If you already know where you want to go, then we can jump right into the self assessment part: defining HERE. Where are you now? What have you got to offer?
This stage entails two sides of the coin: 1) technical skills and 2) soft skills. The simplest way to think about these two areas: what can you put down on your resume and how do you come across in your cover letter? One is more factual and structured in nature, while the other one involves you knowing yourself well and understanding how best to position yourself vis-a-vis the intended audience (the people who are going to hire you for your THERE).
There are many tools out there to help you do this and the trick is to find the ones that work best for you. If what you find is confusing or too complex, just keep in mind that the main things to know about yourself are: 1) what am I good at doing? 2) how have I proven myself? and 3) what are my life values? Then ask yourself: 1) who cares? 2) why should they care? and 3) how do I get them to notice me?
Once you have clearly defined your HERE and your THERE... we can get to the fun part: What are the gaps between HERE and THERE? What resources are at your disposal? How do you build your network of knowledgeable people? How do you test your assumptions about your THERE? What can you do to get yourself closer to THERE?
If you have HERE defined, we can move right along to the gap analysis...
