Career Development All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 2

Knowing What You Want

IN THIS CHAPTER

Developing your vision

Making an action plan

Getting yourself ready for specific negotiations

Selecting the right location

If the most important negotiating skill is preparation, the most important thing to prepare is yourself. You must know what you want and don’t want in your business and personal life to effectively complete every negotiation you encounter. Negotiating is not a skill you take out once in a while when you have to make a deal. Negotiating is a way to get what you want out of life. Many people blame a lack of negotiating skills for not getting what they want, but that’s only part of the answer.

People must also do some long-range thinking about their own lives. When you think about the direction your life is headed, you can see the big picture. Without the big picture, you run the risk of getting involved in a negotiation that doesn’t contribute one bit to where you want to be in three or four years. That’s a recipe for obtaining a result that makes you unhappy — not because you didn’t negotiate well, but because the ...