Today, career information is abundant and easily accessible. While this is exciting and potentially helpful, it can also be overwhelming. Career planning is an individual activity that occurs throughout a person's working lifetime. It is futuristic. Career planning is distinct from life planning in that it does not initially attempt to integrate a broader array of planning variables such as family, religion, leisure, retirement, etc.
Career planning is indeed a subcomponent of life planning.
It draws upon many of the same background variables, but it focuses attention on the work activity and the work environment. There are many instances, however, in which career and life planning cannot be completely separated. The career planning process is ongoing and sequential. You move to the next step only when you are ready to do so, and you may move back and forth between steps at any given time. The career planning process is also cyclic.