Strategy is how you operate your major plans. Tactics are the small scale operational methods you use in situations related to your strategy.

For careers, strategy is often a process of setting up your qualifications, targeting employers, and working on a structured approach to achieve your goals. The tactical element is dealing with the related local situations in the process, and finding the good working methods you need to achieve them.

There's a real need to have a big picture, a strategic perspective, in any career. Many careers get seriously damaged because people just don't look where they're going, or even attempt to define what they're trying to achieve. They stumble along, getting hit by life's supply of problems, and then wonder where 20 years went.

You need a strategic goal, and that will start to explain to you what resources and methods you need to achieve it. Careers do have obvious requirements, but you need to have a definite target for realistic planning. The tendency is for people to want to become accountants or doctors, but with no idea of what sort of accountant or doctor, and the whole idea comes unstuck at that point. They drift with the tides of their jobs, and if they're at Square Two, Square Three is just as far away as ever.

What's your strategic goal?

• Define it. Give it a name, quantify it.
• What resources do you need?
• What are the costs?
• What are the time factors?
• What are your overheads?

Don't ever guess about any of these things. Pin all of this stuff down, or it will pin you down, usually half way between where you were and where you should have been ten years ago. The quickest path toward career suicide is attempting to do something when you're not even sure what you're doing or why you're doing it.

Tactics: How do you achieve this goal?

This is the really tough, real world, purely practical stuff, and you have to get it right. It's the 'Where does that nice $150,000 come from?' part of the equation. Guesswork is out of the question. You get numbers, quotes, times, dates, names, contacts, and you get everything in writing where you can see it and understand it and evaluate it properly. Unless Santa Claus is a personal friend or relative, you'll need it.

There'll be plenty of blue sky after you get all of this sorted out. Until then, expect solid rock. It's so normal for people to find themselves on the wrong end of their own careers that it's worth your while to really go to work on getting your facts and your methods straight. Whether you like it or not, you are currently a Marine hitting the beach.

Before you move on to your first objectives, ask yourself: Have you got all your gear? Are there any loose ends? Mentally ready? That's the one big plus of all this planning; the soul develops some stamina.