Best way to know your career goals!

I recently did a small exercise that consumed 5 full days!!! :) All I wanted to know was what will I be doing in the year 2027!!!! This would really bring clarity about my career vision and goals.

I took an excel sheet and marked column names as these:
first column = "Year", second column = "What was I doing then?/ What am I doing now?/ What will I be doing then?"

The 'year' started from the 1999 (When I stepped in to my under-grad college) to 2027 (i.e. 20 years from now). After 2007, it can have this series: 2008, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2027. The second column asks you to list important activities, events, achievements, and turning points that start with your past, enter your present and end with your future.

It was a great exercise! When you start writing things that you were doing from college days till the present day (on a year-to-year basis), you tend to go back in time and introspect. It brings a lot of clarity about your strengths, weaknesses, turning points, achievements and so on. Then when you start writing about your future, it's more demanding. You need to put them in short phrases or keywords to make it simple. It is like writing a business plan with lot of supporting material from your past experiences! Things really shape up well. You will be surprised!

This task is very time consuming but is worth the effort. Applicants usually shy away from clarifying their goals and this is a major drawback. When you have to write about your future plans on a year-to-year basis, you are forced to think deep and wide.

My last suggestion: Aim high! Be realistic!

If anyone of you tried this, please let me know how it helped. Leave a comment.
Cheers!
Vanquisher