Walking down a shopping street at night, you spot someone in your peripheral vision walking in the same direction as you. It’s a few moments before you realise it’s you, reflected in the large windows. You looked different—in this light, at this angle, in this context.
Everyone changes over time. Most people get so used to seeing themselves, they stop looking. Really looking. Really paying attention. A surprise can jolt you into noticing and make you take a closer look, inside and out.
Updating your view of yourself
To envision your future career direction, you need to get to know yourself again – differently – as you are now.
- Who am I now? Who am I not?
- What really matters to me? What doesn’t?
- What am I good at? What am I passionate about?
- How can I be more of my best self?
- Am I living someone else’s life / dreams? What do I need / want?
Reflecting on these questions is a great way to start your envisioning – but it’s rarely enough.
Your career direction also needs to suit your wider life context
Your social systems exert powerful forces on you. They shape who you are now and who you will become. Guiding and nudging you unconsciously, or hitting you square in the face when you step over a line.
The pull of social systems keeps you safe, protected, included. Without them, you are lost, isolated, and at risk—but they can also keep you stuck or feeling overwhelmed. These forces need to be acknowledged and addressed, so your systems can assist rather than block the shift you might want to make.
By deepening your understanding of the roles that you play in your various social systems you can:
- Better understand the influence systems have on you—and you on them
- Consider the extent to which your social needs are being satisfied
- Prioritise your time and effort to the ones that are most important to you
- Reduce the feeling of being pulled in every direction
There are several exercises in Dancing with Fear and Confidence to help you, or alternatively you could try the popular ‘wheel of life’ exercise.
What I don’t want in the future…
Generally, people find it much easier to tell you what they don’t want, but they really struggle to say what they do want.
- I don’t want to waste my life commuting
- I don’t want to be financially worse off
- I don’t want to work for someone else any more
- I don’t want to work the hours I have been for much longer
Being clear about what you don’t want is useful insight, and it gets it out of your head / your main line of sight! But, you also need to work on what you do want. An aspirational vision shifts your attention on to what you do want making it more likely you will achieve it.
Developing a vision
People use different tools to help create a career vision. You may already use one in other aspects of your work – try using it on yourself for a change.
Here are a few options:
- Try verbalising a future-focused story about your ideal work life – and record it on your phone.
- Use free-writing (5 minutes) – it can help to access your unconscious ideas and thoughts.
- Produce a collage of ideas, feelings, colour.
- Write, and rewrite, some career goals:
- What you would like to achieve
- Who you would like to be
- The impact you would like to have
I also invite people I am coaching to use this tool – the retirement party. It works by flipping your attention to the end of your career and looking back.
Here’s a self coaching activity you can try for yourself.
Envisioning can be tricky, so you might also like to work with a buddy or coach.
Finally, it can help to think of envisioning as a walk in a forest. It’s likely to be a winding path that you can’t fully see, but you have a sense of which way to start and it’s an inviting adventure.
Fulfilling work 