To ensure the success of a decision, it is useful to have a plan of action on how you will proceed. Action plans can set out:

• What you will do
• How you will do it
• What this will involve
• When you will do it by
• How you will know when you have achieved these things

Action plans are not set in stone and should change as you continue to move forward and refine your needs. It will help guide your activities and choices and allow for you to anticipate the impact (eg financial, time) that your development will have. It will also serve as a useful tool for evaluation of your progress.

Implementing An Action Plan
A thorough analysis of all the information you have gathered is essential to your success here so that you can effectively weigh up all the pros and cons of each option. If you do not have enough information to choose one option over another and make a decision then you may need to do more research.

Following this analysis, chose one of the options. You can now begin developing and implementing a plan of action. This might also include the development of one or more alternatives, contingencies or back-up plans. Such plans should contain acceptable solutions for your problems, as well as do-able, tangible career and life goals. Your alternative plans should also examine the roles or activities of others who may be able to help you. It should also anticipate potential barriers to your plans as well as ideas for overcoming such obstacles.

Re-evaluation and Life long learning
Re-evaluating your decisions and actions allows you to make adjustments and to see if your desired outcomes are being achieved. At a later point you may re-decide and move in a different direction. This does not mean that your earlier decision was necessarily "bad". You may have learned more, or things may have changed so that a different decision is required.

It is very likely that over the course of your life you will need to re-examine and readjust some of your career decisions and action plans in order to keep up with the rapidly changing world of work . By developing appropriate career management skills, you should be able to remain flexible in your approach.

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