Career planning is not just about the good days.
It is easy to think of it that way. The promotions, the pay rises, the next rung on the ladder. The forward motion.
But career planning is just as much about the other side of the coin. It is about looking honestly at your risk. At what you are exposed to. And in my experience, very few of us are taught to think this way.
Most of us grew up with one version of success. Get a good job. Climb the ladder. Stay the course. And for some people, that works beautifully.
But for a lot of us, it is broader than that.
We diversify our money. Why not our income?
I fall into the camp of people who are multi-passionate. I have a range of skills and interests, and I am always asking myself where best to apply them.
There is actually a name for this. It is called a portfolio career: building your working life around several income streams or roles, rather than a single full-time job. For some people that is the whole model. For others, it is simply a sensible bit of insurance alongside their main role.
Either way, it is a slightly different way of thinking, I know. But it is not a new idea at all.
As kids, most of us were told the same thing. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify. Spread the risk.
We accept that wisdom completely when it comes to investing. We would never put every dollar into a single bucket.
And yet, when it comes to our income, the thing that pays the mortgage and feeds the family, so many of us are fully reliant on one source.
At a time when cost of living is front of mind for everyone, that is worth pausing on. Think about a household with one or two income earners, where the main income comes from a single place. That is a lot of weight resting on one job.
The fishing rods and the trawler
I love the analogy of the fishing rods.
Picture your life as a boat. The healthiest, lowest-risk way to live is to have several fishing rods out at once. If one stops catching, you still have the others.
The riskier version is to depend entirely on one big trawler. While the trawler is running, life is good. But if that trawler disappears, your whole livelihood goes with it. And that is an enormous amount of stress for a lot of people.
Here is what I want to be clear about. This is not me telling you to become an entrepreneur or start a second business. That is not the point at all.
The point is simply to ask yourself two honest questions.
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How many fishing rods do I have?
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And what would happen if my trawler disappeared tomorrow?
There is nothing wrong with one main job
Let me say that plainly. Having one main job is completely fine.
The question is just this: what is your backup plan if it went away?
A lot of people put income protection insurance in place, which is a smart and worthwhile strategy. But it is worth asking what else you could be doing alongside it.
And right now is an interesting moment to ask. Yes, there are big redundancies in the news and large companies letting people go. But there are also a lot of opportunities, and a lot of small, sensible things you can do on the side without giving up every evening and weekend you have.
This is not about working yourself into the ground. It is about building options.
You do not need anyone’s permission
This is the part I most want you to hear.
As long as you are not in breach of your contract, and not in conflict with the work you do for your main employer, you are free to build other things too.
Your employer does not own your time outside of work. They do not own your LinkedIn profile. They do not own your skills.
So give yourself permission to think about what else you could do.
Future-proof by backing yourself
Another quiet, powerful way to future-proof is simply to keep learning.
Is there something you don’t yet understand well enough? Do you need to upskill on AI? On a particular piece of technology your industry is moving towards?
We live in an extraordinary time for this. Education is available in more forms than ever, much of it free or low-cost. YouTube. Online courses through platforms like HubSpot. Short certifications you can do around a full-time role.
So back yourself.
Take a quiet hour and think about how many fishing rods you have. Think about what your backup plan would be if your main rod, your trawler, was suddenly gone.
I promise you, this is not a scary exercise. It is a genuinely healthy one. Because if that day ever does come, you are already prepared, already steady, and ready to move.
Coming up next
In my next post, I’ll cover redundancy.
It is a complicated thing, and certainly something I have lived through myself. I know a lot of you have first-hand experience with it too.
But for now, the invitation is simpler than that.
Take a moment to consider how prepared you really are, should your trawler, or your one fishing rod, no longer be available tomorrow. If you want to have a chat, you can book a time with me here.