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3.) Keep in touch with your contacts and make new ones. Attend professional association meetings to keep up with what's current and who's doing what. Touch base with all of your contacts at least annually. The point is to stay connected to people outside of your immediate work group. Career planning is about keeping a bigger picture in your line of sight. And you never know when you will have to make a move quickly and unexpectedly.

4.) Develop new skills (a.k.a. prepare for your next opportunity). For example, if you are in sales but want to move into operations, take classes now to develop the skills you'll need to make the move. Volunteer for a project that's a bit out of your comfort zone to learn new skills on the fly.

These four pieces all work together. For instance, you take time to dream about what you want to do in the future, talk to your mentor about skills you might need to develop, take classes to develop those skills and seek people out who are doing what you want to be doing down the road.

It takes creativity, tenacity and drive to create your own career path, and it may not all turn out exactly as you expect. But for most people, thinking ahead about what's next and doing what they can to prepare for it beats hanging out in the pinball machine for too long.