5 steps to figuring out your career path
“Follow your dreams, do what you love!”
I've been on the receiving end of this advice and sometimes it's just not helpful. Not just because you don't know how to go after your career dreams, but instead, because you can't clearly see what those dreams are.
Are you contemplating a career change at 25, 30, 35, 40 or 50?!
Are you already jumping to googling career change cover letters or resumes?
Maybe you’ve clicked on a career change quiz link
…or seen a fortune teller!
Regardless, I urge you to pause.
As a career change and transition coach, and hearing this from clients time and time again, I decided to create a process to get my clients from confused and stuck, to clear and focused on their career path ahead.
I’m going to take you through my proven 5 Step Guide to Career Clarity, for those of you reinventing your career.
Follow along with my FREE workbook: 5 Steps to Career Clarity
Before we get into it, a bit of background.
What is a career vision?
A vision is your Northstar.
And a subset of your vision, are your goals which are the route markers that keep you on track toward that vision.
In this exercise, I’ll be getting you to reground yourself in where you're currently at, in life, in work, in your family, and to really think about where it is that you're heading.
And ask yourself that question again without fear: If you knew you could not fail, where is it that you'd want to go? What is it that you would want to do?
I like to use the analogy of going on a road trip, or a hiking adventure, without a destination in mind. You're probably going to be wasting time driving or walking around in directions that you really don't need to go.
Think about your career vision like that; how much more energy and effort are you putting in without a clear vision?
A warning: the biggest career change pitfall
I find that one of the biggest mistakes that people make in the very onset of their career pivot is using a quantity over quality approach: applying to as many jobs as possible versus applying for jobs you truly feel aligned to.
Think about it this way: you're wasting your time, and you're wasting the time of the person who's having to read your resume. So take a step back and think of it in a way that how can I manage my energy throughout this process so that I'm doing the least amount of effort, but putting that energy in the right direction.
And that’s how your career vision can help you; it can keep you on track and act as the guardrails for helping you choose which jobs to write a resume for, interview for and negotiate for.
What does a career vision look like?
It looks like being able to tell somebody what your career ambitions are confidently, and in a way that actually gives you butterflies.
It also looks like having your family on board with your career path. You don't necessarily have to have everybody in your life agree with the decision to change careers or to pivot in your career, but you do need to have the support of a core group of people around you to give you that confidence to pat you on the back to build you up.
How to create your career vision.
And finally, how do we create a career vision?
Download my FREE workbook so you can follow along with the 5 steps I’m about to walk you through.
But first a shoutout to the originators of this concept…
I have adapted this framework from the Japanese concept “Ikigai” which loosely translates to a sense of purpose or a reason for being. It is a beautiful sentiment and tool. I have tweaked their original Ikigai framework for our purposes here.
So let’s get into it.
STEP 1: What do you love?
This question could be the hardest question that you'll have to answer today. Or it could be the easiest one.
Think about this question and answer it quickly.
Without reading into what comes to mind, from work, from life, past, present, what is it that really, really, really lights you up?
Question prompts:
What gets you excited?
What are your non negotiables?
What does your favorite day/week/month look like? What was it that was so much fun or so inspiring?
STEP 2: What makes you great?
This is often the one that my clients get really tripped up on, the question of what makes you great. This is your time to brag. You don't have to share this with anybody.
What makes you a freaking Rockstar?
Question prompts:
What do you often receive praise on?
Do you think back to, you know, performance reviews, times when people have given you really lovely compliments?
What do people come to you for?
If I were to ask colleagues, friends and families, what would they say, this next part of defining or answering the question of what makes you great is a little hard to describe.
At the intersection of what we're really trying to get to here is really defining your strengths. And so what I mean by your strength, is it’s something that you are great at, and something that you love.
Skill:
To contrast, a skill is something that you are really great a, but that you dislike. Competence without passion.
Opportunity:
If there is something that you really love, but you're not so great at, we could call that an opportunity; there’s a chance you could sharpen that skill to eventually make it a strength.
“Not Your Thing”:
And finally, something that you're not so great at AND dislike, we'll say that’s “not your thing”. We don't need to put energy there.
What we're really focused on on this section of the five steps is defining your strengths.
What do you love? And what are you really great at? And how can we discover more what falls into that category so you can bring more of that into your life and work.
STEP 3A: Where can you add value?
I find that a lot of people that I coach start off by saying, “You know, I'm really good at what I do. I've enjoyed my career. It's not that I'm wildly unhappy, but I just really want to make an impact…I want to add a certain type of value to the world.”
You could work for a great company or in a “good” industry, but you might not be fully values-aligned with the work you do.
Question prompts:
How could you be adding value to the world?
With your unique gifts and strengths?
How could you be contributing to an organization, your network, your family, your community?
A warning: watch your “shoulds”
When you think about this question, think about your strengths that we just spoke about, I think about the things that you're really passionate about versus what you think you “should” be passionate about.
For example, “I really should put something like the environment down”, but if it's not something that's a burning desire for you, don’t put it down. It doesn’t mean you don’t value it, it just means it’s not your top passion/strength.
STEP 3B: What could you be paid for?
So before we were talking about value in terms of what value you could offer to the world. Now we turn the tables and ask what value could you receive (monetarily) from the world. AKA what could you be paid for?
Let your mind run wild here, and take off your Practical Patty hat.
For example, you might say:
“I'm an accountant, and I also have a thriving lifestyle account on Instagram, I can be paid to manage someone else's account for them.”
Question prompts:
What marketable skills do you have?
What experience, exposure and education are you currently not using?
What jobs did you have when you were younger?
STEP 4: Put it together
This is the fun part; we're going to take your themes from the answers that I just previously asked you
Your career vision = the intersection of what you love, what makes you great, what you could be paid for.
Your career vision articulates the attributes of what an awesome fulfilling career could look like for you.
Remember: this is for you, and nobody else.
How you articulate this could be in the form of a sentence, a set of words, a drawing, a mind map, a word cloud, a spreadsheet…basically however it is that you think and make sense of tasks like this, go for it.
The goal of what we're trying to do here is to put together:
what you love
what makes you great
what you can be paid for
STEP 5: Reflect and take action
This is the most important part of this entire exercise. It's like savasana in a yoga class.
You’re going to reflect on what you've just discovered, uncovered or rediscovered about yourself…and then you’re going to take strategic action.
What are you going to do with that information?
I'm excited to think more about…[fill in the blank].
One action I commit to taking…
The most important part of this whole exercise is writing down one action that you commit to taking.
Connect with me on Instagram @andreabarrcoaching and let me know what that one action is that you commit to taking, and I will hold you personally accountable to taking steps to achieve your career vision.
