If you're trying to decide on a new job or career to pursue, it's only natural to want to focus solely on the task at hand - that is, on the specific job or career you have in mind at the moment. But what happens if your "first-choice" new job or career doesn't work out for some reason, either now or at some point in the future? Do you have a "Plan B" and even a "Plan C" in case your initial new job or career decision falls through?

If you don't, you may be setting yourself up for undue stress at best and spinning your wheels at worst.

Diversify Your Career Plans
The "don't put all your eggs in one basket" cliché, while tired, is nonetheless good advice, especially when it comes to making job and career decisions. Why? Because you really don't know what you're going to discover about a new job or career you're considering, be it now or months or years from now. You also don't know what the future will hold in terms of economic growth/recession, job increases/decreases, or industry expansion/contraction. You've probably heard that it's a good idea to diversify your investments; do the same in your career planning.

That's why, just as you invest considerable time and effort in developing a "Plan A" for your job or career change, it's wise to spend at least a little time and effort developing a "Plan B" and, if you're very thorough, a "Plan C" as well. Your Plan B and Plan C jobs/careers may be slight variations on Plan A, major departures from Plan A, or somewhere in between. What they are isn't what counts; that you have them is what really matters.

Field Testing
At some point, you'll "field test" your Plan A: You'll read about that job or career in books or on the web, talk to people who are currently doing that type of work, and, if you're smart, gain some sort of experience in that job or career through a volunteer position, a part-time job, or even an "internship" of sorts. Hopefully, you'll discover through your field testing that Plan A is indeed the path that's going to work for you.

But if you decide the opposite, for whatever reason(s), you'll have Plan B and Plan C to fall back on - a "safety net" of sorts that's much better than falling into an empty space!

My friend and colleague Gail, a former librarian who is now a career counselor at a Midwestern university, used a variation of the Plan A-Plan B-Plan C approach when she was exploring her career-change decisions more than 20 years ago - and her "Plan B" is still in effect to this day. Her Plan A was her decision to pursue a career as a university career counselor. She field tested the idea through volunteer work and, eventually, graduate school assistantships, and found that she had indeed chosen wisely.

All the while, however - and ever since - she explored and kept her eye on a completely different career: real estate sales. She even went so far as to obtain her real estate agent's license, which she continues to maintain, "just in case" the counseling career she pictured didn't match the reality.

Obviously Gail hasn't needed to implement her Plan B. But she knows that as her own interests and skills grow and change, and as her university's budgetary priorities constantly shift, there's always the chance that her Plan B (or even her Plan C, returning to the librarian field) will become her new Plan A - by choice or by necessity.

Where does Gail's Plan-A Plan-B Plan-C decision making strategy leave her? Simply put: ready -- in a knowledgeable position of strength from which she can take action should her current job or career circumstances ever change. The Plan A-Plan, B-Plan, C strategy can do the same thing for you - so that you too will be ready for the unexpected in a new job or career, whether it happens now or many years down the road.