Another week another post!
But the difference this week is that I’m going to start walking you through a 7-step programme to develop your personal career plan. I briefly introduced you to this programme a couple of weeks back (24/04/18).
The programme takes you from a state of not having a long-term game plan, where you’re considering your options, unsure of the opportunities open to you and potentially anxious about your future, to a brand-new tomorrow, where you’ve got a definitive career plan, clear goals/objectives and are optimistic about your future.
The first step of this process falls into the establishment phase of the programme and involves you doing some self-discovery. Whilst this can seem to be a jarring activity, it is crucially important that you take the time to clearly establish exactly what it is that drives you.
This could be as simple as marking out hedonistic goals such as money and status, although I suspect for the majority of us this will be far from the complete picture. Whilst money is important to pay the bills and it is of course great to have your opinion valued, for most of us our meaning, mission, purpose and passions will be multifaceted.
Furthermore, your personality and temperament also have a huge impact on the type of work you’d enjoy. How much do you seek self-expression? How willing are you to move out of your comfort zone? And what type of rewards from work do you seek? All these are important things to consider.
Overwhelmed yet? I was too. But in the course of thinking about all this (and realising I need to get it all down on paper otherwise my brain might melt), I stumbled across a number of exercises to help you begin looking inward.
In the process of self-reflection, I tried a number of these exercises. Some I found to be effective, some just appeared downright lame. Nonetheless they did help me reflect on what mattered to me, what I hold great value in and ultimately led me to eventually establish the type of work that would help me uphold these values. This self-reflection enables you to form a solid foundation for the next steps of the programme.
Here I’m going to share a few of these exercises with you. I’ve selected three that might help you self-reflect if you’re a visual person (number 1), not a visual person (number 2), or even if you don’t know (number 3). By all means if you’ve got time, why not try all three (each one shouldn’t take more than ~20 minutes)?
I’d suggest giving one or more a go and see what you come up with, it could help you cement those things you’re not willing to compromise and provide you with a definitive set of goals that you need to keep in mind as you progress though the next steps of the programme. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it! Let me know how you get on and if you’ve any alternative solutions to establishing your core values.
Exercise 1 – Personal Vision Board
The idea here is to get clear about you personal achievements in a visual manner. Grab a power point slide(s) and fill it with images of things that inspire you and fulfil your life.
Don’t focus on things you want, but rather how you’d like to feel (this will help in establishing your core values). Include anything that inspires and motivates you. Aside from your career, also consider your goals in the following areas too: relationships, finance, home, travel, health and personal growth (education, social activities etc.).
Once done, sit back and list the prominent items on the slide(s). You’ll end up with a series of clues about what you hold most value in and hence what you should not compromise on.
Exercise 2 – The ‘What I Want’ List
Read the following statements and write down all those that you want to have as part of your career (don’t focus on whether you think you can achieve this or not, just consider what you’d like to achieve):
- I enjoy going to work, it feels more like play than work
- My work comes easily to me with minimum effort because it’s merely an extension of my natural talents
- I’m proud of my work and enjoy sharing this with others
- I’m highly respected at work
- My job is challenging, exciting and varied
- I don’t need to pretend to be anyone else at work
- I’m paid to perform creative expression
- I like to socialise with the people I work with
- My work fulfils my financial goals
- My job provides stability
- My career is not all encompassing, I can leave it at the end of the day and focus on life outside of work
- I work in a highly effective team
- My work has an important purpose and makes a difference
- My work does not tire me out
- My job has a well-defined career progression path
Now take your list and put a tick next to those that are not fulfilled in your current or most recent work. This will help you not only establish what values you hold in highest regard for your career, but also identify how well suited you are to the academic career trajectory. If you have very few ticks in your list, you may be well suited to academia, if the opposite is true you might be best placed to consider other options.
Exercise 3 – A Perfect Day
If money, circumstance, geographical location and practicalities were no object, what would your perfect day involve? You’ve got 24 hours to squeeze in all the things you would love to do, with those people you would love to do them with. Where would you be, what would you do and with whom? Try to think of a minimum of five activities and write them down as short statements. Now ring your top three.
Is there anything these three have in common? For example, are they all sports, do they all involve the same people, do they involve traveling to different locations to do them, do they require creativity? If so you have some ideals in life that are not up for debate and you should engineer your career path around achieving those – if they all involve spending time with your nearest and dearest you should think about careers that allow you to work close to home and reward you with plenty of personal time.
How do you find these types of exercises – helpful, rubbish? Let me know.
Next week I’ll be discussing your personal resources including the strengths and talents you bring to your work, and how to think about them in terms of leverage for future employment.
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