How to protect your career

While career planning is important, it is important to avoid focusing on the optimistic scenarios.

Some ways in which you can safeguard your career include

Identify your assumptions: Jot down the assumptions you have been making about your professional and personal goals and prepare a contingency plan.

If you have trouble with this, start by envisioning your ideal career. Then, work backwards, imagining the things that could keep you from achieving this. This illuminates the blind spots that you might have otherwise glossed over.

Stress test your plan

After identifying your assumptions, stress test them. What could potentially Deceive, Disrupt, Degrade, Deny, or Destroy your intended career path?

Deceive: Check the accuracy of the information based on which you planned your career. For instance, Ashok began his career as a print journalist, believed the print media industry was at its peak and would provide good career growth. But he was laid off within a year.

In planning, Ashok hadn’t considered the potential for online media outlets to cut into newspaper revenues. With a bit of awareness, he could have formulated a Plan B in advance, instead of struggling to find a new job.

Disrupt: You might find yourself changing your career, sometimes due to a health emergency or a new personal or professional responsibility. Or responsibilities at the new job might take you away from your goals. Plan for this eventuality as well.

For instance, Manohar had a goal of writing a book on Software. While he accepted a job as a senior programmer at an IT company, he didn't consider the impact this career move would have on his goal. Though this career move may be a right choice, he could complete the book writing only after he quit the IT company after 5 years.

Degrade: Sometimes, the outcomes may be worse than expected. In 2019, Manohar had planned to earn an extra income in 2020 by being a guest faculty in a college.

This goal seemed reasonable in 2019, but the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 upset this goal. However, Manohar had planned for alternate sources of income through corporate consulting, apart from his work as a Senior Programmer, and guest faculty.

Since he is working from home as a senior programmer, he has time to work on consultancy .

Deny: Sometimes certain factors like business trends, or personal issues may hamper your plans.

For example, Manohar though had alternate plans, he was injured in a road accident and left temporarily disabled, which upset his income. Fortunately, he had bought an accident insurance policy that helped him lessen his burden.

Destroy: Sometimes, you may lose a few assets, like a longstanding client or business partner or essential infrastructure, which prevent you from achieving your goals.

What will you do if such a loss occurs? Prepare a contingency plan for such eventualities.

Manohar's laptop needed repairs and had to wait for a week, putting his jobs on hold. Fortunately, he hired an upgraded laptop and continued his work.

Defend your vulnerabilities

After identifying the threats to your career, you can avoid or mitigate such eventualities through rational analysis and the following strategies.

Look for other roles: If you hit a stumbling block in your career, then look for similar / alternate roles with the same benefits.

Limit the impact of Career disruptions: Once you have identified a potential threat, mitigate the damage by looking for a new job without quitting your present one.

Avoid focusing all your efforts in the present company if there is a likely threat of lay off.

In such a situation you can discreetly develop an external network.

Professionals with any experience can start developing new skills and connections in areas unconnected to their primary field, serving as a buffer against future disruption.

A career is a long term investment, and by proactively foreseeing potential threats you can solve the problems in your career before they occur.