The context in which career decisions are made is dynamic--occupations are changing rapidly and society is becoming increasingly complex. This digest describes a model that uses five processes which are critical to effective career planning: initiation, exploration, decision making, preparation, and implementation. The first process, initiation, addresses three core issues: (1) establishing an effective counseling relationship; (2) determining current motivation for career planning; and (3) building relevance for career planning. Attending to these issues should increase client awareness of the career planning process. Exploration helps clients discover ways to implement aspects of their vision while also attending to issues of meaning and personal context. Decision making, on the other hand, has one dominant issue: How to select the most appropriate option from the range of available alternatives. Uncertainty is a major obstacle to career planning and clients must learn to trust their intuition to guide them. Preparation focuses on planning the specific steps required to implement the choices made earlier and requires developing an action plan and prerequisite skills and resources. Finally, implementation entails the client carrying out the action plan. Groups that have used this model report a new-found focus as they considered career moves. (RJM)