Planning your career can be a total pain, but it’s necessary. Developing a career plan will force you to plan ahead and focus on your long-term goals. Creating your personal plan now will: help you continue to move forward in the your career; acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses; keep you from feeling unprepared during your journey. Career planning is for all stages whether you’re just beginning or well into your career.

Need to know where to start?

Discover your goals. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? “Goal Setting” by Gyst-Ink has downloadable three-month, one-year, five-year, ten-year, and a life goal form already drafted for you.

What are your strengths and weaknesses? “How to Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses” by Jonathan Michael will help you get started. This article gives you different ways of exploring what you’re good at.

Suggested Books:

• Go Put Your Strengths to Work By Marcus Buckingham
• Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

Learn how to organize and manage your time. As artists, we often neglect the administration side and focus all of our attention on our craft. If we want to grow and move forward, we must find balance. Read “Time Management and Organization” by Gyst-Ink.

Develop a business plan for yourself. Artwork Archive gives you 6 steps to creating the business plan you’ve always wanted here.

Suggested Books:

• The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur by Jim Horan
• Become Your Own Boss In 12 Months: A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business that Works by Melinda F. Emerson

Use a Time Use Log. Record the time you spend on every
single activity each day for two weeks straight, without judgement, and at the end add up your time into categories of tasks like social media, chores, sleeping, etc. Just making yourself conscious of how you spend your time each day will often motivate you to change your habits. Download here.

Write your obituary to get a clear picture of your lifelong goals. This is a very helpful exercise to force you to think about your life in a longer time frame. It’s the perfect way to get at the larger question of what you want your life to represent. Download here.

Discover where you plan to develop your practice. Location, Location, Location! It’s important to figure out where the development will begin. Think about how much space you actually need rather than want. In the beginning, it should just be enough to start off whether its at home, a small office, or sharing with someone. Here is a great topic that helps you transform a space you already have into a working space: Your DIY Guide to Designing a Home Art Studio.

Below you can find more resources:

Houston Resources

Small Business Development Center (SBDC): With resources and advising to growing your business, SBDC is one of Houston’s free services. They provide rental space, webinars, workshops, and more.

More Resources

Capitalizing Your Strengths by Creatives and Business LLC

27 Best SMART Goals Examples for Small Businesses in 2019

Example of a Business Plan (PDF)

Pomodoro Technique for Time Management

Music Studio Tips: Creating a Space to Inspire Creativity and Productivity

How To Build Your Own Recording Studio

(Book) The Artist’s Guide: How to Make A Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield