Can’t Think of A Career? (meets the Hierarchy of Success)

September 14th, 2009

Having trouble thinking of a career?

Don’t be so hard on yourself, your overwhelm is understandable! You are definitely not alone in your struggle, and you’re amongst friends.

Thinking through the job opportunities and careers that you know of, what you might conceive to be all of your “options”, plus considering your own preferences (not to mention all of your fears (which are natural) around making big changes), is a LOT to handle… especially when you’re just using your head. (I’ll explain more about the obvious inference that there is more to be used than just your head later )

RELAX – YOU’RE AHEAD OF THE GAME

Be pleased, first of all, that you’re struggling with the question. Seth Godin posted an interesting blog today about what he calls “The Hierarchy of Success” (alternate titles could be “How to Get What You Want” and “How to Structure Career Objectives”, amongst others):

Attitude
Approach
Goals
Strategy
Tactics
Execution

While Seth complained that most blogs focus on #6, Execution, which, alone, without the other steps, he considers insufficient, I am delighted to report that my blog focuses on all of his hierarchical stages. Hooray!

Using the structure provided through Seth’s post, I am going to teach you an analytical model to use when approaching the question:

How do I come up with the right career for me?

First stop: #3, Goals.

Because you are not clear on what job or type of career is perfect for you, you may think you cannot identify your career goals. In reality, identifying your goals is key. It’s akin to picking the correct cardinal point on the compass when you’re navigating a boat. Your boat (i.e. you) is always moving, due to the nature of the water (i.e. life) it is in, so it is smart to point your vessel in the general direction of where you plan to go.

Take a moment to ask yourself a question: what do you really want?

A few things what you really want is NOT: what you think will look good to other people, or what you think you can most easily attain or what you think will make people proud of you. There is no power in setting goals that are chiefly oriented around appearances.

I will go first:

To create tangible results and relief in people’s lives by helping them know the work that best suits their skills and build that work into their current life.
To help as many people as possible through creative and interesting classes such as my Find What You’re Passionate About course.
To use my blog as a source of concrete ideas and doable exercises proven to get good results for my readers to immediately thaw out the work they were born to do.
To support my weight loss clients through anecdotes and tips to fuel their motivation and remind them they CAN lose weight permanently.
To constantly cull information from experts in the career field so that my readers have access to all of the best resources to most effectively further their search.
To put myself first (as should you!), make time for my family and friends and routinely rejuvenate.

Because I’m engaged in work that I am passionate about, my goals might be more specific than your goals if you are trying to identify the nature of the work you want to do. Here are some examples of some big-picture type goals to help get you started:

To set my own schedule and have autonomy.
To work with intelligent, interesting people.
To enjoy a work environment that is light, open and calm.
To create content – web copy, contributing to a magazine, creating workshops.
To work with a lot of other people around me, but have separate projects.
To work alone.
To be passionate about what I do for a living.
To be promoted on an annual basis.
To engage in work that permits my location to be totally flexible – work that I can do from anywhere and not need to rebuild client base.
I want how I present myself to matter, and social skills to be required.
To have work-life balance.
I want to operate in a meritocracy where my work product speaks louder than alliances and company politics.
To work in a relationship-based industry.
I want to work in an industry where the primary work I do is communications based.

What are your work criteria? Be as specific as you can, and write this down on a piece of paper. Put it somewhere you can see it. Remember: Even broad, big-picture type goals will help you rule out work that does not meet your most basic criteria and align yourself with work that does. And EVEN if you are unable to propose an iota of criterium, asking yourself the question gets your gears turning in the right direction whether you’re conscious of it or not.

You’re off to an excellent start! Happy sailing.