Evaluate Outcomes

Once you have taken action, you will need to evaluate the impact this action has had on your overall plan. After completing an internship, what did you learn about yourself? What types of responsibilities were most rewarding? Least? What did you learn about the field in which you were working? Perhaps "taking action" was to simply conduct interviews with alumni to learn more about the medical school experience. What did they say your day-to-day life would be like? Were they all in agreement or did you get mixed messages? How is what they told you relevant to you?

ANY experience - taking a new class, doing volunteer work, speaking with alumni about their careers, or completing an internship - will give you an opportunity to learn more about yourself. You had to make a decision to take that class or talk to that alumnus/alumna, so what were the "consequences" of that decision? It is extremely valuable to take time to re-evaluate your overall plan in light of any new information gathered as the result of taking action. Keep in mind, you may have made an excellent decision and yet the outcome was still not what you expected. Re-evaluation is not meant to be a time when you punish yourself for making a "bad" decision. Rather, it is a time to say, "How can I shift or alter my action plan given that I have this new information about myself?"

Career planning is much more cyclical than linear. Once you have evaluated the results of your actions, you may find that you are on track and can move to the next action step. On the other hand, you might find that you need to go back to the self-assessment stage to clarify your interests or values before making the next decision. Serendipity, fate, or blind luck can certainly influence this process of planning one's career. You can organize your luck, however, through the knowledge and use of this 5-step model.