Benjamin Todd

Explore to find the best longer-term options for you.

Two, build career capital towards those options.

And three, deploy the career capital you've built to tackle pressing problems and bargain for a job you find personally satisfying.

Your plan will change, and most people can't predict what job they'll be doing in 10 to 20 years.

But it's still useful to have a broad, longer-term vision, two to five global problems you might try to solve, and one to five potential roles you'll steer towards longer-term.

It's even more important to devote time to finding your best concrete next step, a specific job, educational opportunity, or project you're going to do in the next one to three years that will increase your impact or career capital.

Generate a long list of ideas for next steps by working backwards.

Look for options that accelerate you towards your longer-term vision.

And working forwards.

Look at the opportunities right in front of you, even if you're not sure where they'll lead.

Then, create an ABZ plan.

Plan A is the top option you'd like to pursue, or a series of paths you want to try out.

Plan Bs are the promising nearby alternatives you can switch into if Plan A doesn't go as intended.

And Plan Z is your temporary fallback in case everything goes wrong.

It helps you feel more comfortable taking chances.

Identify key uncertainties with your plan, then investigate them.

If you need help narrowing down your vision or your next steps, take a look at Appendix 4.

Finally, set a time to review your career, typically within 6 to 24 months.

You can use our tool to help, available at 80,000hours.org slash career hyphen planning slash annual hyphen career hyphen review.

Chapter 10.