and exercises that will keep you moving in the direction that is right for you.
But you don’t need to take the whole course to get started.
Build the plan with me — live
You've got the framework now. On Wednesday, August 12, we'll help you turn it into your plan.
This will be the live version of what you just read: one hour where we help you set a goal that actually fits your life, begin the research that makes it concrete, and map the first steps — the kind you can act on right away.
Because being skilled, experienced, and underused was never a character flaw. It's a market failure — and this is how you start working your way out of it.
Join us for a free one-hour session. Drop in, stay for the whole time, or just for a while. We’ll have a good Q&A session as well.
And then stick around to the end: there's something special for people in the room that won't make the recording.
Wednesday, August 12, 2026 · 5:00 p.m. Eastern
Register and get your reminder →