I am a HUGE fan of using a Career Journal and a lot of my posts will be about ways to use your Journal as a Career Journal and to use it to help further your professional development.
A combination of both the Career Development Notebook and my own personal career journal helped me to achieve the qualifications I needed to progress my career, complete my training and get a new job. I am now continuing to use the techniques that I have learned to further my own professional development on the job.
So… how can you use a Career Journal to further your career development?
1. Write down good ideas
Sometimes I think the brilliance of it is simply having somewhere for all your career related ideas, thoughts and information. Ideas can happen anywhere. Having a dedicated place for this information means that you know where to find it again and makes it easier to review.
2. Learn… from your mistakes and other experiences
Write down what you’ve been through and make a note of what worked and what didn’t, and analyse what might help you in the future. There is always room for improvement, so by actively reviewing your performance and learning from any mistakes you will show others that you can learn from what you do and progress and this will lead to a greater professional success.
3. Keep track of Feedback and Advice
Keep a resource of feedback and advice for future inspiration.
4. Expression of Emotions
Like any ordinary journal you should write and vent in your private journal to get rid of any small daily frustrations and upsets. It allows you to keep petty upsets and arguments out of the bigger picture and allows you to deal with things and let them go privately.
5. Keep Track of Compliments
Keep track of your achievements. It does not have to be big, just keep track of the compliments and praise you’ve received.
6. Plan ahead
Use you journal to map out your career path… and how to you are going to get there. If you are in danger of simply coasting along in your job without progressing, or getting bored or frustrated, use your journal to write about opportunities you see for growth. Then use this to create a map of how you are going to get there.
Every small step counts and for many of you the first will be getting started with writing your own career journal.
Struggling to get started? Grab a copy of Prompt: 52 Prompts for setting up and writing your career journal.